Conceptual Categories and Proto-Types of Turkish Learners

According to the theory of proto-types, all of the members of semantic and perceptual categories don t represent the same feature. Some of these items are closer to the center position. But some of them may be located more remote point. Those items that are closest to the center are called proto-types. The aim of this study, to analyse if semantic categories focused on particular proto- types circumtances are applicable on individuals whose learning Turkish according to Rosch 1973. The study will be based on categories such as good, bad, fruit, sport, bird, vehicle, science, vegetable, crime and disease. Moreover, a questionaire has been constructed due to the one made by Rosch 1973. The obtained data have been analysed through the Excel program to gather the quantitative results. The informants are totally 82 Ankara University TOMER students who are between the ages of 18-25 coming from different countries of world. Results of the study, shows an equevalentfeatures obtained by Rosch (1973) that the individuals who have Turkish mother tongue have chosen the proto-type of semantic categories not from the items according to their interest but from the items which are closer to the center.