A genre-based analysis of Turkish coffee cup readings human versus artificial intelligence as fortune-teller
Discourse, Context and Media, vol.71, 2026 (SSCI, Scopus)
- Publication Type: Article / Article
- Volume: 71
- Publication Date: 2026
- Doi Number: 10.1016/j.dcm.2026.101012
- Journal Name: Discourse, Context and Media
- Journal Indexes: Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), Scopus, Linguistic Bibliography, MLA - Modern Language Association Database
- Keywords: AI-generated fortune-telling, Coffee cup reading, Fortune-telling, Fortune-telling apps, Genre-based discourse analysis
- Middle East Technical University Affiliated: Yes
Abstract
Coffee cup reading, a ritualized social practice in Turkish culture, has recently migrated onto digital platforms and AI-powered smartphone applications. Drawing on Swales’ (1990) move analysis and Bhatia’s (1993) genre-analytic perspective, this exploratory study examines Turkish coffee cup readings, as a genre, by a professional human fortune-teller and an AI-based application. The rhetorical organization, linguistic features, and use of symbolic resources of their written interpretations for the same coffee cup images are compared. The analysis suggests that while both readers realize core genre moves (greeting, prediction, advice, closure), the outputs produced by the app follow a more fixed and symbol-saturated move structure, whereas the human exhibits a more flexible, interactionally oriented discourse alternating between symbol-based and general readings. Both employ omniscopus language typical of fortune-telling but differ in their deployment of formality, humor, intertextuality, and symbolic repertoires. These observations suggest how traditional fortune-telling discourse may be reconfigured in AI-mediated environments while retaining key genre conventions.