English as Turkish Cultural Capital: An Exploration of Turkish Modernity through Contemporary Language Education

• In Event: Diverse Perspectives on Language Education in the Middle East and Beyond

Proposal

Following the push of neo-liberal policies and targeting political youths by the government after the 1980 coup, there was a cultural shift in Turkish youths from community-minded revolutionaries to capitalistic consumers of global products (Neyzi, 2001; Lüküslü, 2009; Demir, 2012; Kaya, 2014). Thus, contemporary Turkish youth have been employing English to engage in business and activities outside of Turkey, while preferring Turkish for communications with other Turkish people. This reservation for English for communicating solely with non-Turkish people then promotes this connection between using English and a foreign, modernized world. For example, within the Turkish international business and tourism industries, individuals connect the use of English and this sense of modernity, turning English into one of the symbols of the well-educated and modernized middle/upper class Turkish individuals (Doğançay-Aktuna 1998, cited in Doğançay-Aktuna & Kızıltepe, 2005). Additionally, English has taken a particularly major role as an academic language within Turkey, becoming one of the dominant instructional languages for many Turkish universities and presentation language for Turkish academics (Doğançay-Aktuna & Kızıltepe, 2005, YÖK, 2023). This academic emphasis on English is intended to help Turkish academics publish their research for international audiences (Doğançay-Aktuna & Kızıltepe, 2005). Therefore, in a globalized world, the use of English in Turkey has come to be a way for well-educated people to a mark of their ability to interact with the world outside of Turkey.

This project then explores the development of English language and its adaptation as a type of cultural capital within the contemporary Turkish context. In particular, this project utilizes a literature review to links Turkish English educational policy to Turkish modernity, Turkish national identity, and Turkish efforts to maintain a competitive edge within an increasingly globalized world. To accomplish these goals, this project will be broken into three distinct parts: (1) briefly describing the idea of multiple modernities, which defines modernity within specific non-Western contexts through their individualized historical, geographic, and cultural conceptual triangulation (Chakrabarty, 1997; Chatterjee, 1989; Giddens, 1991; Göle, 2000; Mitchell, 2000; Eisenstadt, 2000; Çayır, 2009; Khurshid, 2015), (2) applying this concept to explain the origins of Turkish modernity and national identity through language use and youth identity, as well as (3) the formation of Özal Modernity with Turkish Neo-Liberalism and the introduction of English as a Global Language in the late 20th and early 21st Centuries.

Overall, this project highlights the role of education, and specifically language education, as a central component towards the development of a national identity. “Turkish modernity” and “the ideal, modern, Turkish citizen” are both concepts which were developed in the wake of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and a fear of external encroachment of the new republic. As a result, the promotion of Turkish, as a common domestic language, was intended to provide a united community within the new republic; and foreign languages (specifically English now) could then allow the republic of Turkey to remain viable within global markets. Thus, while the desire to learn English is often conceptualized within an individual need, these finings indicate a more complex understanding of the English language within the Turkish context.

Author

• Benjamin W Oliver, Florida State University