The Metaphorical Perceptions of Prospective Turkish Teachers’ Related to the Concept of “Language”

Abstract

The purpose of the present study is to reveal the metaphorical perceptions of prospective Turkish teachers’ related to the concept of “language”. The study was carried out with 158 prospective Turkish teachers’ ongoing Gaziantep University, Faculty of Education, Department of Turkish Language Teaching in 2014-2015 academic year. To reveal the perceptions of the prospective teachers related to “language” concepts  through metaphors they were asked to complete one of the following prompt “Language likes …..; because….” and “Language likes to ….; because….” within about a course period (45 minutes). Metaphor eliciation method was employed in the present study and content analysis was used for data analysis. Prospective Turkish Teachers produced seventy five different metaphors for the concept of "language". Seventy five metaphors were categorized according to the common features presented in the justifications. Six categories that were structured in this way are as follows “1.Multiple manners, Flexibility, Layering 2. Origin and oldness 3. Being alive, development, change 4. Culture Carrying, Cultural Transporter 5. Communication and Socialization Tool 6. Tool of Expressing Status and Accumulations”. The findings were compared with related studies and suggestions were made for effective use of metaphors in language teaching.