Dissertation Research: Language, Orthography and Culture in Turkey and Azerbaijan

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9904388Sherzer / Grocer This project supports the dissertation research of an anthropology student from the University of Texas, studying the role of language attitudes and orthographic practices in the creation, negotiation and maintenance of socio-cultural and geopolitical relations between Turkey and Azerbaijan, a Turkish speaking republic on Central Asia. The student will show how ethnic, religious, linguistic historic, cultural, religious, and scholarly affiliations are expressed and negotiated in debates over language and communication. In particular the project will study the arguments over the establishment of a common Turkish language and alphabet, two supranational projects designed by Turkish scholars to unite the Turkish peoples under a common rubric of linguistic identity. Combining theories and methods from discourse analysis of language and culture, the student will analyze tapes of conferences on establishing a pan-Turkish language, will interview scholars, politicians, business persons, as well as private citizens in Turkey and Azerbaijan. In addition to analyzing recordings and conducting formal interviews, the student will use a matched-guise method, where tape recordings of bilingual speakers reading the same text in two languages will be used to elicit unconscious attitudes towards languages and peoples who speak them. This project will provide important new knowledge about the attitudes of Turkish speaking Muslims on an issue of national relevance, that will be useful to scholars of comparable situations in Central Asia as well as other parts of the world. In addition the project supports the training of a young social scientist, and advances our knowledge of this important area of the world.