I really want to do my project on Turkish cultural interactions because I find it fascinating to see the similarities and differences between the cultures I already have exposure to. I plan to research things such as nonverbal communication and non-linguistic and paralinguistic cues such as eye contact, smiles, tones, pitch, etc. Also there are many important nonverbal cues that are not associated with language such as the way we speak, the way we dress, the way our accents develop, etc. There are ways for us to emphasize and convey what we want to say through different forms of nonverbal communication such as eye contact, touch, proxemics. A lot of this is very connected to language itself, because there are likely gestures and names of gestures that are associated with different many different meanings. I will be analyzing Turkish culture on the basis of high/low contact cultures, boundaries, attitudes, etc. In terms of my learning plan, I did mention that I wanted to learn basic greetings. However, I think it would be an interesting bonus for me to pick up certain gestures / certain gestures to avoid in terms of language.
Another idea is that I want to do is possibly a presentation on Turkish semiotics. I find semiotics very interesting since many different cultures believe in different things. For example, in different cultures, certain symbols can be interpreted as good or bad luck, certain numbers may mean different things, there might be some items that you should not gift to others. In learning about these things, it can be tied into language in figuring out cultural meanings in speech. There may be certain numbers I avoid or certain symbols I avoid discussing. It would be beneficial for me to learn more about the culture and certain taboos in the Turkish language.
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