The Spread of English in Turkey and its Current Sociolinguistic Profile

Abstract

This paper traces the spread of English in Turkey in its social and historical context. It then examines the current sociolinguistic profile of English in this EFL context by analysing its functions, range and depth, through an overview of its role in national education and the job market. Societal attitudes to the increasing visibility of this lingua franca are also mentioned. The survey ascertains the important role English has come to acquire in Turkey as a means of individual and national progress.Italso reveals certain problems that the planned and unplanned spread of English brought about, namely, the influx of borrowings and a great demand for English that cannot be satisfied equally well across the nation. These suggest that careful language planning and policy-making are required in Turkey to make English accessible to people of all socioeconomic strata, while steps are taken to protect the status and corpus of Turkish.