Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
Topraksoy A. (Yürütücü)
TÜBİTAK Projesi, 2219 - Yurt Dışı Doktora Sonrası Araştırma Burs Programı, 2025 - 2026
The proposed research explores the conceptual realization of fictive motion(FM) expressions in Turkish and English. Analyzing FM is important for our current understanding of human language ability as it is a phenomenon which describes static scenes using dynamic verbs of motion and thus it taps into human cognition through mental simulations and metaphorical mappings. This study will investigate how Turkish, an under-studied language in this domain, and English employ FM expressions using a comprehensive methodology. Turkish, with rich morphological structure and extensive use of case markers, offers unique insights into how language encodes motion and spatial relations. Do people mentally simulate motion when perceiving FM expressions? How is human cognition biased in describing static scenes of FM? To answer these questions, the researcher, under Prof. Thompson’s supervision, will employ eye-tracking, reading measurement and picture elicitation tasks to gather data from native speakers of two languages in Birmingham, UK. Findings will enhance our understanding of the interplay between language and thinking about motion, contributing to theories of figurative language processing. This research aims to bridge gaps in Turkish FM research, provide cross-linguistic understanding of FM, and offer insights for applications in translation (of spatial domains between English and Turkish) and NLP projects (automated understanding and classification of FM expressions) in Türkiye.