The preparatory phase of the 1928 Alphabet Reform: A typographic and discursive analysis of Cumhuriyet Newspaper

This study conceptualizes the 1928 Alphabet Reform in Türkiye not merely as an orthographic change, but as a deep-rooted epistemic rupture that reconstructed social memory. Specifically, it examines how the influential Cumhuriyet newspaper functioned as an ideological state apparatus, supporting the new regime's ideological construction and indoctrinating the masses during this transformation. Adopting a sequential mixed-methods design, the research analyzes the 114-day period from Mustafa Kemal Atatürk’s August 9, 1928 speech to December 1, 1928, when newspapers fully transitioned to Latin letters. Quantitatively, the visibility of Latin letters on the newspaper's front and back pages was measured by frequency and spatial distribution. Qualitatively, Teun A. van Dijk’s Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) was applied to four historical breaking thresholds identified in the quantitative data. Findings reveal that Cumhuriyet proactively changed its layout months before the legal mandate, creating a pedagogical space for the new alphabet. Furthermore, discourse analysis demonstrates that the newspaper systematically “othered” the Arabic alphabet and its associated Eastern-Islamic episteme via macro and micro structures, framing the reform as a rational integration into Western civilization. Consequently, rather than being a passive transmitter, Cumhuriyet acted as a founding apparatus that eliminated the old epistemic order and constructed the new one.