Cultural changes in Turkish society: A comparative study through literature of past and today


Tezin Türü: Yüksek Lisans

Tezin Yürütüldüğü Kurum: Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi, Fen Edebiyat Fakültesi, Psikoloji Bölümü, Türkiye

Tezin Onay Tarihi: 2018

Öğrenci: ÖYKÜ YAMAN

Danışman: TÜRKER ÖZKAN

Özet:

This study aims to investigate cultural transformation of Turkish culture by using Turkish literature. According to Karpat (2011), social development can be observed through literature because authors express people’s traditions and values both to glorify and to criticize. Schwartz (1994) also agrees that culture can be derived from various cultural products like folktales. To observe cultural difference, I formed two time periods: (1) was covering Abdülhamid II sultanate and pre-republic years and (2) began from 90’s exceeded to 2010. My materials were Sinekli Bakkal and Sözde Kızlar; Yeşil Peri Gecesi and Zamanın Manzarası. I expected cultural differences between novel that belongs separated periods. To analyze cultural transformation, I used value types in Portrait Values Questionnaire (PVQ: Schwartz et al. 2001). I edited values in the questionnaire for coding and the coders analyzed the novels by using MAXQDA 18 (VERBI Software, 2017). After the analysis, I compared the volumes of the values. Time Period I novels had high volume on Conservation and Self-Transcendence as expected. Time Period II novels had high volume of Self-Enhancement as expected. Conservation had higher volume and Self-Enhancement has lower volume in Time Period I novels than the other. Analyses of novel characters might result in diversity yet they gave understandable and explainable results. That I only used books as my sample made harder to interpret data. Further studies should focus on more novels and former data should be used for comparison.