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The main aim of this study to develop a valid and reliable measurement scale that can be used to identify bilingual individuals' attitude towards their mother tongue. The scale research was applied to a total of 310 Kurdish-Turkish bilingual participants aged between 16-65 living in Van City-Turkey. An exploratory factor analysis and a reliability analysis were performed to determine the validity of the scale. The scale developed according to the results of explatory factor analysis consist of 31 items in total from three dimensions (Affective, Language anxiety and prestige, Language preference and proficiency). Kaiser-Mayer-Olkin (KMO) measure adequacy was found to be .91 and the strength of the relationship among variables by the Barlett test was found to be and Chi-square output was statistically significant (² = 3949,540, p = 0.000). According to this results the factor analysis is fit. The scales' item factor of the sub-dimensions ranged from in the first dimension between 0.482 and 0.773, in the second dimension between 0.335 and 0.720, in the third dimension between 0,464 and 0,726. In addition, the total Cronbach Alpha reliability coefficient for the sub-dimensions of the scale in turn was 0.872, 0.885 and 0.802 and total Cronbach Alpha reliability coefficient of the scale was .915. Moreover, the fit indices of model were exanimated and the Chi-square value (x2=924.69, df=428, p=0.00000) is significant. The fit index values of scale: NNFI= 0.96, NFI= 0,93, CFI= 0.96, RMSEA= 0.006. It was concluded that the scale developed for this study was a valid, reliable and theoretically had a basis for evaluating the attitude of individuals towards their mother tongues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main aim of this study is to develop a valid and reliable measurement scale that can be used to identify the bilingual individual's attitude towards a mother tongue that is undergoing attrition due to a dominant second language. Scale research was applied to a total of 439 Kurdish-Turkish bilingual participants aged from 17-35 living in Turkey. An exploratory factor analysis and a reliability analysis were performed to determine the validity of the scale. The scale developed according to the results of exploratory factor analysis consists of 12 items in total from three dimensions, behavioral, cognitive and affective. KMO measure adequacy was found to be 0.874 and the strength of the relationship among variables by the Bartlett test was found to be 2047.005 and Chi-square output was statistically significant (p<0.05). The item factor loadings of the scale ranged from 0.845 to 0.613, and item total correlation values ranged from 0.671 to 0.478. In addition, the total Cronbach Alpha reliability coefficient of the scale was 0.874; accordingly, the Cronbach Alpha reliability coefficients for the subdimensions of the scale were estimated to be between 0.801 and 0.8769. Moreover, the fit indices of the model were examined and the Chi-square value (x2 = 256.01, N = 439, do = 51, p = 0.00) was significant. The fit index values of the scale were: AGFI=0.86, RMSEA= 0.096, SRMR=0.066, CFI=0.90, IFI=0.95, NFI=0.94, NNFI= 0.94. It was concluded that the scale developed for this study is valid and reliable, theoretically providing a basis for evaluating the attitude of individuals towards their mother tongues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an investigation into the relationship between individuals' attitudes towards their mother tongue and lexical attrition. The paper is based on data from a study wherein 10 Kurdish-Turkish bilinguals were asked to narrate a well-known story in their mother tongue of Kurdish. These individuals were selected from among 104 participants according to their score on the Mother Tongue Attitude Scale (MTAS), a scale used to determine attitude towards mother tongue. In this study, quantitative and qualitative research methods were used together. The participants were asked to tell a story in Kurdish to assess their use of Turkish words while doing so. Additionally, the participants were also asked to evaluate their Kurdish speaking ability after telling the story. The results of the study showed participants with a low MTAS score resorted to borrowing more Turkish words and were able to access a smaller number of Kurdish words than the participants with higher MTAS scores and they suffered more from lexical attrition than their counterparts. Those with high MTAS scores, with a positive attitude towards their mother tongue, used smaller numbers of words borrowed from Turkish and had access to a richer lexicon with which to narrate the story. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]