TURKISH EMOTION WORD ‘SIKILMAK’ AND EQUIVALENTS IN KOREAN

Dursun ESSIZ

Department of Korean Language and Literature, Erciyes University Kayseri, TURKEY

Published: 16 May 2019 Copyright © Essiz.

Cite this article: Essiz, D. (2019). Turkish Emotion Word ‘Sikilmak’ And Equivalents In Korean. International Journal of Liberal Arts and Social Science, 7(4), 103-112.

Abstract This study aims to introduce the ethnocentric concept of emotion words and to present some basic studies and observations about the emotion words from different cultures. Within the same link however, the main purpose of the study is to present a specific emotion word from Turkish and explain it in English. Various examples are provided from Turkish corpus and by means of these examples ethnocentric meanings of this word have been presented by a different method from the dictionary. Moreover, the significant point is to show the equivalent words in Korean, of which meanings are provided from the Standard Dictionary published by National Institute of Korean. The final step of the study is concluding some educational advises from the differences between these words from both languages.

1. INTRODUCTION Emotions are the one of the most important notions of our lives. Charles Birch (1995) claims that emotions are the most important concept and in a similar vein Rodney Needham (1981) states “I take it to be true that what we think of as our ‘real’ lives is characteristically an account of our feelings.” Throughout the history, considerable number of philosopher and psychologists studied emotions and published papers and books about it. As a result in the areas such as psychophysiology, evolution, psychodynamics several definitions were made for the word of emotion. In these studies, many scholars argued about the universality of the emotions and concluded that the basic human emotions such as ‘anger’, ‘fear’ are universal and every human being has it (Plutchik, R. 2002). However, the words we use to explain our emotions are not universal (Wierzbicka A., 1999) . The progress in the studies about human brain provides us the capacity of understanding it in a better way. Therefore, studies in the field of psychology, cross-linguistics, cognitive, anthropology and sociology became more productive. During the studies, the role of the language has been recognized as an epitome to the study of emotions. Particularly when examining the instances from different groups from different cultures it has been observed that while some groups have names for particular emotions, the other groups from other social backgrounds don’t even have names. Thus cultural context was considered to be necessary in order to understand the description of the emotion in a different culture. In this context, the study aims to introduce the phenomenon of ethnocentric vocabulary concept with examples of other cultures’ emotion words and to show an example of Turkish emotion word sıkılmak mainly stating ‘boredom’ and with other semantic features. And at the end of every case the meanings are compared to a Korean emotion word which basically shows the same semantic characteristics with the examples given. Finally, some educational suggestions which are based on the statements made about semantic features of sıkılmak are concluded for better understanding of both Korean and Turkish emotion concepts.

2. WORD OF EMOTIONS AND ETHNOCENTRISM 2.1 Definitions for Ethnocentric Word of Emotion Emotions are one of the least tangible aspects of our life time experience; however they influence our thoughts, actions and even our physiological appearance in a powerful way. When an emotion like ‘anger’ is produced, language is the unique instrument that makes it understandable whether or not it is verbalized or expressed with a physiological response. It is the language that enables people to understand if the opponent is angry or not. And it is the only language that connects instances with the emotions with two disparate labels in a situation where an identical emotion occurs. We can realize lots of information of humans’ inner world by means of language and it provides us the capability of labeling two different occurrences with the same label. Even though different kinds of labels are possible to apply in circumstances, we can provide conceptual connection between disparate emotions with the same label. However, it has been observed that applying same labels between cross-cultural dimensions created problems on understanding the meaning of the emotion mentioned. Within this context Wierzbicka (1988) gives the example of English ‘angry’ and French equal ‘colère’ (cf. Harkins J. et al., 2001). In this example, even though two words are mostly equivalent to each other, they cannot be substituted in every situation. Thus, this shows us that two words from different languages might be occasionally used for each other, yet it is not completely equivalent or interchangeable. Even in languages which are both culturally and linguistically very close and related, usage of language for emotion is connected with cultural identity and cultural attitudes. The link between emotions expressed by particular words and cultural identity is often untranslatable and holds very important ground in understanding cultural patterns. Russel (1991) indicates ‘emotion’ itself is a complete cultural category, some of the other cultures neither can understand it, nor even have such category. Lutz (1988) emphasizes to avoid importing emotional categories from outside and to aim to describe them through their social and interpersonal processes. Thus, this characteristic of emotion words makes it an “ethnocentric” element in the field of linguistics, and it is required to be approached carefully and widely. 2.2 Some Studies on Ethnocentric Words of Emotions Studies on emotion words from an ethnocentric view show us how culture specific they are and not 100% translatable to other languages. As an evident for such claim, some studies may be shown how emotion words vary in meaning in their own culture specifically. Benedict (1946) discussed in his study about Japanese word, ‘haji’ and compared it to English words ‘shame’ and ‘guilt’. As a result, he clearly stated that these words are entirely ethnocentric and belong to their own culture. And in a similar direction Japanese psychiatrist Takeo Doi (1981) published a book about ‘amae’ which is a complete culture specific emotion word, and this is a very solid example of an untranslatable emotion concept. Lutz (1988) focused on Ifaluk (or Ifalik) people living on a Micronesian atoll and their emotions from an anthropological angle. The centerpiece of the study is that he compares the Ifaluk emotions as love, anger and fear with western emotions. In his study, as a conclusion, he figures that Ifaluk emotion words are very different form of English emotion words. Hence, he stated that instead of importing categories from other cultures, every emotion has to be categorized and described in its own culture. Some comprehended studies on ethnocentric feature of emotion words were made by Goddard (1991, 1996) in Yankunyjatjara and Malay. Goddard (1991) compared English word ‘angry’ in Central Australia language Yankunyjatjara and found three translation equivalents which are pikaringanyi, kuyaringanyi and nirpanarinyi. These three Yankunyjatjara words were examined by Goddard in details and observed in some context there are appropriate but not in others. Words focus on different aspects of angry feeling; pikaringanyi appears in context including ‘hostility’, kuyaringanyi is about mostly ‘resentfulness’ and nirpanarinyi as ‘grievance’ In his other study, Goddard (1996) examined the concept of angry in Malay and Malay word marah. Even though marah is mostly translated to word angry some contextual differences were observed about it. For instance, the word marah isn’t used for public anger or anger of protesters who is protesting against government. It is more personal than public, somewhat it is closer to English word ‘offended’. As a final example, Wierzbicka (1999) examined some emotions words in Polish and Mbula and brought some other studies of other scholars. In her study after examining several examples of several cultures, she also stated that words expressing feelings and emotions are culture specific so she argued about universalization of this emotion words via NMS (Natural Meta Semantics). Apart from these studies more researchers published papers about words of emotion from ethnocentric perspective and contributed to prove that emotion words are culture specific and not completely translatable.

