Date: 29-Jul-2008 From: Bilge Türkkan <bilge.turkkandeu.edu.tr> Subject: The Functions of Nominalization in Turkish Discourse of History E-mail this message to a friend
Institution: Dokuz Eylül University
Program: General Linguistics
Dissertation Status: Completed
Degree Date: 2008
Author: Bilge Türkkan
Dissertation Title: The Functions of Nominalization in Turkish Discourse of History
Discourse of history aiming at distancing the things people do from the things written down, omits the human participants, turns verbs into things and replaces time by frozen setting in time in this process. The primary linguistic resource providing this distancing is Nominalization.
Within the framework of Systemic Functional Linguistics, this study aims at investigating whether nominalization functions as a linguistic resource in defining the grade level expectations in history texts used in primary and secondary schools in Turkey. There are two primary reseach questions of this study: 'Is it possible to determine the preferred rhetorical mode using nominalization in the history texts used in primary and secondary schools in Turkey?' and 'Is it possible to determine the grade level expectations of the history texts used in primary and secondary schools in Turkey through these preferred rhetorical modes' linguistic structure and distribution?
As a result of the analyses conducted on a sampling of history texts chosen from textbooks used in primary and secondary schools in Turkey it is found out that the preferred rhetorical mode in history texts can be determined using nominalization as a linguistic resource. Analyses conducted in order to answer the second research question lead us to posit that nominalization can also be used as a linguistic resource in defining the grade level expectations of the history texts used in primary and secondary schools in Turkey. In accordance with these findings it can be argued that the history texts used in primary schools in Turkey are primarily concerned with providing the students with the information of content in the field of history. They are concerned with sequence of activities, describing and classifying people and things. On the other hand, the texts used in secondary schools meet the grade level expectations in exposing the students to abstract forms of argumentation through an increased use of nominalization as a meaning-making resource.
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