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CHAPTER 5
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
5.0. Presentation
This chapter consists of the summary of the study, the discussion of the
results with regard
to the previous studies,
pedagogical implications,
limitations of
the study and suggestions for further research.
5.1. Summary of the Study
This study investigated the forms and functions of interjections in an
Azerbaijani-Turkish Lingua Receptiva (LaRa) communication in order to find out
the contribution of interjections as indicators of understanding. This study
attempted to shed light on the mechanisms utilized in such language mode for the
sake of comprehension with a functional-pragmatic approach (Ehlich & Rehbein,
1982). In the light of these purposes data were collected from 4 Turkish and 2
Azerbaijani participants while they were playing the word guessing party game
Taboo. The basic prerequisite of their participation in the Taboo game sessions
was the less exposure to any other Turkic language but to their native one. Table 8
presents demographic information about Turkish and Azerbaijani participants.
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Table 14: Demographic information about Turkish and
Azerbaijani Participants
Participants in detail
Turkish participants
Azerbaijani participant
Features
Ser
Bu
Fa
Ay
Features
Fahir
Kaan
Age
20
20
23
25
Age
17
17
Gender
M
F
F
F
Gender
Male
Male
Hometown
Zonguldak
Tokat
Ankara
Muğla
Hometow
n
Baku
Baku
Languages
known
Tur.
(Nat.)
Eng.
(Adv)
Ger.
(Ele)
It.
(Beg)
Tur.
(Nat)
Eng.
(Adv)
Ger.
(Ele)
It.
(Beg)
Tur.
(Nat)
Eng.
(Adv)
Ger.
(Ele)
Tur.
(Nat)
Eng.
(Adv)
Ger.
(Ele)
Languages
known
Azb.
(Nat.)
Rus.
(Adv.)
Eng.
(Adv.)
Fre
(Ele)
Azb.
(Nat.)
Rus.
(Adv.)
Eng.
(Adv.)
As the occurrences of interjections in both Azerbaijani and Turkish are
crucial for the purpose of the present study, a worldwide popular word guessing
party game called Taboo was selected and modified in accordance with the scope
of the study. The inspiration for making use of this task comes from the need for a
structured task which allows both creating a communicative and natural linguistic
interaction in which interjections are frequently used by the interlocutors to
indicate their level of understanding.
As for the introduction of Taboo, generally, four people play this game
through pairing each other and forming two groups. For the current study, two
Azerbaijani and two Turkish university students play this game by pairing each
other and forming two groups, each of which consists of an Azerbaijani and a
Turkish university students. Players are given cards on which there is a ‘guess
word’ and five ‘taboo (forbidden) words’. One of the teammates in a team tries to
prompt his/her partner to guess the keywords as possible in the allotted time
without using taboo words. This player is called the ‘clue-giver.’ The other who
can be named as the ‘information requester’ attempts to guess and understand it.
Taboo words are the ones which have strong associations with the guess words.
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For instance, if the guess word is ‘sofa’, taboo words are ‘furniture, couch, chair,
living room, sit’. The clue-giver prompting his/her partner to guess ‘sofa’ is not
supposed to use these taboo words, which makes the game challenging for the
teammates. This leads the teammates to negotiate to reach the ultimate mutual
goal, which is mutual understanding. Since it is the clue-giver in each team who
holds the information, and the other one requests the information in order to reach
goal, the task can be defined as an information-gap task.
In total, around 180 minutes of Azerbaijani-Turkish Lingua Receptiva
interaction was video-recorded and the recorded data were analyzed using the
transcription software EXMARaLDA. The transcribed data were analyzed within
the framework of Functional Pragmatics. Each interjection indicating a process of
understanding was identified and its function within the particular constellation
was examined. At this point, stages of understanding which are the realizations of
Communicative Apparatus (CA) were used to categorize the functions of the
interjections utilized in the
LaRa communication Azerbaijani and Turkish
interjections were examined with respect to their signal categories which are
understanding, misunderstanding, believing to understand, guessing, partial
understanding and
non-understanding as suggested by Rehbein & Romaniuk (in
print). The results of the study suggested that Azerbaijani and Turkish
interlocutors make use of a variety of interjections for varying purposes such as to
their understanding, guessing, non-understanding and believing to understanding.
Finally, using PRAAT pitch contours, intonation patterns and duration of the
interjections were examined to support the functional interpretation of the data.
5.2. Discussion of the Results
In this section, the results obtained and analyzed from the data will be
discussed in relation to the previous studies in the literature.