An Analysis of the Studies on the Effect of Language Transfer on Teaching Turkish as a Foreign Language

Abstract

The present research, meticulously constructed to scrutinize the studies related to language transfer in teaching Turkish as a foreign language from various perspectives, employed a qualitative research methodology. Data were gathered utilizing a document analysis technique, and the interpretation of the gathered data was conducted employing a descriptive analytical approach. The studies conducted on the effect of language transfer on teaching Turkish as a foreign language (TTAFL) were examined in terms of type, year, learning fields, language level, distribution by country, and how the transfer is discussed. It was found that 61.8% (f=81) of the scientific studies on the transfer in TTAFL are articles, 30.5% (f=40) are master’s theses, 6.1% (f=8) are doctoral theses, and 1.5% (f=2) are academic papers. The first study on this subject was observed to have been conducted in 1998, the maximum number of studies (f=25) was carried out in 2019, and there has been a significant increase in interest in the subject since 2007. The maximum number of studies by nationality (f=29) was carried out on Syrians, followed by Afghani, Palestinian, Kazakh, Iraqi, and Bosnian students. 95 studies focused on the learning of writing, 35 on speaking, 18 on reading, 11 on listening, and seven on grammar. Six articles, two master’s theses and a doctoral thesis, a total of nine studies, in which the language transfer was presented under different headings, were identified; and there was no classification in 122 studies.

Keywords

• Teaching Turkish as a foreign language
• Transfers
• Scientific studies

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