The process of metaphor comprehension by learners of Turkish as a foreign language

Interest in linguistic metaphors as an important aspect of the vocabulary of language has existed since ancient times. With this being said, the attitude that metaphors are linguistic products only invoked where the literary is concerned has changed with the theory of Conceptual Metaphor. This theory demonstrates that metaphors are cognitive- processed and produced in the mind, not in language. With that in mind, this study was designed to see how intermediate level speakers of Turkish as a foreign language process metaphors in Turkish. For this purpose an experiment set consisting of literal, anomalous and metaphorical sentences was designed to test the process of metaphor comprehension. The stimulus presentation in the experiment was made by E-Prime 2.0 software. The test was applied to an experimental group consisting of native Arabic speakers and a control group consisting of Turkish participants. The participants' understanding of the metaphors as either true or false was then observed and their relevant response times measured. In the results, a significant difference between the types of metaphor was present regardless of the relevant groups. That is, while no significant difference between conventional metaphors and literal sentences or between novel metaphors and abnormal sentences presented itself, there was a significant difference between the following two groups: conventional metaphors/literal sentences and novel metaphors/abnormal sentences. In terms of accuracy, a significant difference was observable whether it was groups, types of metaphors or conditions that were being looked at. The results of the study demonstrate that in the case of metaphor comprehension in a foreign language, transfer from the native language is present in terms of reaction but not in the case of interpretation and furthermore that D2 group's knowledge of metaphors was insufficient.