Language Assessment Policy within Citizenship Context: A Case of Canada and Turkey

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Language Tests; Immigrants; Citizenship; Official Languages; Second Language Learning; Civil Rights; Cross Cultural Studies; Foreign Countries; Social Change; Economic Change; Immigration; Laws; Public Policy; Language Proficiency; Web Sites

Canada; Turkey

Today's world has been embracing social, political, and economical changes that result in the replacement of people for immigration and citizenship purposes. Those waves of change cause some countries to receive the movement of new people, which requires the countries to take precautions. In doing so, in the citizenship context various mechanisms are at work; therefore, state authorities have been extremely sensitive about how to control the inclusion of newcomers to gain access to the rights for services and benefits within the countries. To do this, diverse laws and procedures have been introduced into the citizenship context. Though the eligibility requirements may differ, the language assessment in the context of citizenship is one of the apt guides for handling that process. Language assessment for citizenship requires the applicants to present a good command of the official language of the host country. The way how those examinations are implemented may vary from one country to another. In this descriptive study, two countries - Canada and Turkey- are compared as to the laws, regulations, and procedures governing citizenship in terms of host country language examination(s) through document analyses. Thus, the present study aims to shed light on how the language proficiency of the prospective citizens is examined in order to present a clear view of citizenship contexts of both countries. [This chapter is published in: Balci, T., Öztürk, A. O., Aksöz, M. (Eds.), "Schriften zur Sprache und Literatur IV" (pp. 409-425), 2020, London: IJOPEC Publication.]

As Provided

2022

ED624637