Speaking Anxiety of Ahiska Turkish Students Learning Turkish as a Foreign Language

Abstract

Turks have spread over a wide geography in the historical process. In the geographies where they resided, they were neighbors with other societies and were influenced by each other in terms of socio-cultural aspects. Language takes its place at the beginning of this influence. This interaction has led to the emergence of different dialects. This diversity of dialects has added richness to the Turkish language. However, it has also brought some difficulties in the context of communication between the Turkish tribes. In addition to the Turkish dialects that have been shaped up to the present day, one of the dialects that were separated from the Anatolia region and remained away from the standard Turkish is the dialect spoken by Ahıska Turks. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ahıska Turks migrated in Turkey and language is one of the main difficulties they face in Turkey. The aim of this study is to examine the speech anxiety of Ahıska Turks while speaking Turkish in terms of various variables. In this study, in which qualitative and quantitative methods were used together, Personal Information Questionnaire and Speech Anxiety Scale were used to reach the data of 99 Ahıska Turkish students studying at Bursa Uludağ University. The data obtained were evaluated using ANOVA test and T test in SPSS program. It was observed that Ahıska Turkish students, whose mother tongue is Turkish, generally experience speech anxiety while communicating in the standard Turkish dialect that is spoken in Turkiye.