Language ideologies and identities in Kurdish heritage language classrooms in London

Yilmaz, B. 2018. Language ideologies and identities in Kurdish heritage language classrooms in London. International Journal of the Sociology of Language. 253 (86), pp. 173-200. https://doi.org/10.1515/ijsl-2018-0030

TitleLanguage ideologies and identities in Kurdish heritage language classrooms in London
TypeJournal article
AuthorsYilmaz, B.
Abstract

This article investigates the way that Kurdish language learners construct discourses around identity in two language schools in London. It focuses on the values that heritage language learners of Kurdish-Kurmanji attribute to the Kurmanji spoken in the Bohtan and Maraş regions of Turkey. Kurmanji is one of the varieties of Kurdish that is spoken mainly in Turkey and Syria. The article explores the way that learners perceive the language from the Bohtan region to be “good Kurmanji”, in contrast to the “bad Kurmanji” from the Maraş region. Drawing on ethnographic data collected from community-based Kurdish-Kurmanji heritage language classes for adults in South and East London, I illustrate how distinctive lexical and phonological features such as the sounds [a:] ~ [ɔ:] and [ɛ]/[æ] ~ [a:] are associated with regional (and religious) identities of the learners. I investigate how these distinct features emerge in participants’ discourses as distinctive identity markers. More specifically this article examines how language learners construct, negotiate and resist language ideologies in the classroom.

Keywordslanguage learning; language ideologies; identities and Kurdish
JournalInternational Journal of the Sociology of Language
Journal citation253 (86), pp. 173-200
ISSN0165-2516
Year2018
Publisherde Gruyter Mouton
Accepted author manuscript
Publisher's version
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)https://doi.org/10.1515/ijsl-2018-0030
Publication dates
Published04 Aug 2018

Related outputs

Language attitudes and religion: Kurdish Alevis in the UK
Yilmaz, B. 2020. Language attitudes and religion: Kurdish Alevis in the UK. Kurdish Studies. 8 (1), pp. 133-161. https://doi.org/10.33182/ks.v8i1.512

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