Investment and the inaudible mother tongue
Carving out a space for Kurdish in the soundscape of an Istanbul kebab restaurant
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2901181 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Anne Ambler Schluter (0000-0003-3943-7616, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 54 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 89-112 |
| Publication date | 2025-02-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Language in Society (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0047-4045 • E-ISSN: 1469-8013 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s0047404523000611 |
| OpenAlex | W4386563529 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 48 |
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. (Investment, language policy, capital, Kurdish, ideology, pluricentricity
Ideology · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Diaspora, migration, transnational identity · Law · Migration, Ethnicity, and Economy · Multilingual Education and Policy
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Transidiomatic practices
Modernity and the linguistic genocide of Kurds in Turkey
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Globalization, the new economy, and the commodification of language and identity
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Investment and the inaudible mother tongue
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| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2025 - 2025 (1) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |