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Introduction

New knowledge is constructed on top of existing knowledge. Second or foreign language learners enter language classrooms with their existing linguistic knowledge from the first language (L1), which may positively or negatively influence their learning of the second or foreign language (Selinker, 1972). In English as a Foreign Language (EFL) countries, such as Turkey, although it is advocated to avoid using L1 in English classrooms to increase the target language exposure, learners’ exposure to L1 from family or contexts outside of the classroom is inevitably preponderant. Hence, taking advantage of the potential facilitating impact from L1 on English learning should be encouraged (Bruen & Kelly, 2017; Meyer, 2008; Schweers, 1999).

Despite various definitions of cognates, numerous empirical studies in different fields, such as second language acquisition, cognitive linguistics and neuroscience, have demonstrated the accelerating role of cognates or loanwords in second and foreign language acquisition (Daulton, 2008; Marecka et al., 2020; Otwinowska & Szewczyk, 2017). Cross-linguistic similarity contributes to easier comprehension, better memorization, and improved production (Ringbom, 2006). For Turkish and English, although the two languages belong to different language families, there are evident connections between them (Karababa, 2011). However, few studies have extensively explored the loanwords and cognates between Turkish and English and their pedagogical implications. Based on a broader synchronic definition of cognates (Daulton, 2008), this study aims to establish a frequency-based Turkish-English loanword cognates word list (TELCWL) that can be employed by both learners and teachers to enhance the English language learning experience of Turkish speakers. The creation of the TELCWL takes the existing linguistic knowledge of the learners, especially their vocabulary knowledge, into account. Hence, the employment of the TELCWL in Turkish EFL teaching and learning practice is expected to be beneficial for lowering learners’ anxiety and promoting motivation and effectiveness in learning English

Cognates, loanwords, and loanword cognates

Based on Daulton’s (2008) broader synchronic viewpoint of cognates, cognates can be understood as two words in different languages that share a similar or same form and meaning regardless of etymology. This is different from the strict diachronic view, which emphasizes the common ancestor of the two languages when defining a cognate (Anthony, 1952). Applying the broader synchronic viewpoint in the current study presents the emphasis on pedagogical purposes that put learners’ rather than linguists’ study of cognates into focus. In Rogers et al.’s (2015) study, such a broad definition of cognates was also employed to elaborate the discussion of borrowed words or loanwords across historically unrelated languages. In contrast to cognates, false cognates refer to words that are only similar in form but have different meanings in two languages.

Loanwords derive from lexical borrowing, which refers to “the adoption of individual or sets of words from another language or dialect” (Daulton, 2020, p. 1788). The forms of lexical borrowing may include roots and affixes, sounds, collocations, and grammatical processes. In the case of the Turkish language, throughout history, it has observed various changes. Starting from the end of the 15th century, Arabic and Persian borrowed words started to appear in Turkish as those languages represented prestigious culture and literacy by the educated community (Gibb, 2014). The most recent and crucial change occurred in 1928 with the replacement of the Ottoman Script (i.e., a version of the Arabic alphabet) to the Latin alphabet (Buğday & Frakes, 2009). Closer ties with the Western world, common usages of French as a prestigious diplomatic language, and Westernization attempts of the country enabled this orthographic reform, which led to lexical borrowing from French and other European languages (Hanioğlu, 2011). According to the Turkish Language Association (personal communication, 2020, see Appendix 1), Turkish has borrowed heavily from Arabic, Persian, French, English, Greek, Latin and so on; with 122.423 words included in modern Turkish, 15.373 of these words, namely nearly 13% have a foreign origin. Therefore, with both Turkish and English words closely connected to French and Latin (Durkin, 2014; Hanioğlu, 2011), even though Turkish may not directly borrow from English, a relatively strong connection between Turkish and English vocabulary can be observed, especially in scientific usages (Çakır, 2015).

To this end, based on the broad synchronic viewpoint of cognates and due to the loanwordbased characteristics of Turkish-English cognates, the phrase ‘loanword cognates’ is used in the present study. In addition, since the major objective of the current study is to create a word list of loanword cognates that may serve the purpose of language teaching and learning, especially for classroom practitioners and lower-level English learners rather than linguists, cognates and loanword cognates are used interchangeably in the study to avoid redundancy. In short, in the current study, cognates are word pairs that have identical or very similar semantic meaning and orthography between two languages, although the phonological forms of the two words may or may not be the same. For instance, alternative in English and alternatif in Turkish are loanword cognates.

