Language choice and identity construction of Azerbaijani bilinguals in family and friendship domains

ABSTRACT

This study investigates Azerbaijani bilinguals’ language choice and identity construction processes in family and friendship domains. Individual interviews were conducted with 19 (11 male, 8 female) participants. The emerged themes were classified under three categories, i.e. age, gender and language ideologies. The findings revealed that language attitudes and ideologies are the main reason for Azerbaijani bilinguals’ language choice in family and friendship domains. Farsi as the national language and the only language of education is considered important symbolic power compared to Azerbaijani Turkish language. The findings of the study also showed that age and gender in family domain and gender in friendship domain are influential factors in Azerbaijani bilinguals’ language choice. Azerbaijani bilingual females use Azerbaijani Turkish to speak to their older family members while they choose Farsi to speak to other family members. Azerbaijani bilingual males choose Azerbaijani Turkish to speak to their older family members, their brothers and their male friends but they speak in Farsi to their female family members and female friends as well as their children. The findings and implications are discussed in detail.

KEYWORDS:

• Language choice
• identity construction
• language attitudes and ideologies
• Azerbaijani bilinguals
• symbolic power
• family domain
• friendship domain

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the anonymous reviews for their insightful comments which helped to improve this paper. We also would like to thank all those who participated in this study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Islamic Azad University of Zanjan [grant number 96-5200 Research Funds on Language Studies].