(In)Complete Acquisition of Turkish Among Turkish-German Bilinguals in Germany and Turkey: An Analysis of Complex Embeddings in Narratives

Although most researchers recognise that the language repertoire of bilinguals can vary, few studies have tried to address variation in bilingual competence in any detail. This study aims to take a first step towards further understanding the way in which bilingual competencies can vary at the level...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:International journal of bilingual education and bilingualism 2007, Vol.10 (3), p.248-276
Main Authors: Treffers-Daller, Jeanine, Özsoy, A. Sumru, van Hout, Roeland
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
bilingual education
Bilingualism
Comparative Analysis
Foreign Countries
German
Germany
Grammar
incomplete acquisition
Language Acquisition
Language Proficiency
Language Usage
Monolingualism
Syntax
Turkey
Turkish
Uncommonly Taught Languages
Young Adults
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Summary:Although most researchers recognise that the language repertoire of bilinguals can vary, few studies have tried to address variation in bilingual competence in any detail. This study aims to take a first step towards further understanding the way in which bilingual competencies can vary at the level of syntax by comparing the use of syntactic embeddings among three different groups of Turkish-German bilinguals. The approach of the present paper is new in that different groups of bilinguals are compared with each other, and not only with monolingual speakers, as is common in most studies in the field. The analysis focuses on differences in the use of embeddings in Turkish, which are generally considered to be one of the more complex aspects of Turkish grammar. The study shows that young Turkish-German bilingual adults who were born and raised in Germany use fewer, and less complex embeddings than Turkish-German bilingual returnees who had lived in Turkey for eight years at the time of recording. The present study provides new insights in the nature of bilingual competence, as well as a new perspective on syntactic change in immigrant Turkish as spoken in Europe.
ISSN:1367-0050
1747-7522
DOI:10.2167/beb443.0