Turkish-German Bilinguals and Third Language Acquisition

Seminar paper from the year 2015 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics grade: 17 University of Hamburg course: The Structure of English- Linguistik Vertiefung language: English abstract: This paper deals with the process of third language acquisition by Turkish immigrants in Germany. This process is unique and distinct from their first and second language acquisition as it is influenced by first and second language acquisition. Cultural diversity in different societies around the world in the 21st century places a great emphasis on the value of language acquisition. Whether it is in business politics or other international interactions and further aspects of life in particular education language acquisition has become more and more important. As a result bilingualism is seen as a norm rather than an exception in many societies around the globe. Although considered fairly recent linguistics have studied the acquisition of a first language by infants and second language acquisition in children and adults with varying approaches in the past decades. However people are not only increasingly exposed to numerous languages in multilingual settings but they are also learning them. This is ascribed to the movement of people from one society to another resulting in an increased contact with different cultures. Due to that fact researchers have begun to put an emphasis on studies about multilingualism and the distinct acquisition of languages past a second non-native language. While many researchers classified any non-native language acquisition as second language acquisition in the past recent studies discuss the phenomenon of third language acquisition. In this day and age it has become common that migrants who are proficient in their native language and have moved to or are born in a multicultural country will not only learn the official language of that same country but also an additional foreign language. Because of t