Cognates for L2 learning

A large number of studies have revealed the facilitative effect of cognates regarding the recognition and production of words between diverse pairs of languages (Costa et al., 2005). In particular, the effect of cognates between Romance and Germanic languages and English in language learning and teaching has been thoroughly studied as they share substantial Latin origin (Blumenfeld & Marian, 2005; Bravo et al., 2006; Brenders et al., 2011; Gollan et al., 2007; Siyambalapitiya et al., 2009). Comesaña et al.’s (2015) experiments on the facilitative effect of cognate words revealed the importance of the degree of orthographic and phonological overlap between two languages in influencing word recognition and processing. Daulton’s extensive work on English-based loanword cognates in Japanese has shown the considerable potential of using cognates in EFL teaching even though the two languages may not be historically connected (Daulton, 2008, 2010). Gholami et al. (2015) suggested that the instruction of the structural similarities between the L1 and L2 lexicon facilitates L2 vocabulary acquisition for Iranian English learners. Baird et al.’s (2016) study on young bilinguals noted that emergent bilingual children had the advantage in using shared phonology of words and were able to recognize and produce cognates without extensive knowledge of orthography of the words. In addition, Jacobs et al.’s (2016) study found that cognate words were named more quickly and accurately than matched non-cognates regarding crosslanguage activation for English Spanish learners. Otwinowska and Szewczyk (2017) also suggested that cognates were easier to learn compared to non-cognate words, which verifies the notion that the meaning of unknown cognates is easier to be inferred due to the orthographical similarity in a known language (Vanhove & Berthele, 2017). Azieb et al.’s (2021) study on Jordanian English speakers’ French learning further supported the facilitative effects of cognates on comprehension of the foreign language. Following the facilitative impact of cognates for language learning, García et al. (2020) developed pedagogical approaches for improving SpanishEnglish bilingual students’ reading, spelling, and writing abilities.

However, in foreign language teaching practice, what learners bring to the learning task may oftentimes be underestimated (Hall, 2002). In other words, language educators might overlook the fact that foreign language learners’ previous language knowledge may influence how foreign language instruction is perceived. As previous empirical studies have pointed out, language learners tend to be more sensitive toward the similarities between the new language and their existing language knowledge (Pérez et al., 2010); in particular, if the learners are aware of the cognates between the two languages, it is more likely for them to use their existing linguistic and vocabulary knowledge to learn the new vocabulary items, further the vocabulary depth knowledge (Cena et al., 2013), and retain a higher level of motivation in learning (Uni, 2020). Hence, helping learners build a strong connection between their native languages and the target language by being aware of the interlingual similarities, especially at the initial learning stage, could be beneficial for their further learning. As Rubin (1987) pointed out, “once the students’ attention is drawn to the relationship, the same student may learn several hundred words in a very short time. Hence, some kinds of conscious interventions are assumed to be helpful in the learning process” (p. 16).

As for Turkish and English, the relatively strong connection between the two languages has been demonstrated in the previous section. Moreover, studies have shown that Turkish English learners are frequently presented as being demotivated in terms of learning English (Akay, 2017). Therefore, there is a need to find means that help Turkish English learners connect the target language with their native language, which can motivate their further learning in English. A word list of Turkish-English cognates can be beneficial for tackling this issue.

Word lists and cognates lists for language education

In the past two decades, word lists derived from a variety of corpora for diverse purposes have been created to assist vocabulary learning and teaching (Nation, 2016). Commonly based on the features of frequency, range, and dispersion, word lists have shown considerable efficiency and effectiveness in promoting one’s vocabulary learning, from general to discipline-specific vocabulary. Regarding the English language, the General Service List (GSL; West, 1953) consists of the 2,000 most frequent English words. Despite its age, the GSL remains one of the best researched frequency-range-based word lists (Gilner, 2011). With a high lexical coverage of English (~70-90%), the GSL has been widely used for pedagogical purposes and vocabulary research (Nurmukhamedov & Webb, 2019). To update the GSL, the New General Service List (NGSL) was developed by Browne et al. (2013) for studying English as a second language, providing over 92% coverage for most general English texts. Besides word lists for general English, disciplineand purpose-specific word lists have also been developed to meet diverse learners’ needs, such as the Academic Word List (AWL; Coxhead, 2000), the Essential Word List by Dang and Webb (2016), the Business Word List (Konstantakis, 2007), the Basic Engineering List (Ward, 2009), the Medical Academic Word list (Wang, et al., 2008), and so forth.

