Resumen de "Speak Turkish!" or not?: Language choices, identities and relationship building within New York's Turkish community

Bahar Otcu-Grillman

• This article draws on an ethnographic case study on a Turkish community-based school in New York, and discusses relationship building within this community. The larger study investigated the following research question: What is the role and function of a Turkish Saturday school in developing and maintaining Turkish language and constructing a Turkish cultural identity in the United States? It employed a conceptual framework combining language shift and maintenance, linguistic identity and ideology. Ethnographic data were analyzed following Gee’s (2005 [1999]) Discourse analysis framework. Four building blocks of Discourses were found in the Turkish community school. The focus of this article, language choices and identities, were the two essential Discourses of relationship building block. They pointed to a gap between the first-generation adults’ and the second-generation students’ language choices and identities in the school. Adults preferred and encouraged Turkish while students mostly used English. Adults considered children having a Turkish core identity; the children demonstrated fluid and hybrid identities. Nevertheless, both parties adapted to each other. Teachers translanguaged for clarity, students spoke Turkish “to adults”. Parents used Turkish language and ways of being, alongside an investment in English.