Creating a frequency-based Turkish-English loanword cognates word list (TELCWL)

Abstract

This lexical study aims to establish a frequency-based Turkish-English Loanword Cognates Word List (TELCWL) to assist Turkish English learners' improvement in English language learning and the corresponding pedagogical practice. A final list of 582 Turkish-English loan-based cognate word pairs was derived from the New General Service List (NGSL) and the Frequency Dictionary of Turkish (FDT). For pedagogical purposes, the TELCWL was divided into five sublists with different features of the cognates in spelling and pronunciation. The coverages of the TELCWL were particularly high in discipline and field-specific corpora on average compared to general service written (5%) and spoken corpora (3.5%), accounting for more than 7%. This result suggests that the TELCWL may be more beneficial for enhancing learners' reading and writing ability; in addition, not only general Turkish English learners but also learners who need to improve their English language proficiency in specific disciplines can benefit from the TELCWL. Further pedagogical implications are made for English instructors regarding the employment of the TELCWL in English classrooms in Turkey.