A Descriptive Study on the Use of Turkish by The Foreigners Living in Türkiye in the Context of Bilingualism

Abstract

In recent years, Türkiye has become a country that has seen significant immigration from different countries for various reasons. It is of great importance for foreigners or immigrants to learn language of the country they residence to adapt society. In this paper, we focus on the use of Turkish by the foreigners who reside in Türkiye and linguistic difficulties they face. In the study, 251 foreigners from different nationalities living in Antalya were selected as the sample. In the study the use of Turkish by foreigners and the difficulties they face compared with multiple variables. Research findings show that the use of Turkish by the foreigners residing in Türkiye is at a moderate level. Furthermore, it is determined that those whose mother language is Russian use Turkish more than whose mother language is English; those who live in city center use Turkish more than those who live in the rural areas and women use Turkish more than men. It was also observed that participants who come from Turkic Republic have less difficulties. The difficulties foreigners face are the morphological and syntactic features of Turkish, alphabet differences, and differences between standard and colloquial language.