Regarding the use of word lists, well-designed word lists can be used for various purposes, including course designing, language teaching and learning, specialized vocabulary teaching and learning, as well as language testing (Nation, 2016). Folse (2004) also suggests the potential benefits of employing suitable word lists for foreign vocabulary learning. Moreover, word lists have also played an important role in the construction of learners’ dictionaries and graded reading programs. For instance, the Collins COBUILD dictionary marks the usefulness of the words according to their frequency for EFL learners (Sinclair, 1987). With more and better word lists developed, the reliability of vocabulary size and vocabulary level tests has been largely enhanced, which further assists in more precise planning of teaching the actual vocabulary that needs to be known (Nation, 2016).

In terms of word lists of cognates, comparatively fewer studies have been conducted. Although some studies in the intersection of linguistics and computer science have developed various approaches for cognates recognition and identification (e.g., Arnaud, 2017; Hauer & Kondrak, 2011; Rama & List, 2019), the research motivation and implications for most of the studies do not serve the purpose of language education. For other lists of cognates, the scope of the lists is usually limited. For instance, Montelongo (2011) created a short list of Spanish-English cognates based on the Dewey Decimal System to help Latino English learners with recognizing cognates in texts. However, the list of cognates only contains 99 sets of Spanish-English cognates, which may provide merely limited use in language pedagogy. Montelongo et al. (2013) generated English-Spanish cognates from picture books to assist vocabulary instruction of K-4^th grade learners. In the context of English education in Turkey, Uzun and Salіhoǧlu (2009, 2021) compiled a comprehensive list of English-Turkish cognates and false cognates according to university English learners’ judgment based on four English dictionaries. The list contains 2411 sets of English-Turkish cognates and false cognates. To the best of the researchers’ knowledge, this is the only existing list of English-Turkish cognates. Nevertheless, despite the indicated pedagogical implications, this list has yet to be employed extensively in pedagogical practice. This list was compiled based on dictionaries according to the alphabetical order and the number of participants who shared the same judgment. However, the frequency features of the words in the language were not taken into consideration. Therefore, the final list may not provide learners with the most frequently used cognates in the languages.

In sum, with the advantages that cognates may bring to foreign language learning and the potentially large number of loanword cognates between Turkish and English, it is essential to provide a suitable and practical loanword cognates word list for pedagogical practice. Frequency features of the words are an essential factor when creating word lists for pedagogical purposes (Brysbaert et al., 2018). Currently, there has not been a list of Turkish-English loanword cognates that is generated systematically based on comprehensive corpora. Thus, based on pedagogical needs, the present study aims to create a Turkish-English loanword cognates word list depending on the frequency feature of the words, which can be employed to assist English vocabulary instruction to Turkish learners, especially at the initial learning stage. The following research questions led to the investigation of the current study:

1. (1) How many loanword cognates and false cognates in Turkish can be identified among the 2801 words listed in the New General Service List (NGSL)?

2. (2) How many loanword cognates and false cognates in English can be identified among the first 2801 words in the Frequency Dictionary of Turkish (FDT)?

3. (3) How many Turkish-English loanword cognates are included in the final loanword cognates word list?

4. (4) What are the coverages of this Turkish-English loanword cognates word list (TECLWL) in different corpora?

Methodology

Two base word lists: The New General Service List (NGSL) and the Frequency Dictionary of Turkish (FDT)

Two word lists were selected as the base lists to identify the Turkish-English loanword cognates for this study. Both base word lists were compiled based on large-scope corpora according to the frequency feature of the words, which provides the foundation for creating the list of cognates in the current study. Based on high-frequency English and Turkish words, the finalized TurkishEnglish loanword cognates list is expected to present cognates that are highly frequent in both English and Turkish across various genres.

