Turkish Speakers Research Articles

Intonation of Greek in contact with Turkish: a diachronic study

AbstractAsia Minor Greek (AMG) speakers cohabited with Turkish speakers for eight hundred years until the 1923 Lausanne Convention, which forced a two-way mass population exchange between Turkey and Greece and severed their everyday contact. We compare the intonation of the continuation rise tune in the speech of first-generation AMG speakers born in Turkey with three subsequent generations born in Greece. We examine how long contact effects in intonation persist after contact has ceased, through comparison of the f0 patterns in four generations of AMG speakers with those of their Athenian Greek- and Turkish-speaking contemporaries. The speech of the first-generation of AMG speakers exhibits two patterns in the f0 curve shape and time alignment of the continuation rises, one Athenian-like and one Turkish-like. Over subsequent generations use of the latter diminishes, while the Athenian pattern becomes more frequent, indicating intergenerational change.

A Comparative Study of Metadiscourse Markers in the Abstract Sections of Research Articles Written by Turkish and English Researchers

The present research aims to investigate interactive and interactional metadiscourse markers in the abstract sections of academic research articles written in Turkish and English. Two disciplines, namely, Special Education and Preschool Education, are selected for the research. Three different types of language use are examined: English articles written by native speakers of English, English articles written by Turkish speakers, and Turkish articles written by Turkish speakers. Following Hyland and Tse’s (2004) metadiscourse taxonomy, a corpus of 300 research articles abstract published by international journals, is used to investigate the metadiscourse markers. After the detailed analysis, the chi-square test is aimed to be used to clarify the probable differences. The results of the study indicate that, in terms of interactive and interactional metadiscourse markers, there are differences across the languages. To be more precise, statistically significant differences were found in the use of frame markers, code glosses, hedges, boosters, and self-mentions. Turkish writers used boosters and frame markers more frequently, while native speakers of English used hedges, code glosses, and self-mentions more. Some suggestions were provided for academic writers to comply with the writing conventions of academic writing, especially research article abstracts.

Bodily Semelfactives in Turkish: Aspectual and Pragmatic Analysis of Öksür- and Göz Kırp-

The study covers aspectual potentials of the Turkish Semelfactive verbs öksür- (cough) and göz kırp- (wink) comprehensively through their concordances in the Turkish National Corpus TNCv3.0. Their common feature in their Semelfactive meanings is that the bodily events expressed with them may be both physiologically and pragmatically motivated, which determines Turkish speakers’ aspectual choices. For öksür-, self-induced coughs are called fake coughs in the study, conveying pragmatic messages with corresponding aspectual shifts. Likewise, göz kırp-, when agent-controlled, conveys certain pragmatic messages. It also has figurative meanings, which causes aspectual shifts. The present article revealed the interactions between aspectual construals of the two verbs and their pragmatic functions and figurative meanings. Corpus data indicated that figurative meanings of göz kırp- are either inadequately defined or missing in the most comprehensive Turkish dictionary of Turkish Language Association (TDK dictionary). The study has lexicographic implications that some improvements and modifications should be made for the entry göz kırp- in the dictionary because aspectual construals are sensitive to different meanings and pragmatic functions. The study demonstrated that accurate aspectual assessments depend on not only sentential levels but also supra-sentential contexts. It was also found that for pragmatic reasons öksür- tends to select preponderantly male subjects.

Caused motion events in Modern Uyghur: a typological perspective

AbstractTalmy’s motion event typology (Talmy, Leonard. 2000. Towards a cognitive semantics: Conceptual structuring systems, vol. 2. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press) has served as an influential framework for exploring event representation across languages. While confirming its basic premises, many studies argued that the typology cannot fully capture the vast intra- and inter-typological variations. Consequently, proposals have been made to expand the typology and/or reconceptualize it as a typology of constructional strategies for encoding events. This article furthers this line of inquiry by examining caused-motion expressions by adult speakers of an understudied Turkic language, Modern Uyghur. Systematic analyses of lexicalization patterns, that is, which components are typically selected for expression, how frequently they are selected, and how they are packaged in syntactic constructions, show that Uyghur is a prototypical verb-framed language. It differs most strikingly from English (considered satellite-framed) in terms of lexicalization patterns. Detailed comparisons with French and Turkish (putatively verb-framed) reveal intra-typological variations in that Uyghur speakers systematically used verb-framed constructions while French and Turkish speakers exhibit much flexibility and a general preference for satellite-framed constructions. Overall, our data lend support to Talmy’s typology conceived as a strategy-based typological framework.

