Formations and Transformations of Language Regimes

Using one s language, in a written or spoken form, in public sphere has always been a controversial matter in the context of modern nation-states. Turkey is no exception. The politics of language in Turkey, which constructed Turkish as an object and medium of national discipline with a simultaneous persistent denial of any public representation of minority languages entered into a new phase in 2009. The State launched a new TV in Kurdish that year. This book, a revised version of a doctoral dissertation, reveals a historical and political background to today s reluctant openings in linguistic rights. There are two main aims of this study: to present a formal and ideological history of the formation of the language politics in Turkey in the Republican period, and to analyze its transformation in the post-1980 era, within a globalizing environment, through the commercialization of the audio-visual domains. The conceptual framework is equipped with two critical concepts, language regime and language ideology, that enables a thorough analysis of language as a realm of contention of social and political power.

Autorentext

Mehmet Berk Balçik received his MSc degree in Sociology from the University of Bristol, UK in 2000, after his BA in Sociology in Bogaziçi University, Istanbul. Under the supervision by Serif Mardin, he completed his PhD in political science at Sabanci University, Istanbul in 2009. He has been teaching history, sociology and politics since 2001.