TY - JOUR
T1 - Investment and the inaudible mother tongue
T2 - Carving out a space for Kurdish in the soundscape of an Istanbul kebab restaurant
AU - Schluter, Anne Ambler
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
Copyright © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press.
PY - 2023
Y1 - 2023
N2 - Firmly grounded in local sociopolitical constraints, language policies at Istanbul's Kurdish-run eating establishments often place Kurdish employees' cultural identity construction at odds with their workplaces' economic viability. In the face of rigid structures that cement the dominance of Turkish, the Kurdish managers highlighted in a previous study exercise limited agency to enact language policies that align with their pro-Kurdish ideologies, rendering Kurdish largely invisible. This article revisits these themes by examining a nearby Kurdish-run restaurant with a language policy that violates this norm. Applying Darvin & Norton's (2015) model of investment, analyses of observations and interviews consider identity, ideology, and economic capital vis-à-vis employees' perceived valuation of Kurdish as a workplace language. Results suggest that capital ownership emboldens the audible articulation of Kurdish identities, which emerge from pluricentrically oriented ideologies, fostering resistance to local language policy norms.
AB - Firmly grounded in local sociopolitical constraints, language policies at Istanbul's Kurdish-run eating establishments often place Kurdish employees' cultural identity construction at odds with their workplaces' economic viability. In the face of rigid structures that cement the dominance of Turkish, the Kurdish managers highlighted in a previous study exercise limited agency to enact language policies that align with their pro-Kurdish ideologies, rendering Kurdish largely invisible. This article revisits these themes by examining a nearby Kurdish-run restaurant with a language policy that violates this norm. Applying Darvin & Norton's (2015) model of investment, analyses of observations and interviews consider identity, ideology, and economic capital vis-à-vis employees' perceived valuation of Kurdish as a workplace language. Results suggest that capital ownership emboldens the audible articulation of Kurdish identities, which emerge from pluricentrically oriented ideologies, fostering resistance to local language policy norms.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85171264094&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1017/S0047404523000611
DO - 10.1017/S0047404523000611
M3 - Journal article
AN - SCOPUS:85171264094
SN - 0047-4045
JO - Language in Society
JF - Language in Society
ER -