L2 influence on L1 collocational knowledge: The case of Turkish in the USA

In this study, Collocational Knowledge of 22 Turkish Immigrants in the USA were investigated. 12 of these immigrants were 1st generation immigrants, 10 of them were 2nd generation immigrants. 14 Turkish people living in Turkey formed the control group.All 1st generation immigrant participants have lived in the second language setting for at least 10 years to ensure enough contact with the mainstream language, the minimum age of arrival was set as 12 and they were all graduates of high education. 2nd generation immigrants were 12 and older and they were all born to Turkish parents.The aim of the study was to identify whether second language influence could be seen on the collocational usage in the first language. Collocational knowledge was chosen as the item to investigate because lexicon is claimed to be the most vulnerable area in mind and any sign of change in that area reflects the influence instantly.The data was collected through naturalistic use of Turkish, biodata forms, Multiple Choice Test, Translation Task and Cloze Tests were applied. The results were compared with some sociolinguistic factor that might be related with the performance levels. These sociolinguistic factors were age of arrival, length of residence and identity.As a conclusion of this study, it was found out that the lexicon of the immigrant group was affected from the second language. 1st generation immigrant results were close to control group while the difference between 2nd generation immigrant group and the control group was immense. Age of arrival and definition of the identity were not observed to be related with the performance levels in three tasks. However, there was a decrease as the length of residence increases.