Second- and Third-Generation Turkish Immigrants in the Netherlands: Dutch Lexical Variety and the Perseverance of the Turkish Language

Abstract

The present study investigates the extent of Dutch lexical variety in production of indigenous Dutch speakers and second and third-generation Turkish immigrants living in the Netherlands.For this, the participants’ spontaneous Frog, Where Are You? Storytelling speech transcriptions have been compared and analysed. Lexical varietywas operationalised by the type-token ratio (TTR) measure. No significant TTR differences have been found between the groups. The participants used various strategies to compensate for forgotten Dutch target words, such as approximation, circumlocution and generalisation. This study also focuses on the effect of age of onset (AoO) of the Dutch language on Dutch lexical variety. The results show that an early AoO has a positive effect on Dutch lexical variety. Data from the questionnaires and interviews from the second and third-generation participants show that the usage of Turkish in the home, parental input and maintaining contact with family members in Turkey play crucial roles in the perseverance of the Turkish language in the third generation.