ASSIMILATION OF SOUNDS IN THE TURKISH LANGUAGE: A CASE STUDY OF HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS AT KARABUK REGION (TURKEY)

Assimilation of sounds is an interesting aspect of communication among speakers of the mother tongue. Mastering assimilation is significant to understanding the daily conversations while communicating, particularly with the increasing number of international students as well as the refugees in Turkey. Thus, researching assimilation and how native Turkish speakers talk have become a necessity. Therefore, this study aims at analyzing consonant assimilation among high school Turkish students. The qualitative data were obtained from eleven voluntary female students who were selected randomly from the 9th, 10th, 11th , and 12th grades of IMKB Multi/Program High School in Karabuk, Turkey. The findings show that there are fourteen assimilated sounds that we observed during the conversations. The number of progressive assimilations that we found in our study is limited. Most of the assimilated sounds observed in this study are made up of regressive assimilation. These findings could be pedagogically employed because understanding the consonant changes resulting from assimilation will improve foreigners’ communication skills and ease their adaptation to the Turkish society.

Ideological becoming through study abroad: Multilingual Japanese students in Turkey

Against the background of the current interest in identity in study abroad scholarship in applied linguistics, we focus in this paper on the case of non-Western students enrolled in study abroad programs based in non-Western countries. Drawing on face-to-face interviews with 25 multilingual Japanese undergraduates who studied in Turkey for a year and returned home 3–4 years ago as advanced speakers of Turkish, we problematize the Bakhtinian concept of ideological becoming that students experience as a result of their sojourn. More specifically, we investigate how ideological becoming is constructed across the three languages in the students’ repertoires that are in play in their study abroad experiences: Japanese, Turkish, and English. Our findings demonstrate that ideological becoming in the case of study abroad students concerns multiple languages in which students take active roles drawing on various timescales of their sojourn experience.

Forms and functions of self-repetitions in spoken discourse: A corpus linguistics analysis of L1 and L2 English

Abstract Self-repetitions as a compensation strategy potentially have a powerful influence on maintaining communication in L1 and L2 contexts. By subjecting two comparable corpora to contrastive interlanguage analysis, in the present study we explored the use of self-repetitions by L1 speakers of English and Turkish speakers of English and their structural and functional distributions. The results indicated that while L1 English speakers tended to utilize repetitions as fillers, L2 English speakers employed considerably more repetitions as self-initiated self-repairs. The results of the study suggest that, despite being used for different purposes, self-repetition occurs in L1 and L2 English speech indicating that self-repetitions cannot be associated with disfluency as long as they do not hinder the flow of speech. For this reason, raising L2 learners’ awareness might help them prevent breakdowns in L2 communication.

AB0830 Turkish translation and cross-cultural adaptation of the modified Short QUestionnaire to Assess Health-enhancing physical activity (mSQUASH).

