EXAMINING THE CULTURAL ELEMENTS IN STORY BOOKS USED IN TEACHING TURKISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE: SAMPLE OF DEDE KORKUT STORIES

<p>Language is a vital part of human connection. All people need language in order to build relations with other people. Besides this, language encodes culture and provides the means through which culture is shared and passed from one generation to the next. In this sense, language is the basis of social and communicative ability. Communication is the transmission of signals or messages through verbal or nonverbal linguistic signs. Throughout this process, effective use of cultural signs positively affects the communication cycle. Especially, the use of texts including rich cultural elements helps the learner understand the nuances of meaning. With rich motifs, fantastic fiction, elements of curiosity and rich cultural content, Dede Korkut stories are in this sense among the rare works that are suitable for in the field of teaching Turkish as a foreign language. To this end, it is of great importance to find cultural patterns embedded in Dede Korkut stories and take advantage of these texts in teaching Turkish as a foreign language. The study aims to find cultural patterns embedded in Dede Korkut stories and to classify the vocabulary units, i.e., building blocks of these cultural patterns. Research data has been collected through using document analysis method. In the analysis of research data, the descriptive data analysis technique has been used. 7 Dede Korkut story books published by Yunus Emre Institute for B1-C2 levels have been carefully assessed based on 7 different culture levels: family-kinship, food-drink, clothing-textile, color, profession, management-law and spoken language-daily communication. The study results show that it will be right decision to benefit from Dede Korkut stories in teaching Turkish foreigners because they represent the cultural richness of Turkish language, have a rich stock of cultural customs and traditions, and include the high frequency words across the culture levels. </p><p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/edu_01/0886/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p>

Communicative Competence: The Fifth Report of the Social and Emotional Competence Test of Chinese Adolescents

Communicative ability is embodied as "extroversion" in the Big Five Personality Test. Extroversion is an extremely important concept in personality psychology and a more common personality trait. Typically, it includes boldness, self-confidence, liveliness, enthusiasm, optimism, and being. In studying adolescents’ social and emotional abilities, the OECD designed a communication competence evaluation framework based on “extroversion” in the “Big Five Personality” model based on the physical and mental development characteristics of 10-year-old and 15-year-old adolescents. In the OECD evaluation framework, there are three sub-dimensions of communicative competence: happy group, courage and vitality. This study is based on the evaluation data of Suzhou City in China and presents the evaluation results of the communicative ability dimension of the youth social and emotional ability survey in various ways. The data results are presented in the following three parts. The first part uses descriptive statistics to illustrate the overall score of communicative ability, the correlation coefficient of communicative ability and other sub-abilities, and the differences of each ability in age, gender, urban and rural areas, and school categories. The second part uses factors that affect the ability to communicate through multiple regression analysis, including background variables, student variables, teacher variables, school variables, family variables, the impact of student happiness, courage and vitality. Finally, the third part uses multiple regression analysis of the 10-year-old and 15-year-old groups to determine the influence of happiness, courage and vitality on life outcome variables such as health and well-being.

ENHANCING STUDENTS’ SPEAKING ABILITY THROUGH COLLABORATIVE LEARNING AT AL MAULIDIYAH ORPHANAGE IN JATIASIH BEKASI

The aim of this research was to see the improvement of the EFL learners’ speaking ability through the implementation of Storytelling Strategy using pictures. This research was also directed to explore the beneficial of collaborative learning for students of Al Maulidiyah Orphanage in Jatiasih Bekasi. The subject consisted of 15 of EFL learners. A Classroom Action Research in two cycles had been conducted within 2 meetings for every cycle. The meetings were focused on the interactivity and communicative ability among learners. The research result showed that the learners’ fulfillment of the storytelling task improved from 40% or 66.7%. It also showed that the learners’ ability in speaking performance improved. The highest improvement was seen from fluency indicator that is from 26.7% to 46.7%. While for the other two indicators namely pronunciation and vocabulary move upward a little. In conclusion, the implementation of Interactive Storytelling Strategy increased the EFL learners’ fulfillment of the storytelling task and their speaking ability

Subtle alterations in neonatal neurodevelopment following early or late exposure to prenatal maternal immune activation

Prenatal exposure to maternal immune activation (MIA) is a risk factor for a variety of neurodevelopmental and psychiatric disorders. The timing of MIA-exposure has been shown to affect adolescent and adult offspring neurodevelopment, however, less is known about these effects in the neonatal period. To better understand the impact of MIA-exposure on neonatal brain development, we first assess neonate communicative abilities with the ultrasonic vocalization task, followed by high-resolution ex vivo magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) on the neonatal (postnatal day 8) brain. Early exposed offspring displayed decreased communicative ability, while brain anatomy appeared largely unaffected, apart from some subtle alterations. By integrating MRI and behavioural assays to investigate the effects of MIA-exposure on neonatal neurodevelopment we show that offspring neuroanatomy and behaviour are only subtly affected by both early and late exposure. This suggests that the deficits often observed in later stages of life may be dormant, not yet developed in the neonatal period, or not as easily detectable using a cross-sectional approach.