The base high-frequency English word list chosen for the present study is the New General Service List (NGSL) created by Browne et al. (2013). The list includes 2801 high-frequency words in English that were derived from the 273-million-word subcorpus of the Cambridge English Corpus (CEC). The researchers aimed to create a practical word list which updates and increases the generalizability and validity of the original GSL, as well as facilitates vocabulary learning and teaching. The principles employed to create the NGSL resemble the development of the original GSL, meaning both quantitative and qualitative approaches were used to identify the highfrequency words that are most useful to the needs of language learners (Browne, 2014). The subcorpora of the CEC that the researchers used to generate the NGSL include the learner, fiction, journals, magazines, nonfictions, radio, spoken, documents, and TV corpus. Before finalizing the list, it was further compared to other important word lists, such as the original GSL, the British Nation Corpus (BNC), and Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA), to make sure the inclusion and exclusion of certain words. As a result, the final NGSL provides over 92% coverage for most general English texts. Therefore, considering the wide scope of the base corpus, the scientific method of compilation, the high coverage, and the aim of serving English learners, the NGSL was employed in the current study to identify the Turkish cognates of the most frequent 2801 English words.

In alignment with the principles used in establishing the NGSL, the Frequency Dictionary of Turkish (FDT) was also developed with the consideration of assisting learners of Turkish as a second or foreign language. The base corpus of the FDT is the 50-million-word Turkish National Corpus (TNC). The TNC was constructed following the BNC to form a balanced and representative corpus of contemporary Turkish (Aksan et al., 2012). Both written and spoken language were involved in the corpus. Thus, the FDT includes the 5000 most frequently used words in contemporary written and spoken Turkish. As the FDT was derived from general written and spoken Turkish under systematic principles and it was created with pedagogical purposes, the current study employed the FDT as the base Turkish word list to identify the English cognates. In order to have a clear comparison with the English word list, the first 2801 words from the FDT were examined.

Identifying Turkish-English cognates and creating the loanword cognates word list

To avoid ambiguity, the two researchers of this study invited three external native Turkish speakers whose English level was all near-native to identify the loanword cognates in the two base word lists. In this way, the final decision of each loanword cognate was discussed and made by four native Turkish speakers with native-level English proficiency. The three external raters and the Turkish-speaking researcher in this study are experienced English teachers who have taught English to speakers of Turkish for at least ten years. In addition, the two researchers of this study and the three external raters all have daily communication with Turkish English learners. Based on the experienced Turkish-speaking English teachers’ understanding of the Turkish and English language as well as Turkish English learners’ needs and characteristics, the following five criteria were determined to identify different types of loanword cognates. The criteria were designed to serve potential pedagogical practices; moreover, higher consistency while identifying the cognates was reached based on the criteria. Six categories of cognates were concluded based on the criteria (see Table 1).

Criterion 1. In terms of orthography, when the corresponding English and Turkish words contain 50% or more same letters in spelling, the two words were categorized as same or similar spelling, e.g., report and rapor, group and grup, information and enformasyon. In contrast, when the two words contain less than 50% same letters in spelling, the two words were categorized as different spelling, e.g., quality and kalite, chance and şans, club and kulüp.

Criterion 2. Regarding the pronunciation between the corresponding English and Turkish words, the words were judged in a holistic way. The two researchers and the three external raters compared and contrasted the pronunciations in a joint effort to avoid subjectiveness. If the majority of the phonemes in each word were pronounced in a distinguishingly different manner, the two words were categorized as different pronunciations, e.g., budget and bütçe, equipment and ekipman, double and duble. On the other hand, if the two words share more recognizably similar phonemes, they were categorized as same or similar pronunciation, e.g., politics and politik, status and statü, physical and fiziksel.

Criterion 3. There are also some loanword cognates in either English or Turkish only sharing one or a few of the multiple meanings that the corresponding word in the other language contains. Additionally, some words in one language can only be used in certain restricted disciplines or professions in the other language. These two types of corresponding English and Turkish words were categorized as partial cognates regardless of their similarities and differences in spelling and pronunciation. For instance, defans (i.e., defense in English) in Turkish is only used in sport-related contexts; solüsyon (i.e., solution in English) is only used as a technical term in certain science disciplines such as chemistry; kombine and kombin (i.e., combine in English) refer only to the combined tickets of sport events and harmony of outfits respectively.

Criterion 4. Certain Turkish words contain an English cognate part and are followed by one or more Turkish suffixes, e.g., leadership and liderlik. Also, in certain cases, to form the corresponding meaning to an English word, an extra word needs to be added to the Turkish cognate word, such as automatically in English and otomatik şekilde in Turkish. Cases like these were categorized as partial cognates.

