Language Awareness and Functional Language Use in Turkish Proverbs

This study analyzes proverbs -one of the anonymous products of Turkish culture- in terms of language awareness and functional language use in the scope of mother tongue education. Introduction Part provides a theoretical background on the proverbs and presents information on language awareness and functional language, two basic concepts of the study. First part of the study analyzes the proverbs in terms of basic language skills. In this scope, proverbs related to the concepts of speaking, listening, writing and reading have been compiled from five different sources via literature review. After the compilation process, those proverbs having similar surface structure have been eliminated. At the end of the elimination, 926 proverbs -which are related only to the basic language skills and majority of which fall in the scope of the speaking concept- have been included in the scope of the study. Then, proverbs related to the language have been independently classified into the learning fields of speaking, listening, reading and writing. These classifications have served as basis for the analyses. Implicit concepts presented by the proverbs and related to mother tongue education have also been included in the analyses. Thus, functions of proverbs in raising language awareness have been addressed. Then, obtained data have been tabulated and discussed.