Speech Outcome and Self-Reported Communicative Ability in Young Adults Born With Unilateral Cleft Lip and Palate: Comparing Long-Term Results After 2 Different Surgical Methods for Palatal Repair

Objective: To compare speech outcome and self-reported speech and communicative ability (SOK) in young adults treated with one-stage (OS) or two-stage (TS) palatal repair. Furthermore, to compare with normative data on individuals without cleft lip and palate and to study the relationship between patients’ and experts’ judgments. Design: A cross-sectional group comparison study with long-term follow-up. Participants: Patients born with unilateral cleft lip and palate treated at 2 cleft centers; 17 with OS at 14 months and 25 with TS, soft palate repair at 7 months and hard palate repair at 6.2 years. Pharyngeal flap surgery was performed in 53% (OS) and 24% (TS) of patients. Main Outcome Measure(s): Speech characteristics were blindly assessed by speech and language pathologist from audio recordings, SOK at 19 years of age. Results: No group differences were found. Although the occurrence of nasality symptoms was low in both groups, only 60% (OS)/65% (TS) were assessed with competent velopharyngeal function (VPC). Articulation proficiency (percentage of consonants correct [PCC]) was 91%/97%, the /s/-sound specifically 87%/91%. Good intelligibility was found in 91%/87%. Patient opinion was in agreement with norms and significantly associated with intelligibility ( rs = 0.436, P < .01), PCC ( rs = −0.534, P < .01), and correct /s/ ( rs = −0.354, P < .05). Conclusions: No differences in speech outcome were related to operation method. The low prevalence of VPC was not clearly reflected in nasality symptoms. Patient opinion was related to articulation and intelligibility. A higher burden of care in terms of pharyngeal flap surgery was seen after the OS technique.

Crimean Tatar Ornament in Modern Art and Design

The purpose of the research is to identify the functioning features of Ornek, a traditional Crimean Tatar ornament in modern culture, art and design. The research methodology is based on the application of art history, comparative and semiotic analysis. The novelty of the research is to identify the functioning of the Crimean Tatar ornament in modern times, to determine special symbolic and graphic structures in the visual system Ornek, which allow not only to develop in modern Crimean culture but also show the high communicative ability to establish a cross-cultural dialogue. Conclusions. The study of Crimean Tatar ornament in modern art and design testifies to its high ability to adapt to new conditions, which allows us to talk about the flexibility of its visual system. In modern art and design projects, it appears as a phenomenon that can abstract from archaic forms and organically combine not only with the latest materials and techniques but also to create unity with the phenomena of other national cultures.

An Integrated Approach to Pragmatic Competence: Its Framework and Properties

The exploration of pragmatic competence has been endowed with theoretical and empirical significance for half a century, yet a common framework is still under investigation from different perspectives. First, this article conducts a critical review of the investigation of pragmatic competence in communicative ability theory, the function-discourse model, the componential and meaning-driven model, and the relevance-theoretic model. Based on the merits and demerits of these proposals and their relation with Chomsky’s dichotomy of grammatical and pragmatic competences, an integrated model of pragmatic competence (IMPC) is reformulated for thought and communication, focusing on the interactions among various organism-internal submodules under the current minimalist framework and their interactions with outside sociocultural factors. Finally, a comparison is made between the integrated proposal and the theory and models.

Reference and its Cohesive Potential in the Blog Text

Reference as a logical-semantic category is implemented in the blog text based on a variety of lexical and grammatical means (personal, demonstrative and possessive pronouns, definite article, nominative phrases). At the same time, we consistently differentiate the functional and formal level of analysis (connectivity relations – means of expressing connectivity). The conceptual difference between the functional category and the formal implementation of this category reveals some implications that are important for our study. First, the noun or nominative phrase that acts as a segment of the propositional stimulus message is repeatedly replaced by a certain range of formal (and contextual) anaphoric means. Responding to this message, the interlocutor constructs a mental representation of the relationship of formal or contextual connectivity between the antecedent and the substitute. At the same time, the connectivity tool performs a specific referential function in the mental map of blog communication participants. If the referential interdependence between the antecedent and the substitute becomes contextual, the blogger and respondents identify the similarity of the concepts manifested by these components of the stimulus and reaction, establish not only formal equivalence, but also semantic and pragmatic similarity of the conceptual meanings of the associated language units. In the developed blog, there is a contextual relationship between the indicators of connectivity of thematically correlated constituents and the pragmatic consistency of messages of participants in computermediated communication. In the blogosphere, lexical and grammatical tools that function in an anaphoric or cataphoric function are endowed with such semantics that acquire relevant meaning for the interlocutors only taking into account the previous or subsequent messages. These messages, in turn, turn out to be the context against which these units are identified and interpreted by the blogger and respondents. The relationship of connectedness is manifested not so much in the blog text, but at the moment of perception by the interlocutors of each other’s discursive works. The category of connectedness is a value proportional to the communicative ability of the interlocutors to compare and coordinate the semantics of discursive elements, taking into account the referential schemes activated in their minds.