Criterion 5. English and Turkish words that share either recognizable spelling or pronunciation but differ in meaning were categorized as false cognates, e.g., top in Turkish means ball, bin in Turkish means thousand.

Adhering to the determined criteria, the categorization of the two base word lists (i.e., NGSL and FDT) was implemented. For each base word list, the 2801 words were color-coded in a joint manner by the five raters. As a result, six sublists of different types of loanword cognates were formed for each base word list. Appendix 2 and 3 show the complete sublists derived from the two base word lists. To assist the pedagogical practice in teaching English-Turkish loanword cognates, the final sublists of the TELCWL were combined based on the English word frequency, and the repetitive words appearing in both base lists were deleted and marked. Appendix 4 presents the combined loanword cognates word list, namely the TELCWL.

Calculating the coverage of the TELCWL

After the final list of Turkish-English loanword cognates was compiled, the coverages of the list, including the five sublists of loanword cognates, in different corpora were examined. This was to answer Research Question 4, which intends to reveal the coverages of the TELCWL across different genres to further validate the pedagogical value of the list.

To calculate the coverages of the TELCWL, the Coverage Calculator v. 1.2 from Compleat Lexical Tutor (Cobb, n.d.) was employed. This program calculates how many times the words on a list appear in a corpus. Multiple corpora are embedded in this program. Examples of corpora for general service purposes are the Brown Corpus, the Lancaster-Oslo/Bergen Corpus (LOB Corpus), sample COCA and BNC corpora, and so forth. Several discipline and field-specific corpora are also included, such as BNC medical, commerce, law, and social science corpora, Research Article Corpus, and Electrical Engineering Corpus, and so on.

The sublists of the TELCWL were tested by three categories of corpora to present a full profile. The corpora that were selected to calculate the coverages of the TELCWL include general service written and spoken corpora and discipline-specific corpora. This is to examine the coverages and representativeness of the TELCWL across various genres and registers to reveal its potential value in pedagogical practices. First, the coverages of the lists in four general service written corpora were calculated. The four corpora were the Brown Corpus (1M), the LOB Corpus, the COCA sampler corpus, and the BNC sampler written corpus. The second category of corpora was the general service spoken corpora. Three corpora were selected, including the COCA sampler speech corpus, the BNC sampler speech corpus, and the US TV talk corpus. Lastly, five corpora were selected to construct the disciplineand field-specific category, including the BNC medical, commerce, law, social science corpora and the RAC corpus.

The coverages of the full word list and each sublist of the loanword cognates were investigated except the false cognates list because the main purpose of compiling the false cognates list was to provide a reference list that teachers and students may need to pay special attention to. Besides, the coverage of a false cognates list in a corpus may not have a critical influence on pedagogical practice.

Results

Research question 1

Research Question 1 investigated the number of Turkish loanword cognates of high-frequency English words in the NGSL. After the five raters discussed each word on the list, 329 Turkish loanword cognates that share the similar or same spelling and pronunciation of the English words were detected, this counts for 11.75% of words in the NGSL; 16 words, namely 0.57%, were categorized as having Turkish loanword cognates but with different spelling and pronunciation; as for the Turkish loanword cognates that share similar or same spelling only with the English words, 11 words were detected, which is 0.39% of the NGSL; 28 words (1%) were identified as having Turkish loanword cognates that are similar or same in pronunciation but not spelling.

Turkish loanword cognates that were recognized as partial cognates of the English words take 3.14% of the NGSL, namely 88 words. Finally, 44 false cognates were detected, counting for 1.57% of the NGSL. Figure 1 visualizes the proportion of each category. The full lists of words in each category are shown in Appendix 2.

Research question 2

The second research question focused on the percentage of English loanword cognates of highfrequency Turkish words in the FDT. The result shows that 244 Turkish words were detected with English cognates that share similar or same spelling and pronunciation, which counted for 8.71% of the top 2801 words in the FDT. There were 15 loanword cognates in English (0.54%) that shared different spelling and pronunciation with the Turkish words. As for the English loanword cognates considered as sharing similar or same spelling but different pronunciation, 8 were detected, which took 0.29% of the top 2801 words in the FDT. 26 words (0.93%) were categorized as having English loanword cognates that share only similar pronunciation. For the words that partial English cognates were identified, there were 9, taking 0.32% of the total words. Lastly, there were 116 words, namely 4.14%, in the list having false cognates in English. Detailed division of words from the FDT is depicted in Figure 2, and the full lists of each category are presented in Appendix 3.

