THE REPRESENTATION OF GENDER IN TURKISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE (TFL) COURSEBOOKS

Abstract

Some languages are grammatically gender-bound. Spanish and French, for example, assign a gender to each and every noun while Turkish has a gender-free grammatical system. However, no language is completely genderless. The overall purpose of this study is to examine the linguistic and non-linguistic manifestation of gender in Turkish as a foreign language (TFL) coursebooks. To that end, the portrayal of women and men in three volumes of the coursebook series Yeni Hitit Yabancılar için Türkçe Ders Kitabı (The Yeni Hitit Turkish Coursebook for Foreigners) has been studied using content analysis. In this study, the coursebook series has been quantitatively analysed with respect to the visibility of female and male characters in the visuals and written context and first-place occurrences and the number of words uttered by both sexes in mixed-gender conversations. Female and male characters in the coursebook series have also been compared according to their professional roles, hobbies and interests, representation in the public and private sphere and the number and quality of descriptive adjectives. The findings have shown that although men are slightly over represented in the visuals and written content, the authors of the series seem to have achieved a balanced manifestation of female and male characters in the dialogues. However, men are represented in a wider range of professional roles than women. There is no major difference between women and men with regard to the frequency of descriptive adjectives.