BackgroundThe Short Questionnaire to Assess Health-enhancing physical activity (SQUASH) is a validated tool measuring the duration, frequency, and intensity of physical activity. The modified version of the SQUASH (mSQUASH) has been developed, in collaboration between spondyloarthritis (SpA) experts and axial (ax)SpA patients, to better address the needs of these patients in the assessment physical activity (1).ObjectivesTo translate and cross-cultural adapt the mSQUASH into Turkish as well as its cognitive debriefing to test the conceptual equivalence of the translated version among patients with axSpA.MethodsThe mSQUASH was translated into Turkish by 2 bilingual translators, native speakers of Turkish one from medical (informed) and the other is without medical background (uninformed). The consensus on forward-translation was reached by the team included two rheumatologist (GA and LK) and the translators. Backward-translation into Dutch was performed by 2 bilingual translators, native speakers of Dutch and who were blinded to the original mSQUASH version. After the review of the Turkish version by an expert committee that included translators, two patients and the research team a pre-final version was prepared. This version was used in a field-test with cognitive debriefing and involved a sample of 10 axSpA patients (7 radiographic- and 3 non-radiographic axSpA patients) with variation in gender, age, disease duration, and educational background. The final Turkish mSQUASH version was reached after the patients were interviewed to check understandability, interpretation and cultural relevance of the translation. The whole process was performed according to the Beaton method (Figure 1) (2).Figure 1.Flow-chart of the translation and cross-cultural adaptation processResultsAfter the forward-backward translation process, small incompatibilities were resolved during the expert committee meeting. For example: `Ander transport (heen en terug)` was translated as `Diğer hedeflere (gidip gelmek)`. The meaning in English is `Other transport (round trip)’. This item questions the way of going to other places and the discrepancy raised whether to use `transportation` or the `target` as the title. To make it culturally adaptable consensus reached to use a word equivalent to `the target` which is semantically equal to the Dutch version. A total of 10 patients with axSpA [7 females, mean (SD) age of 38 (10)] participated in the field test. Mean (SD) time to complete the mSQUASH was 6.1 (2.4) minutes. Cognitive debriefing showed that items of the mSQUASH are clear, relevant, understandable, and easy to complete. None of the patients indicate any important aspect of physical activity that is missing from the questionnaire items. During the cognitive debriefing, 2 patients suggested a change in the wording of one item to make it more suitable to the Turkish culture. This item inquires after sport activities and patients raised the concern that the example activities, ice-skating, tennis, handball are not culturally suitable. According to their comments these items were replaced by other examples such as football.ConclusionThe final Turkish version of the mSQUASH showed acceptable linguistic validity and can be used in both clinical practice and for research purposes. However, to implement the Turkish version of the mSQUASH, further assessment of its psychometric properties (validity and reliability) is needed.

The Interlanguage Speech Intelligibility Benefit for Turkish Speakers of English

This study is aimed at investigating the Interlanguage Speech Intelligibility Benefit (ISIB) via native English and Turkish listeners’ transcriptions of Turkish talkers’ words with pronunciation errors in English. Speech samples collected from talkers with a Turkish L1 background (N=16) were presented to 33 L1 English and 33 L1 Turkish listeners via an instrument to be filled with the transcriptions of erroneous target words. Results supported matched ISIB for listeners as Turkish talkers were more intelligible to Turkish listeners in a considerably higher number of target words. Similarly, a higher number of target words were more intelligible to Turkish listeners with statistically significant differences. Most of these words had been labelled erroneous due to L1 transfer caused by orthographic interference, mispronunciations of English sounds that do not exist in Turkish, and loanwords found in similar forms in Turkish. Turkish listeners appeared to rely on such cues in Turkish talkers’ speech.

Prospects for the search for new biologically active compounds among the derivatives of the heterocyclic system of 1,2,4-triazole.

The authors are not native speakers of Turkish
 
 The purpose of this literature review was to systematize data from studies of the biological activity of 1,2,4-triazole derivatives with substituents in positions 4 and 5. The authors set the task of forming an idea of current directions in the selection of substitutions for 1,2,4-triazole based on research. 
 As a result of the study, 75 literature sources were analyzed. This made it possible to form a further vector in terms of searching for biologically active structures among 1,2,4-triazole derivatives. The review develops a modern approach to the search for biologically active substances among 1,2,4-triazole derivatives. Systematized data on the nature of substituents in the core of 1,2,4-triazole, which affect a specific type of activity.
 The search material was selected over the past decade with the highest number of citations at the time of literature analysis.

