Bilingual Turkish Teacher Candidates' Metaphoric Perceptions of Turkish: A Case Study of the Turkology Department at the University of Duisburg-Essen

In this study, it was aimed to determine the metaphorical perceptions of bilingual Turkish teacher candidates in Germany towards Turkish. The study group of the research consisted of 63 Turkish teacher candidates studying at different grade levels in Turkistic Department of Duisburg-Essen University, Germany in the winter semester of the 2022-2023 academic year. In order to collect research data, a form was developed so that students could write their metaphors and express themselves clearly. In the research, in which a qualitative approach was adopted, the students said, “Turkish is like……. Because……..’’. They were asked to complete the statement “…”, and a metaphorical discourse determination was made by examining the collected data. Metaphor forms were filled in face-to-face interviews with students. In the research, where prospective teachers were expected to focus on a single metaphor related to the subject and express its reason clearly, the data were analyzed with the content analysis technique. 41 metaphors obtained from 63 valid forms filled by the students were divided into categories according to the similarity and relationality of justification reasons. The metaphors which obtained as a result of the research have been classified into seven different conceptual categories: "belonging and valuing", "continuity and wealth", "being necessary and informative", "being original", "rooted history and scope", ‘'difficulty and distance'’ and ‘'aesthetic and meaningfulness'’ respectively, according to frequency values. The most repetitive metaphors were found as "home, rainbow, sea, tree, hometown, poetry, flower and family", respectively. As a result, it was found that bilingual Turkish teacher candidates in Germany value Turkish and have positive perceptions about Turkish, based on seven conceptual categories and 41 metaphors. In addition, it has been concluded that these pre-service teachers, who are aware of the importance of Turkish in Germany and are trained to protect it, to claim and to pass it on to future generations, have sufficient awareness about the purpose of their profession.