Ethnolinguistic vitality, attitudes, social network and codeswitching: the case of Bosnian-Turks living in Sakarya, Turkey

Abstract

This study embodies four dimensions: ethnolinguistic vitality, ethnic identity, attitudes, and language use in the social networks of Bosnian-Turks as a speech community. In order to define a speech community not only linguistically but also sociolinguistically a comprehensive view of the seemingly different but actually related concepts mentioned above is necessary. The quantitative analysis of ethnolinguistic vitality is done with the help of the subjective vitality questionnaire (SVQ), which includes the three underlying factors of status, demography, and institutional support. The analyses of ethnic identity, language choice in their social networks, personal and emotional activities, and attitudes towards both identities and languages (i.e., Bosnian and Turkish) are carried out using data gathered from questions attached to the SVQ. The qualitative analysis of code-switching observed in their language use (based on tape-recorded data) is achieved using the matrix language frame and markedness models. It has been found that the structural constraints on code-switching proposed by Myers-Scotton (1993c) are also valid for the data gathered from the Bosnian-Turkish speech community.