Determinants of language use and attitudes among Turkish speakers in Flanders: a focus on generational difference

The focus of this research is Turkish immigrants’ language use-preference and language attitudes towards their first language, Turkish, in terms of intergenerational differences in the Flemish speaking part of Belgium. Borrowing the procedure by Yagmur and van de Vijver (2012), 136 participants were given "The Language Use, Choice and Preference Scale" and "The Attitudes to Turkish Language Scale". As we hypothesized that social class, place of birth, gender and age would be related to attitudes to Turkish, they were considered as independent variables in the study. The results indicated that generation with length of residence was significantly associated with some variables. Also, social class was found to be a significant contributor to respondents’ attitudes towards Turkish. Gender was not a relevant category in terms of all language outcomes.