Using the “proper one”: language ideology in the context of Kemalism and neo-Ottomanism

Abstract

Abstract Düzgün Türkçe (proper Turkish) is an expression used to refer to well-formed linguistic structures and orthography. On Twitter, where the digital language is visible, language users, by employing the expression, comment on others’ spelling styles about what is “true” or “false.” In the context of Turkey’s ongoing conflict on the use of Latin scripts after Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi; AKP) policymakers’ voices over the alphabet, I argue that the expression has gained social meanings associated with two diametrically opposing ideologies: Kemalism and neo-Ottomanism. Further, I also assert that there is a semiotic contrast between these two ideologies in the context of orthography. Thus, by being aware of this contrast and operating on the semiotic resources available to them, language users deploy their language ideologies. Drawing on interactional data on Twitter, this study brings an understanding of the process of how language users deploy their language ideologies by commenting on others’ spelling styles. In explaining the outworkings of this process, the study builds on the concept of indexical order.