Motion event representation in L1-Turkish versus L2-English speech and gesture: Relations to eye movements for event components

Purpose: We investigated interrelations among speech, co-speech gestures, and visual attention in first language (L1)-Turkish second language (L2)-English speakers’ descriptions of motion events. We asked whether young adults differed in their spoken, gestural expressions, and visual attention toward event components of manner (how an action is performed) and path (the trajectory of an action) after controlling for their L2 proficiency. Methodology: Participants were 49 native Turkish speakers ( Mage = 20.98) whose second language is English. After watching each video (recording eye movements), they were asked to describe the motion event videos, and their speech and gesture were coded. English competence level was measured using a standardized assessment. Data and Analysis: We performed analyses of covariance (ANCOVAs) to investigate both within- and across-language differences for L1-Turkish and L2-English spoken and gestural expressions. To analyze eye-gaze behaviors with respect to language and event component differences, we performed t-tests. Last, hierarchical linear regressions were conducted to examine the relationship between visual attention and the use of path and manner in speech and gesture separately. Findings: For L1-Turkish speech, participants used more path than manner constructions, indicating no particular effect of L2 on L1. For L2-English, participants used similar amounts of path and manner descriptions. Path gestures dominated for both L1-Turkish and L2-English. Participants allocated more attention to figures possibly related to manners rather than grounds (paths). There was no effect of L2 proficiency on verbal and gestural explanations or visual attention to events. Originality: This study adopts an integrative approach through investigating speech, gesture, and eye-gaze behavior patterns in motion event conceptualization while also addressing L1 and L2 differences within this framework. Implications: These findings highlight the similarities in visual attention and the use of gestures across L1-Turkish and L2-English motion event descriptions, and only an expected difference in verbal expressions.

An Analysis of Turkish Interactional Discourse Markers 'ŞEY', 'YANİ', And 'İŞTE'.

This paper examines (1) the developmental aspects of the frequency and a range of functions expressed by Turkish interactional discourse markers şey 'uh', yani 'I mean', and işte 'you know' in child speech (4-8year-olds), and (2) age and gender-related changes in the frequency and functional uses of these three DMs in the speeches of 84 Turkish speakers from four different age groups (4-8, 18-23, 33-50, and over 50year-olds). Except for the children, the analyses were conducted in two different corpora, spontaneous and planned speech. As a result, in child speech, a developmental pattern from local to global in the use of the DMs yani 'I mean', and işte 'you know' was observed. Similarly, the frequency of these two DMs increased with aging among the four age groups in spontaneous speech. However, in planned speech, it was the case for the DM işte 'you know' only. Over 50year-old men used şey 'uh' more frequently in their spontaneous speech compared to women, whereas 33-50year-old women produced more işte 'you know' in their planned speech than men. The frequencies of şey 'uh', yani 'I mean', and işte 'you know' were lower in the planned speech condition compared to the spontaneous speech condition in general. Core functions of the three Turkish DMs under focus were described by conducting further analyses. These analyses also revealed that although there are some patterns that apply to all or a group of the DMs under focus, different variables interact in complicated ways resulting in differences in the functional uses of şey 'uh', yani 'I mean', and işte 'you know' by males and females among different age groups in two different speech conditions.

Processing syntactic and semantic information in the L2: Evidence for differential cue-weighting in the L1 and L2

AbstractThis study investigated how second language speakers use syntactic and semantic cues in processing complex sentences. Turkish speakers of English, native speakers of English and native speakers of Turkish participated in a self-paced reading experiment, a read-aloud task and a pen-and-paper questionnaire in their relevant languages. The participants’ working memory capacity was also measured. The results supported the primacy of syntax view for native speakers of Turkish and English (Frazier & Fodor, 1978). Both groups of native speakers primarily used syntactic cues in their on-line decisions; semantic information influenced later decisions only. The second language speakers, however, used semantic cues in both their initial and later decisions, with evidence for accessing complex syntactic representations. The results are taken to support the view that native and non-native speakers weight linguistic cues differentially (Cunnings, 2017). The potential reasons for differential cue-retrieval in the first and second language are discussed.