Research question 3

To form a complete loanword cognates word list, the detected Turkish-English loanword cognates in different categories from the NGSL and FDT were combined. The repetitive pairs were excluded in the combined list; in the end, there were 582 Turkish-English loanword cognate pairs distributed in 5 categories. There were 140 false Turkish-English cognates. Appendix 4 shows the complete loanword cognates lists, and Figure 3 illustrates the distribution of different categories.

Research question 4

To answer the last research question, first, coverages of the full list of Turkish-English loanword cognates (i.e., 582 lemmas) in different corpora were calculated. Table 2 presents the specific coverages in the 12 selected corpora. Compared to general service written and spoken corpora, the word list had the highest coverages of discipline and field-specific corpora (Mdiscipline = 7.17%). The average coverage of spoken corpora was the lowest (Mspoken = 3.48%), which was less than half of the coverage of the discipline and field-specific corpora. The written corpora demonstrated a 5.00% average coverage from the word list.

Second, the coverages of each sublist in the 12 corpora were calculated (see Table 2). Following the pattern of the full list coverages in the corpora, except for the sublist of partial cognates, on average, the coverages of the other sublists appeared mostly higher in written and field-specific corpora; in particular, the coverages in the discipline and field-specific corpora were the highest. However, the coverages of the spoken corpora were considerably lower. Figure 4 visualizes the average coverages of the full word list and the sublists in different corpora.

Discussion

Summary of results

For the first two research questions, relatively high percentages of loanword cognates were identified in both the NGSL (i.e., 472 cognates in total, 16.85% of the entire NGSL) and the FDT (i.e., 302 cognates in total, 10.79% of the entire FDT). In particular, for the NGSL, more than onesixth of the entire word list can be found corresponding loanword cognates in Turkish, meaning that with effective guidance, Turkish English learners will be able to easily detect one Turkish loanword cognate word in every six high-frequency English words. This can be of particular benefit for Turkish English learners’ receptive skills, including reading and listening. During the reading and listening process, learners’ existing linguistic knowledge of the corresponding Turkish loanword cognates could be beneficial for enhancing their understanding of the English text and lowering their anxiety in reading and listening to the foreign language.

To answer the third research question, combining the identified Turkish-English loanword cognates from the NGSL and the FDT, 582 Turkish-English loanword cognate word pairs were finally compiled to form the Turkish-English Loanword Cognates Word List (TELCWL). For pedagogical purposes, the TELCWL was compiled based on the frequency of the English words and divided into five sublists, including cognates with same/similar spelling and same/similar pronunciation, cognates with different spelling and different pronunciation, cognates with same/similar spelling but different pronunciation, cognates with different spelling but same/similar pronunciation, and partial cognates.

To answer the fourth research question, the coverages of the TELCWL and the sublists were then examined in different corpora to investigate their validity and practicability. The TELCWL and most sublists had relatively high average coverages in discipline and field-specific corpora. For the full list of TELCWL, the coverage in the discipline and field-specific corpora was 7.17% on average. Compared to the coverages of other word lists for specific purposes in their corresponding corpora, such as the Academic Word List in academic texts (~10%; Coxhead, 2000), the basic engineering word list in engineering texts (~16%; Ward, 2009), the nursing academic word list in nursing research articles corpus (~14%; Yang, 2015), and the Medical Academic Word list in medical research articles (~12%; Wang, et al., 2008), the coverage of the TELCWL can be considered as relatively high.

In sum, the results of the current study provide a comprehensive list of Turkish-English loanword cognates that are organized according to the frequency features of both languages. This list is expected to fill the current gap in Turkish-English cognate research that may assist pedagogical practices of English education in Turkey. Compared to the previous relevant studies, such as Uzun and Salіhoǧlu (2009, 2021), the list of loanword cognates in the present study is primarily compiled for pedagogical practice. Since the frequency features of the cognate words played a critical role in the compiling process, moreover, the coverages of the TELCWL have been examined as high across various corpora, the final list is expected to assist Turkish English learners in identifying and learning English vocabulary efficiently and effectively.

