Abstract:

One way of tracking the history childhood in Turkish society is to examine child-themed proverbs. Proverbs that reflect the views of Turkish society with regard to children and childhood enable us to take lessons from profound observations and experiences of our ancestry and develop historical and cultural understandings. The main aim of this study is to reveal how the concepts of child and childhood are used in the proverbs parents use to talk about children in their daily lives. To this end, initially child-themed proverbs parents use most frequently were determined as the main data source of the study. Later on, 454 proverbs were complied via phone, e-mail or face-toface. The accurate use of the proverbs complied were determined by looking up the Dictionary of Proverbs and Idioms by Ömer Asım Aksoy. After that, the frequency of the words in the proverbs was determined. In the next stage, child-themed proverbs were classified in terms of sub-themes and the way the concepts of child and childhood handled was analyzed. In this study, it was determined that child-themed proverbs were used rather commonly and that animal metaphors and family members are used frequently among the word groups that make up the proverbs. Besides, it is concluded that Turkish society attaches importance to children but gender discrimination is also seen frequently and that liberal atmosphere the child lives in or parental attitudes that promote freedom are not held with.

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