Papers by Feyza Altınkamış
International journal of human sciences, 2014
This study aims to find out what the literacy beliefs of parents who have children at the prescho... more This study aims to find out what the literacy beliefs of parents who have children at the preschool education period. The sample of the study is composed of 374 family members with children between the ages of 4 and 6, in the academic year of 2010-2011. As the data collection tools in this study, the Parent Reading Belief Inventory (PRBI), the Inventory of Maternal Literacy, the Inventory of Child Literacy Behaviours (CLB) and the Personal Information Form were used. For the data analysis, the mean and the standard deviation were calculated.. Also, t-test, one-way variance analysis, pearson correlation coefficient and stepwise linear regression analysis were calculated. As can be seen in the findings, the parents-though it was very limited-chose "Strongly disagree" and "Disagree" options. The scores of the participant parents, which were based on the PRBI, were mostly at the "Agree" and "Strongly Agree" options. These results may imply that parents have strong beliefs in reading.
International Journal of Language Academy, 2017
Fully acquiring a language is concerned with both linguistic and communicative competence. In ord... more Fully acquiring a language is concerned with both linguistic and communicative competence. In order to be able to conclude that a child has learned his mother tongue, what he has acquired in the domain of linguistic competence, should be supported by language use in appropriate contexts, called as social competence (Semrud-Clikeman, 2007). As children, especially in the early period, are primarily surrounded by their caregivers, the languge they are exposed to is characterized by the properties of child-directed speech (CDS) which are different from those of adult-to-adult speech. According to Peccei (2006), some modifications in CDS when talking to their children are shorter MLU, more content words but fewer function words and more repetitions. Through CDS, parents also provide social opportunities to their children so they will develop a social and cultural understanding of their first language. This research is concerned with the role of Turkish CDS in children's acquiring the pragmatic functions of their native language, specifically politeness. Specifically, the aim of this research is to investigate linguistic politeness frames in Turkish CDS, so we will be able to keep a track of politeness in the language children mostly hear. To achieve this overall goal of our study, we analysed longitudinal data of video-recordings based on 9 Turkish mothers' natural interaction with their children aged nearly 01;04-03;06. In an overall manner, the results indicated a paralellism between Turkish children's order of politeness acquisition markers and Turkish CDS.
International Journal of Language Academy, 2019
This is a descriptive study which documents how the Turkish language and culture classes have evo... more This is a descriptive study which documents how the Turkish language and culture classes have evolved in Belgium since 1977. These classes were started to introduce and teach Turkish language and culture to Turkish migrant families'children in the Western Europe where the Turkish people were densely populated. However; in years, different procedures were followed. In some western European countries, these classes were stopped or drastic decreases were observed in the number of students. Empirical studies focusing on the reasons of this decrease on the number of students and stopping the classes have been available in the related field. Descriptive studies are also important in documenting the current situation and transferring the process of how the problems emerged in these classes. In line with this background, this research aims to focus on the process of the implementation of Turkish lannguage and culture classes and to describe the effect of this process on the current situation of these language classes.
NOBEL Akademik Yayıncılık eBooks, 2020
Academia Press eBooks, 2014
De Gruyter eBooks, 2013
WOS: 000357330800006In language development, children must learn among others to use the differen... more WOS: 000357330800006In language development, children must learn among others to use the different classes of words available in their languages, as well as to combine these words into increasingly complex syntactical structures. In this paper, I investigate both the lexical development and lexical bootstrapping effects on grammatical development of five Turkish-speaking children in the age range between 1;03 and 2;05. Specifically, I focus on changes in vocabulary size across time, as well as correlations between these evolutionary paths and changes in both vocabulary composition and mean length of utterance in morphemes (MLUmorph) and in verbs. In this paper, I will highlight the development of verb morphology in an agglutinative language which has a very productive morphology on verbs as in Turkish. With this analysis, I emphasize the importance of verbal morphology as an indicator of grammar emergence. I claim that language-specific characteristics of any language may follow a different pattern in the overall look. However, a closer look into those language properties will show that though the patterns do not look similar among languages, the output is identical when language-unique trajetories are considered
Folia Phoniatrica Et Logopaedica, Jan 4, 2021
Introduction: In the current literature, there is a well-established necessity for the improvemen... more Introduction: In the current literature, there is a well-established necessity for the improvement of bilingual language diagnostics. Nowadays, the majority of clinicians in Belgium still rely on standardized tests with monolingual norm samples. It is therefore fundamental to have a detailed knowledge of the performance of bilingual children on these monolingual normed tests. Furthermore, there is also a need for unambiguous longitudinal research on the language performances of bilingual children. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the language skills of 25 Turkish-Dutch successive bilinguals compared to 25 age- and gender-matched monolingual Dutch children. In 9 bilinguals and 13 monolinguals, longitudinal data of 3 years (at 6 years and at 9 years) were collected and compared. Methods: The subject group consisted of 25 bilingual Turkish-Dutch children with a mean age of 9 years and 6 months (SD 0.26 years, min. 8 years and 11 months to max. 9 years and 10 months) with Turkish as the dominant home language. Language exposure to Dutch was at least 3 years. An age- and gender-matched control group of 25 monolingual Dutch children with same educational backgrounds was compiled. Language skills were investigated using the Dutch version of the CELF. In 22 children, language skills were reassessed 3 years later in a follow-up study. Data were compared using the Mann-Whitney U test and Wilcoxon matched-pairs signed-rank test. Results: Language comprehension and production were significantly lower in the bilingual children compared to the monolinguals. After 3 years, the language delay in bilingual Turkish-Dutch children remained the same. Language production in the bilingual children was mainly influenced by the profession of the mother and the home language. Conclusion: The low performances of typically developing Turkish-Dutch children on language batteries are worrying and have clinical implications. The same language gap was found at the age of 6 and 9 years in Turkish-Dutch bilingual children compared to monolingual Dutch children, implying that the bilingual children did not catch up with their peers.
OPOL family composition in the Turkish community in Flanders/Belgium Language practices at home c... more OPOL family composition in the Turkish community in Flanders/Belgium Language practices at home contexts are the reflections of the language policy chosen and followed by the family, which are undermined by parents' beliefs and ideas. Family Language Policy (FLP) is similarly related to the interaction of three areas: status planning, corpus planning and acquisition planning (King et al. 2008). All these three components are shaped by parent language ideologies which directly affect family language practices. FLP is extremely important in bi- and multilingual contexts as it is related to minority language maintenance and majority language use (Fogle, 2013). Regarding Turkish immigration history into Western Europe, in-group marriage tendency (endogamous marriages) was so strong especially in the first and second generation of Turkish community but in recent years marriages with a partner from the mainstream community have also been increased (exogamous marriages-OPOL families). This highlights a change in these families' language policy regarding Turkish community. Considering these changes in the family composition, this study addresses the following research questions: 1- What is the family language policy in OPOL families where one spouse is Turkish and the other is Dutch speaking in Flanders? 2- What do these observed family language practices/interactions in this family type (OPOL families) imply about the changing dynamics of the current Turkish community in Flanders/Belgium regarding Turkish as a home language and Dutch as a societal language? In line with these research questions, 10 families were interviewed about their family language practices. The grounded theory approach will be used to analyse the interview data in the study. The results of this study will be of importance to understand the evolving nature of home contexts in dual language environments and to have a general profile of the family language background of future Turkish-Dutch young bilinguals who were born into OPOL families.
Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, Feb 9, 2022
International Journal of Bilingualism, Mar 4, 2020
The effect of family background and language exposure on the development of Turkish and Dutch in ... more The effect of family background and language exposure on the development of Turkish and Dutch in bilingual children in Flanders. To appear in: Internatonal Journal of Bilingualism. The effect of family background and language exposure on the development of Turkish and Dutch in bilingual children in Flanders
Kastamonu Eğitim Dergisi
In this paper, "Turkish language and Turkish culture classes" in Belgium are chronologi... more In this paper, "Turkish language and Turkish culture classes" in Belgium are chronologically presented from past to present and through the facing challenges and problems, a case study was conducted. Furthermore, an integrated model is presented to address the problem of suspended and ill-structured Turkish classes in the Flemish region. After 30 June 2016, ‘Turkish-language and Turkish-culture classes’ have been suspended in the Flemish region of Belgium, a federal state composed of communities (Flemish, French and German-language) and regions (Flemish, Walloon and Brussels Capital), which makes it problematical for the Turkish community to keep their language and culture alive through classes. Since 2016, some local NGOs have been able to organise ‘Turkish-language and Turkish-culture classes’ in the Flemish region through programmes funded by the Presidency for Turks Abroad and Related Communities in Turkey. While this appears to be a short-term solution to the problem ...
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Papers by Feyza Altınkamış