Relative clauses in child heritage speakers of Turkish in the United States

Abstract How does complex syntax develop in heritage language children? This study investigates child Turkish heritage speakers’ comprehension and production of relative clauses (RCs) in Turkish and in English. RCs vary on their syntactic functions (subject, object) and show asymmetric patterns of acquisition and processing, which have been explained by linear distance, structural distance and input factors. Thirty-two child Turkish HS (ages 6–15) and 48 monolingual Turkish children (ages 3–15) completed a picture-sentence matching (comprehension) task and a sentence repetition (production) task in Turkish. The Turkish HS were tested on the RC comprehension and production tasks in English as well. The results indicated that the child HS showed (i) better performance in English than in Turkish with increasing age, (ii) better comprehension than production of Turkish RCs, (iii) replacement of complex RCs with simple juxtaposition in Turkish, and (iv) a subject advantage in comprehension. We take these findings to suggest that Turkish RCs do not fully develop in child HS of Turkish in the U.S., although the strength of this explanation must be corroborated by a study of child and adult HS. Overall, the findings are most compatible with the structural distance account and other factors that may affect production.

Kutlay Yağmur, Intergenerational Language Use and Acculturation of Turkish Speakers in Four Immigration Contexts, Frankfurt am Main; New York: Peter Lang, 2016, Language, multilingualism and social change, volume 27, 340 pp., ISBN 9783631663707

In his book “Intergenerational Language Use and Acculturation of Turkish Speakers in Four Immigration Contexts”, Yağmur examines the possible impact of integration policies of Australia, France, Germany and the Netherlands on the adaptation of Turkish immigrants. The language aspect has not been sufficiently involved in many acculturation studies so far. That is why this book offers a valuable perspective about the relationship between language behavior and acculturation patterns, thereby analyzing the differences between first and second generation Turkish immigrants and comparing the effect of integration policies of host countries with each other.

INTERLANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT OF TURKISH SPEAKERS OF ENGLISH: EXPLORING ORAL AND WRITTEN COMMUNICATION STRATEGIES

Language learners employ communication strategies (CSs) to avoid communication breakdowns in times of difficulty, and such strategies develop within strategic competence thanks to exposure to a target language. This research is designed as a developmental study aiming to investigate the possible effects of exposure to English as a foreign language on the use of CSs in the interlanguage of Turkish speakers of English. To attain this aim, we chose 20 Turkish learners of English from the beginner level, and they designated the topics they would speak and write about. Their oral and written performances on the topics were tested at the beginning prior to instruction, in the middle, and at the end of the academic year to observe whether CS usage altered over time. The findings revealed that participants resorted to different types of CSs in their speaking and writing tasks. The comparison of CS employment in each test showed that learners’ CS preferences, as well as L1 and L2-based CSs, changed over time in both speaking and writing. Therefore, it is concluded that exposure to the target language may have a significant effect on the preference of CSs. The results of this study are significant as they suggested that CSs in interlanguage evolves from L1-based to L2-based strategies. The findings of this study have important implications for teaching English as a foreign language in reference to the effects of language exposure on the use of CSs in both oral and written performances of L2 learners.

A Comparison Between Cypriot Turkish and Turkish Speakers' Spoken Representation

Bu çalışmada, Kuzey Kıbrıs Türk Cumhuriyeti’nde üniversite okuyan, Kıbrıs Türkçesi ve Türkiye Türkçesi doğal konuşucularının sözlü dil kullanımlarından elde edilen veri kullanılmıştır. Veride, her iki kümede yer alan konuşucuların intraterminal ve intraterminal olmayan eylem görünüşünü işaretleme biçimleri incelenmiştir. Katılımcılara intraterminal ve intraterminal olmayan eylem görünüşlerini yansıtan iki resim gösterilerek resimlerdeki eylemleri sözlü olarak ifade etmeleri istenmiştir. Elde edilen sonuçlar, Kıbrıs Türkçesi ve Türkiye Türkçesi doğal konuşucularının intraterminal ve intraterminal olmayan eylem görünüşlerini işaretlemek için farklı biçimbirimler kullandıklarını ortaya koymaktadır. Kıbrıs Türkçesi doğal konuşucuları intraterminal eylem görünüşünü işaretlemek için –Ir biçimbirimini; intraterminal olmayan eylem görünüşünü işaretlemek için ise –DI biçimbirimini kullanmışlardır. Diğer yandan Türkiye Türkçesi doğal konuşucuları intraterminal eylem görünüşünü işaretlemek için–Iyor biçimbirini; intraterminal olmayan eylem görünüşünü işaretlemek için ise –DI ve –mIş biçimbirimlerini kullanmışlardır.

