From first to third generation Turks in France: What researches show us about language practices
Résumé
The first workforce agreement between France and Turkey was signed on April 1965. If first researches were concerning more the socio-economic situations of first generation Turks in France (Kastoryano 1986; Tapia, 1995), the last three decades have seen a significant increase in the number of researches dedicated to investigating the language practices of children, adolescents and adults from Turkish migrant background in France. If there was less research with the first generation, inevitably, cultural and linguistic changes have occurred over time and with the definitive installation of Turks. If also the attrition of the language of origin can take years for migrants of the first generation, the cascading effect contributing, for second and third generation’s home language became their weakened language.
Then, after having examined the specificity of the Turkish community in France, we will characterize the emergent bilingualism and analyze the development of biliteracy of children and adolescents. We will mainly focus on the research done by Hamurcu (2015). In a longitudinal study, she observed the interactional and language development of Turkish-French bilingual children since the first year until the end of the second year of preschool. These children are exposed to different language practices at home such as essentially Turkish (Type 1) and a mix of Turkish and French (Type 2). The results show that home language practices have an impact on interactional and language competences of children. In a developmental point of view, at the end of the second year of preschool, in French interactions, there are very few differences between the two types of children, while in Turkish ones, Type 1 children have more developed competences compared to Type 2 children, especially on lexical diversity.
Then, in order to better understand intergroup dynamics in an intergenerational perspective among Turks in France, 73 first and 142 second generation informants filled in the same survey instruments and five of them were selected for semi-guided interviews for qualitative analyses.
Questionnaires and interviews show that ethnic identity basically refers to an individual’s sense of self in terms of membership of a particular ethnic group. Most of the second-generation informants view their ethnicity similar to the first-generation but their orientation to the French culture and society is basically different. For some of the informants, strong identification with both groups is indicative of integration and also of biculturalism.