Abstract
This paper investigates the role of a Turkish Saturday school in the United States in helping students maintain the Turkish language and form a sense of Turkish cultural identity. This case study of one Turkish Saturday school in New York City builds on research in language maintenance and shift, and in language ideologies and linguistic identity to explore the school’s administrators’, teachers’, students’ and parents’ beliefs and practices. The data were analyzed using Gee’s Discourse analysis framework, specifically his six building tasks. Findings showed that the Turkish language is the primary means to construct a Turkish cultural identity in the U.S. Five overarching goals of the Turkish school emerged: (1) connection building: the school as a bridge to Turkish heritage, (2) collectivity building: bringing together the Turkish speech community, (3) contentment building: the school as a venue for the adults to feel moral satisfaction, (4) identity building: building a Turkish American identity in the U.S., and (5) diversity indicating: enabling the school clientele to see themselves as one of many other ethnolinguistic groups in the United States.
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