Descriptive gaps: The case of transitive <i>et-</i>

The Turkish transitive verb et- suffers from a considerable lack of attention in the linguistic literature. It is usually analysed as the pre-eminent means to form a composite verb on the basis of a noun or adjective. On the other hand, its status as a pure auxiliary is doubtful, given the fact that it pops up as a participle in relative clauses and that it governs the accusative for definite objects. Whereas it is often assumed that ziyaret ‘visit’ is fused with et- into the derivation ziyaret et- (-i), i.e. accusative, as an unbreakable unit, constructions such as Bu seyahat-i et-mek üzere kayığ-a bin-di-m ‘I boarded the caique in order to make this journey’ with accusative marked ziyaret-i and relative clauses such as Türkiye’ye et-tiğ-im ziyaret ‘the trip I made to Turkey’ seem to contradict this assumption. In connection with the partial replacement of et- ‘to do’ by yap- ‘to do/make’ in recent decades, especially among speakers of Turkish in the diaspora, the question may be raised whether the popularity of et- as an independent transitive verb on the internet can somehow be linked to this phenomenon.

ЛЕКСЕМЫ iç, içeri, diş, dişari В СОВРЕМЕННОМ ТУРЕЦКОМ ЯЗЫКЕ

This article deals with the semantics of the Turkish lexemes: iç and içeri, related to the internal part, internal space, or the contents of an object; dış and dışarı, correlated with the external part, the surface of the object, and with everything that surrounds it from the outside. Their morphological, syntactic, and compatibility features were considered. The relevance of the research carried out using the corpus method stems from the fact that lexical semantics (in the broad sense of the term) is one of the priority areas of modern linguistics because it studies the conditions for the correct construction of statements that are not determined by grammatical and syntactic norms. The analysis yielded the following results: the four lexemes under study are typically used with possessive suffixes when they perform the nominal function; the presence of ancient indicators of directionality in içeri and dışarı underlies their predominant use in the adverbial function; the very high frequency and wide lexical compatibility of the lexemes iç and içeri arise from the key role played in the linguistic consciousness of Turkish speakers by the idea of the internal space/filling of objects as a special entity that determines the state and possibilities of using the object. For the space external to the reference point, on the contrary, it is not a description of its state that is important, but a more accurate indication of the position of objects, which is associated with the possibility of reaching them and is enabled by the presence of a clearly structured system of tokens with spatial meaning. This is expressed in the lower frequency of the lexemes dış and dışarı and the formation of the meaning ‘outside’ in the possessive-marked postposition function. The conclusions obtained are of both practical importance for teaching the language and can be efficiently used as a promising material for typological lexico-semantic research, especially in what concerns the directions of development of the vocabulary of the Turkic languages.

The Salient Pronunciation Errors and Intelligibility of Turkish Speakers in English

Intelligibility is a critically important aspect for effective oral communication. This study explored salient (important) pronunciation errors and their relative roles in the intelligibility of nonnative speech based on listener judgments. Speech samples, collected from speakers with a Turkish as a native language (L1) background, were presented to listener groups in two consecutive sub-studies. In expert listening sessions, listeners with an academic background in pronunciation research and teaching (N=3) detected salient pronunciation errors via a thinking aloud protocol. During the intelligibility research, native listeners (N=33) transcribed the target words with salient pronunciation errors presented either as individual words isolated from their contexts or in longer utterances. The intelligibility scores were calculated and analyzed to investigate the role of salient pronunciation errors on speakers’ intelligibility in English. The findings indicated that mispronunciations of segmentals and incorrect stress placement were the most common error types as detected by expert listeners. Negative transfer was found to be an important factor in such salient errors. According to the results of the intelligibility research, pronunciation errors affected speakers’ intelligibility to a certain extent. Segmental errors were the main causes of reduced intelligibility. Moreover, mispronunciations of two sounds that were seen in most error sites, /ə/ and /θ/, seemed to make speech more accented while not seriously affecting intelligibility. Also, errors in strong syllables had a more detrimental effect on intelligibility compared to those in weak syllables.