Figurative meaning in textbooks of Turkish as a foreign language

Communication is a phenomenon that allows the transfer of feeling and thoughts among people. Language acts as a tool for the realization of communicaton. In order to have a healthy communication, person should use the words in vocabulary correctly. As in many languages, words have more than one meaning in Turkish. Over the years these words assumed different meanings far from the literal meaning. The meaning gained as result of using the word other than its literal meaning is called figurative meaning. Turkish is a rich language in the term of figurative language. Figurative meaning is one of the most important issues for Turkish learner foreigners. Whether in everyday language or as a part of culture folk songs, poems and songs have a lot of figurative meaning. One whose native language is Turkish doesn't have difficulty in understanding figurative meaning in communication process while those who learn Turkish as a foreign language have difficulty in understanding what other person says. In this study, types of figurative meaning in the coursebooks used in teaching Turkish for foreigners were investigated. As a result, in reading texts in intermediate and advanced levels of " İstanbul Yabancılara Türkçe", "Yeni Hitit", "Yedi İklim Türkçe", it has been observed that metaphor is the most using type of figurative meaning. Considering frequency of use, it is determined that no method is applied and there are big differences between materials. Key words : figurative meaning, Turkish as a foreign language, metaphor, language teaching, communication.