Language, culture an Yunus Emre Institutes: a new type of diplomacy

Abstract

Language is one of the core elements that countries build up their cultures on and is a very significant tool to provide insight for the nature of their way of life. Since language has strong relation with culture, common definition on culture describes it as: “shared beliefs, values and behaviors of a social group”. It’s clear to see that language and culture are two core elements for understanding and defining relations with a country. Until the dissolution of USSR, world system was consisting of bipolar nature which in effect almost for 40 years. And during those so called bipolar world years, relationship definition between states described on bloc politics and most importantly on hard power elements. However, after the end of ‘Cold War’ era, definition of the relationships got into change; countries started to create new destinations all around the world. For doing so, ‘cultural centers’ (like Goethe Institute, British Council, Confucius Institute etc.) played a crucial role for introducing their language and culture towards to foreign audiences. Most importantly, thanks to ‘Cultural Diplomacy’ concept, this type of introduction recognized as exportation of a country’s positive image towards international area. Yunus Emre Institutes, working on this manner all around the world; introducing Turkish language, art and culture towards to foreign audiences, teaching Turkish language and providing insight about Turkish art and culture is quite important for exporting Turkey’s positive image. In other words, Yunus Emre Institutes carrying on activities under the Turkey’s cultural diplomacy approach. In this paper, its aimed to explain ‘Cultural Diplomacy’ concept with Language and Culture point of view through Yunus Emre Institutes that now acknowledged as one of the main tools for Turkish diplomacy understanding.