Pedagogical implications

Regarding pedagogical implications, having explicit instruction of the TELCWL in English classrooms and establishing the connection between Turkish and English can be helpful for Turkish English learners in learning English for specific purposes, such as academic purposes. With the assistance of Turkish-English loanword cognates, Turkish English learners’ vocabulary learning could be enlarged with little effort expected as they might be already familiar with the Turkish loanword cognates. This is in line with previous studies that have shown the effectiveness of explicit vocabulary and morphological instruction (Schmitt & Zimmerman, 2002; Sukying, 2020). Naturally, some cross-linguistic awareness activities can be employed in EFL classrooms in Turkey. These activities can be both paper-based or computer-based. On the other hand, although there are a large number of Turkish-English loanword cognates among the highfrequency words, to avoid fossilization and ill-usages, classroom instructors should explicitly point out the differences between the cognates in spelling and pronunciation; in addition, for partial cognates, comprehensive explanation of the Turkish and English words and their differences in usages should be presented. For false cognates, English instructors should also specifically underline the differences between the Turkish and English words to prevent misunderstanding of the learners. On the other hand, research has also shown the value of incidental learning for acquiring cognates (De Vos et al., 2019; Puimège & Peters, 2019). Hence, English educators may also consider employing various activities that help the learner access the cognates incidentally. For instance, using multimedia technology to expose the learners to selective video clips containing the target cognates may increase their encountering of the vocabulary as well as further encourage their motivation in language learning (Zhang & Zou, 2021).

Finally, research in translanguaging also supports the employment of the TELCWL in English language teaching in Turkey. As stated by Swain and Watanabe (2019), L2 learners’ usage of L1 is a prominent instrument which helps L2 learners to form their opinions, focus their attention and scaffold their understanding and production in L2. Additionally, enhancing homeschool associations and collaboration, incorporating fluent speakers with language learners, and promoting a deeper understanding of the content are some of the noticeable benefits of translanguaging (Baker, 2011). Clancy’s (2018) study also suggests that learners may desire the use of L1 in certain circumstances to foster their understanding of the target language. Hence, introducing the loanword cognate list can be supportive of students’ foreign language learning by using their existing linguistic repertoire. Furthermore, both learners and teachers can focus on the process of teaching and learning on meaning-making and improving the learning experience (Creese & Blackledge, 2015; García, 2019).

Limitations and suggestions for further research

With respect to the limitations of the study, first, the categorization of the cognate words was conducted according to the raters’ subjective decisions. Therefore, even though the raters were chosen carefully to present Turkish English learners’ and educators’ perspectives, the controversy regarding the cognateness of the words might exist. We encourage further research in examining the individual loanword cognates provided in this study. Second, the study is limited by the lack of generalization for other language pairs. The criteria determined in identifying different types of Turkish-English cognates in the present study may not apply to other language pairs that use different alphabetical systems, such as Chinese and English. Finally, since this study aims to provide an initial step for instructing Turkish-English cognate words, the scope of the study does not allow us to develop specific teaching materials or activities for language learners and educators. Further studies may consider developing various activities that apply the TELCWL in pedagogical practices, this will also provide channels to further validate the effectiveness of the TELCWL.

Conclusions

In this study, the Turkish-English Loanword Cognates Word List (TELCWL) was established, containing 582 Turkish-English cognate word pairs. With the relatively high coverage of the word list in written and discipline and field-specific corpora, as well as the potential benefits of including learners’ first language in foreign language instruction, employing the TELCWL in English classroom instruction in Turkey may help Turkish English learners be aware of the connection between their native language and the target language. This may further improve their motivation in English learning, lower their anxiety level, and enhance learning efficiency and effectiveness. Moreover, to further assist classroom teachers and learners, the researchers divided the TELCWL into five sublists based on the spelling and pronunciation features of the loanword cognates. Explicit instruction of the marked similarities and differences between the Turkish-English loanword cognate pairs regarding spelling and pronunciation is encouraged to avoid learners’ misunderstanding and fossilization in learning.

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APA Citation: Yu, X., & Altunel, V. (2021). Creating a frequency-based Turkish-English Loanword Cognates Word List (TELCWL). Focus on ELT Journal, 3(2), 5-35. https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2021.3.2.2

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