Abstract:

The aim of this study Turkish as a foreign language learner students' perception of Syrian refugees in Turkey to determine through metaphors. Phenomenology approach, which is one of the qualitative research methods, was utilized in the study. The study group of the study consists of 235 Syrian refugees who learn Turkish at A2, B1, B2 level at Aydın TOMER,  Istanbul Aydın University. They have students on Turkey, in order to uncover metaphors for the perception was asked to complete the sentence  “Turkey .......... because it is like ...........”from each of them. A personal information form was also created to collect the personal information of the students. Students produced a total of 201 valid metaphors for Turkish. In this context, 201 metaphor is taken into consideration and divided into groups according to the field in which each metaphor is conceptualized and gathered under a certain theme. When the results of the study are examined, the metaphors produced by the students are categorized under the theme of 51 belongingness, 56 protective, 35 positive feeling, 5 negative feeling, 24 love, 19 guiding and 11 necessity. When regarded from this context, it can be said that students generally view Turkey as a protective place for themselves, do not view Turkey as a temporary location but foster feelings of belonging, and have positive feelings toward Turkey. In addition, some of the students came to Turkey and compelling reasons were found to feed negative feelings towards Turkey.

Keywords: