Kültürel ve Sosyal Sermayenin Kaynağı ve Taşıyıcısı Olarak Dil: Eklemeli İki Dillilik

Abstract

Language is the basic tool of human interaction and, the concepts of social and cultural capital is considered as the cause and result of this interaction. This study aims to analyze the relationship between language and these concepts by focusing on additive bilingualism. The participants are non-native parents of any language raising their kids bilingually from an early age. The study seeks to find out the motives behind their decision making, gain a deeper understanding of their individual and family language ideologies. The purpose of this investigation is to uncover how their choices are affected by the social and cultural capitals of parents and what the social gains they want to hand down to their children are. Most of the studies on bilingualism and multilingualism in Turkey focus on minority languages. Global studies focus on varying topics such as governments’ language policies in relation to contemporary changes in language choices, the relation between globalization and its effects on languages, bilingualism, and its individual and social consequences. This study paves way for a new perspective and explores a blossoming endeavor for domestic studies. The theoretical background of the thesis is framed by two perspectives: The linguistics perspective is guided by Steve McCarty, Hamzeh Moradi and Annick De Houwer while sociological point of view is based upon the views of Pierre Bourdieu, James Coleman and Robert Putnam. The thesis adopts a qualitative method. The data is gathered by semi-structured interviews and processed in MaxQda. The findings of the study shows that participants regard bilingualism as a value, and it is a tool with which they gain cultural and social gains. Language is considered as a source and a capital. Transferring these values and capital to their offspring’s is very much like transferring an inheritance. At the end of the study, comprehensive insights to the importance and use of family capital; development of the first habitus; reflections of language in the life of the individual have been obtained.

Keywords: bilingualism, multilingualism, cultural capital, social capital, family language policy.