What happens when the language of a minority group begins to interact with the language of a majority group in a condition where these two languages are structurally very different? What can be the effect of a migration context and a particular type of language instruction on the language proficiency and language achievement of a minority group in their native language? What kind of connections can be observed between structural notions like well-formedness, grammaticality and acceptability with the available data? Is there any internal and bilateral influence of free and bound morphemes on lexical and morphosyntactic knowledge?
In the framework of this study, Turkish in the Netherlands has been scrutinized in a migration context from educational, sociolinguistic and psycholinguistic perspectives. Language achievement in Turkish of immigrant Turkish youngsters living in the Netherlands has been assessed during their first year of Dutch secondary education, within a longitudinal design of written pre- and posttests. Within a cross-sectional and cross-national design, language proficiency in Turkish has been measured for a Turkish core group in the Netherlands in comparison with a Turkish reference group in Turkey. Receptive and productive psycholinguistic dimensions have been operationalised to evaluate the lexical and grammatical skills of both groups.
The Turkish community in the Netherlands is currently counting its third generation after more than 40 years of migration. At first sight, Turkish of the bilingual group in the Netherlands shows essential similarities with Turkish of the monolingual group in Turkey. However, a close look at the core of the phenomenon yields interesting differences within these similarities.