Speakers
Description
Cyprus is an inherently multilingual island. Its multilingualism includes two official languages, Greek and Turkish, their local varieties, Cypriot Greek and Cypriot Turkish, English, which was introduced under British rule, and many other migrant languages. Despite this multitude of used languages, research has so far predominantly focused on speaker attitudes towards both varieties of Greek and Turkish as well as English (see Evripidou & Cavusoglu 2015; McEntee-Atalianis & Pouloukas 2001). For the local languages, Greek and Turkish, it has been found that the standard variety is of higher prestige than the local one, although the difference is decreasing (see Cavusoglu & Evripidou 2018). Attitudes towards the Cypriot Turkish variety even changed from negative into positive while the high value of Cypriot Greek remained constant (Buschfeld 2013: 40-41; Vida-Mannl 2021: 74). For English, a shift from negative to positive attitudes has been reported. While, during the British rule, English used to be perceived as a threat to the use of Greek by Greek Cypriots, the biggest ethnic group of the island, nowadays, especially younger generations demonstrate more positive attitudes towards English in the southern part of the separated island. In the North, Turkish Cypriots, the other main ethnic group, have continued their positive attitudes, while descendants from Turkish settlers exhibit negative attitudes towards English and the general no-use of Turkish especially among older generations (Vida-Mannl, Buschfeld & Grohmann 2025: 179-180). Attitudes towards other languages or multilingualism in general have not yet been investigated.
This paper investigates attitudes towards multilingualism among residents of Cyprus, more particularly in the cities of Paphos, Kyrenia, and Nicosia. Specifically, it focuses on inter- and intragenerational differences to find out to what extent different generations and generations among themselves might have and express different attitudes towards multilingualism. Furthermore, we analyse how the influence of other variables such as city of residence, level of education, and composition of language repertoire influence attitudes towards multilingualism to go beyond the factor of age alone. We analyse the language use and attitudes section of 106 extensive, audio-recorded assisted questionnaires using a mixed-methods approach. An intergenerational comparison of attitudes will indicate that older age groups express more negative attitudes than younger age groups across all cities. In addition, the intragenerational comparison will indicate a strong influence of internationality and the multilingualism in the respective cities on the attitudes across generations. A general intergenerational difference is noticeable between younger and older generations while the intragenerational comparison is highly influenced by location.