Mersin University Journal of Linguistics and Literature (Mersin Üniversitesi Dil ve Edebiyat Dergisi

1-14

Authors: Güneş Acar

The primary goal of this article is to explain the technologies and workflows used to build the METU Spoken Turkish Corpus (STC), which is pioneered by the late Prof. Dr. Şükriye Ruhi. The Web Based Corpus Management System, which is crucial to the building of STC, contains a set of workflows, data formats and export options that make it easy to transcribe, control and publish corpus data. Corpus Management System was developed by the STC project members using the Python programming language and it enables the collaboration of remote project members with different roles through an online interface. Within the STC, 286,391 words long speech are transcribed and checked; in addition, 79,189 words long recordings are made ready to publish. The article presents general statistics about the recordings in the STC and discusses what needs to be done for the publication of a large scale version of the STC.

37-60

Authors: Hale Işık Güler & Betil Eröz-Tuğa

In this study, the Turkish interjection "UlAn" and its derivatives, which can be classified as face-threatening according to current (im)politeness theories, have been examined with a corpus-based, descriptive approach. In this paper, the frequent pragmatic contexts it has been found in and the discourse functions it takes on will be exemplified from the Spoken Turkish Corpus and the Turkish National Corpus. Furthermore, whether or not (u)lan should be discursively defined as an interactional marker, a vocative interjection, an expletive, an intensifier in Turkish, and the emotional function it takes on in discourse will be discussed.

85-107

Authors: Mustafa Aksan & Umut Ufuk Demirhan

The verb of perception bakmak ‘to look’ in Turkish, as with similar other verbs in other languages, has undergone semantic bleaching. The result is the frequent use of the verb of perception with a function of a discourse marker that calls for attention. In a pioneering work, Ruhi (2011) cites uses of 2nd person singular imperative forms of bakmak in Turkish spoken discourse (bak, bak-sana) and identifies their uses for catching attention and emphasizing a point. She further notes that the volitional forms of the same verb (bak-ayım and bak-alım) also serve to indicate a pre-sequence to a leave taking and topic closure. This paper will extract corpus citation of imperative forms from a larger corpus of contemporary Turkish called Turkish National Corpus (TNC) and will review the interjection functions of these forms in their contexts of use.

1-22

Authors: Sinan Çakır

This study aims to draw attention to two of the problems that Turkish lexicography faces today. One of these problems is that there are not any Turkish to Turkish dictionaries that have been prepared for the people who are learning Turkish as a second or foreign language. Another problem that faces Turkish lexicography is the deficiency of a corpus-based approach in dictionary building process. In this study, the layout of a dictionary that was prepared for the native speakers of Turkish was analyzed, and some modifications were suggested for the learner’s version of this dictionary. The importance of corpus based approach in dictionary building process is the other point that is emphasized throughout the study. The study consists of two parts. In the first part, the modifications that can be made on a Turkish-to-Turkish dictionary were determined through the analyses of two English-to-English dictionaries, one of which was prepared for the native speakers of English and the other for the foreign learners of English. The possible modifications that can be done in the front-back matters and the A-Z entries of the Turkish Dictionary were presented in a list. In the second part, the entry structures of three headwords presented in the Turkish dictionary were modified to be used in the suggested “learner’s version” of this dictionary. In the study, the data obtained from the web were used as a mini- corpus to show the advantages of having a corpus based approach in lexicography. This mini corpus was used in the modification of the entry structures of the target headwords.

35-60

Authors: Emel Kökpınar Kaya

Discourse markers that are largely used in everyday talk carry out various functions in conversations. One of the conversational genres in which discourse markers are highly used is conversational narrative. Conversational narratives are the interactional productions of (the) teller(s) and listener(s), and also they are the textual reflections of the events that are experienced in past time and told in a sequence in the time of storytelling. In this stoytelling which comprises of a sequence of events, both tellers and listeners use discourse markers for different purposes. This study aims to demonstrate the functions of ondan sonra as a discourse marker in Turkish conversational narratives. To this end, this study grounds on Conversation Analysis (Jefferson, 1978; Sacks et al., 1974) and Narrative Analysis (Labov and Waletzky, 1967; Labov 1972, 1997). The analysis which is carried out in the interface of these two study fields focuses on the narrative, conversational and interpersonal functions of ondan sonra in conversational storytelling. The data of the study includes 100 single and 12 complex conversational narratives gathered from 11 recordings of natural conversations in family gatherings whose participants are native speakers of standard Turkish. The findings show that ondan sonra has various teller- and receiver-oriented functions in addition to the function of ‘continuity marker used in order to sequence the events’ as Özbek (1998a) suggested. The teller-oriented functions for narrative structure are sequencing the events in an temporal order, connecting the bound narratives to the first one, initiating the category of Complicating Action and initiating the category of Resolution. For conversational organisation, the teller-oriented functions are taking the turn and holding the floor, and for interpersonal interaction the only teller-oriented function is attracting the attention of the receivers to a specific point. In addition to them, the analysis shows that receivers use ondan sonra in order to initiate a turn and show their interest to the storytelling in conversational narratives.

87 - 127

Authors: B. Ümit Bozkurt & Gülsün Leylâ Uzun

The purpose of this research is to discuss the conceptualization theory and approaches on the basis of linguistic data which were obtained from children at the age of 10 and 13. From this point of view, in the study, first, the concepts were handled in terms of cognitive linguistics and cognitive psychology and then, classical, prototype-based, theory-based and atomistic approaches were discussed. In the study which is qualitative, data were collected from the participants in order to determine the prototypes, features and lexical varieties of the concepts. The research group, from whom data were collected, was composed of 4th and 7th grade students of five elementary schools in four different cities in Turkey. In the data collection stage, three open ended-short answered survey forms related to the five representatively chosen concepts were used and a database of 28.183 words was formed with the collected data. In the analysis of the data, content analysis and descriptive analysis were used. The findings of the research demonstrated that typicality and family resemblance relation plays a significant role in conceptualization; however examples, attitude, collocation and scripting based associations come to the forefront while expressing the features of the concepts and using the concepts linguistically. This case indicates that the participant children have a conceptualization structure patterned with associations. With the obtained data, it can be regarded that there are prototypical effects; maybe some definitions need to be added; moreover, all kinds of personal and cultural knowledge is added to the concepts. This implies that all descriptive knowledge types are united with concepts. Accordingly, all these knowledge are considered as collateral, but it is hard to say that they are the constituents of the concept.