Intertextual figures in 5th grade Turkish language course book and an investigation of the effects of intertextuality on reading comprehension

Every literary work has closed relations with the texts which was written before it and which will be written after it. The continuity of creating new literary works are driven by the reality of a text has echoes and traces of other texts. Kristeva's notion of "mosaic of quotations" expanded its meaning and formed the literary theory of "intertextuality". Intertextuality has different meanings in different disciplines. It showed up as literay theory in 1960s with the contributions of literary critics such as Kristeva and Barthes. Their theories based on Bakhtin's ideas on "dialoguicity" and might be defined as interconnection between similar and related literary works. The new Turkish language curriculum includes some gains in reading section which are related to intertextuality. These are: "Producing paratextual and intertextual meanings", "Making comparisons between texts" and "Referring to examples and details in a text while interpreting it". These are the evidence that the new curriculum lay emphasis on intertextuality and intertextual reading on text analysis. In this study, the mixed method which is a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods was used. In the first part of the study, 24 texts in fifth grade Turkish language course book which is used in 2018-2019 school term was analysed according to intertextual figures created by Aktulum. The qualitative data of the study was gathered through document analysis technique. Throughout the analysis of the texts, it was found that the most common intertextual figure was cliche and stereotyped statements which was followed by anaphors, quotations, intersemiotic relations, allusions and pastiches. On the other hand, there were no examples of hidden quotations, parody, prosodic alternation and narrative alternation. In the second part of the study, an experimental research with experimental and control groups was conducted in order to investigate the effects of intertextual reading on comprehension of a text. The experimental research was conducted in two fifth grade classes in Atatürk middle school in Suşehri/Sivas. The experimental group of the sample has 26 students and control group has 24 students. Three texts from the analysed course book was chosen and read and re-read to the students in experimental group by expressing intertextual elements which were found in the first part of the study. In the other group, same three texts were analysed in its usual way. Then, the students in both groups were asked to answer the questions about the texts. Then, the answers of the students in both groups were collected and marked by the reseracher. Afterwards, the mean scores of both groups were calculated. Determinations about the effects of intertextual reading on comprehension of a text were made according to these mean scores. It was found that the mean scores of students in experimental group were higher than those in control group in all three texts. Therefore, it can be said that students in experimental group comprehend the texts better compared to those in control group. The study found that intertextual reading has a positive influence on comprehension of a text. Therefore, it might be said that if intertextual elements in all the texts in Turkish language course books were determined and used while analysing the texts, it would provide a better understanding of the texts. Key words: Intertextuality, Intertextual Elements, Fifth Grade Turkish Language Course Book, Intertextual Reading