Social construction of adolescence and adolescent identity in Ekşi Sözlük entries and verbal interactions

The aim of this study is to analyze the ways in which adolescence as an identity is constructed in shared discourses and the functions of these constructions. To this purpose, we have gathered our data from the entries under the title "adolescent" on the website "Eksi Sozluk" which has a participatory dictionary format and focus group discussions. We have analyzed the data with critical discursive psychological approach. 161 entries under the title "adolescent" on Ekşi Sözlük website between the years 2001 and 2018 were analyzed. The focus group discussions were conducted with eleven college students between the ages of 19-22 and twelve high school students between the ages of 15-17. Apart from the pilot group, the total number of groups was seven and the duration of discussions ranged between 45 minutes and an hour. We have identified five interpretative repertoires in Ekşi Sözlük data. We have named these as "adolescence as a developmental transition stage", "deficiency - incompleteness/flaw", "adolescence as a non-age-related state", "adolescence as norm violation" and "longed-for adolescence". We have identified three interpretative repertoires in focus group discussions. These are "adolescence as a developmental transition stage", "deficiency-incompleteness/flaw" and "contextual adolescence/adolescence as a non-age-related state".