Investigating Syntactic and Morphological Differences in the Written Productions of Turkish Learners Based on the Learning Context

Abstract

Purpose: The aim of this study is to investigate the potential impact of the learning context on learners’ written production. Comparing the syntactic and morphological errors, the study tries to find out whether there are differences between written language productions of learners learning Turkish in Turkey and the ones outside the target community. Design/Methodology/Approach: Following descriptive research method, the study adopted qualitative design through systematic content analysis to analyse the data gathered from 78 learners of Turkish at A2 proficiency level, in Turkey (N=42) and outside of Turkey (N=36). The statistical analyses were then carried out to identify the ratios and the categorical distributions of errors determined through error analysis. Findings: The results reveal that learning a language in the target context impacts writing performances significantly at syntactic and morphological level. Based on the findings, instructional implications are provided to enhance effective language input. Highlights: Writing, an important and functional skill in multiple domains, is one of the most challenging skills to master and requires receive sufficient and meaningful authentic language input. As Turkish possesses distinct characteristics compared to Germanic or Semitic Languages, learners of Turkish have additional challenges at language production level. Learners of Turkish display significant differences in the types of syntactic and morphological errors in their writing depending on their learning contexts. The learning context has impacts on the writing productions of learners. The results suggest that educators and program developers in the field of Turkish Language teaching need to consider the role of the context in learning a foreign language while incorporating the special linguistic characteristics of Turkish in designing their teaching programs, materials and lessons.