3. CASE OF TURKISH EMOTION WORD ‘sıkılmak’ In this section, Turkish word sıkılmak which mainly states boredom is examined in the context of Korean education. The rationale behind the fact the term of Korean education was used is because of Korean’s most comprehensive usage field in Turkey is in ‘Korean Education’. Because of the fact that the initial purpose of the study is to reach to many people as much as possible in the field of Korean education study. Another reason to choose to investigate a Turkish emotion word and its equivalences in Korean is both to reach to educational field and because of the polysemous structure of Turkish vocabulary. Among the vocabularies, words used for expressing emotions are more polysemous. Even the word ‘duygu’ equivalent of emotion was originated from the word ’duymak’ which means hear and synonymous in same context. Aksan, M &Aksan, Y (2012:290~291) and Hirik, E. (2017:55) explain the polysemous structure of Turkish emotion words in following way. ‘Turkish does not have a linguistic feature that creates new roots for new meanings, so the roots at the base have new meanings. This kind of phenomenon specially observed in emotions, even the word emotion (duygu) itself is a derivative.’ In order to examine the word sıkılmak initially, main meanings of sıkılmak will be introduced and meanings related to emotional state will be analyzed. After the selection process, contexts with these meanings of sıkılmak are going to be examined from semantic perspective and their Korean equivalents will be presented. Examples are presented in three different dimensions. First, Turkish sentence provided from corpus. Second, the relevant words of them in English with the same order in Turkish and finally the proper meaning that can be possibly made in English. And ‘…’ refers to the former or/and following text as the whole text is too long in order to present in the study on account of space consideration. First, it is necessary to introduce the primary meanings of the word sıkılmak in the dictionary published by National Institution of Turkish Language. “sıkılmak: (nsz) 1. Sıkmaişiyapılmak: Çamaşırlarsıkıldı. 2. (-den) Can sıkıntısıduymak: “Amalunaparklarınişlemelidönmedolaplarınabakmaktanhiç sıkılmad1ı.” -A. Ağaoğlu. 3. Utanıpçekinmek: “O dakikadandakikayadahaziyadeşaşırıyor, sıkılıyor, buradankurtulmakistiyordu.” -M. Ş. Esendal. 4. Sıkıntıyadüşmek.” Four primary meanings of sıkılmak were presented above and three of them express emotional state. The first one is the meaning which expresses a passive verb, yet not an emotional state. Meaning number one is a passive form of verb sıkmakwhich is an equivalent English word of ‘squeeze’. As in the example given for the meaning number one of the word; (1) Çamaşırlarsıkıldı Laundry squeeze Laundries were squeezed. As it is seemed in ex. (1) first meaning is a passive form for sıkmak. But the other three meanings are related to emotion. Number two expresses boredom, number three expresses shame and number four expresses bother. These three primary emotional meanings are going to be examined under the titles presented above. And all the sentences are provided from TSCorpus which is an online growing Turkish Corpus . In the process of searching corpus, first meaning of sıkılmak which is not an emotion word appeared at first place as in Turkish dictionary. Boredom which is in second place in the dictionary was appeared as third in corpus. Shame which is the third meaning in the dictionary takes the last place in corpus. Bother among the emotion words is most frequent and takes second place in corpus. These words are explained below in detail with examples and the order will not be the same as the frequency in corpus, yet same order as in the Turkish dictionary. 3.1 “sıkılmak” as Boredom The verb sıkılmak as boredom appeared 210 times in the corpus. And it was observed that there are two kinds of boredom of the word sıkılmak. First meaning expresses ‘boredom’ originated from the notion of ‘nothing to do’. Thus, Turkish people use the word sıkılmak when they have ‘nothing to do’ in particular. Another meaning of sıkılmak expresses ‘boredom’ originated from the works which repeats again and again and done by the person who experiences it. In other words, it expresses the ‘monotony of an occupation’. For a better understanding some instances must be analyzed for both of the notions mentioned above. First the notion of ‘nothing to do’ is presented. (2) … canları sıkılan on binlercekişi… … soul bored ten thousands people… … tens of thousands of people who are bored… (3) Sıkılıyor(um) biraz. Çarşıyagidecektim. Bored (I/me) little. Downtown go. I am bored. I will go downtown. (4) O da sıkılıyor, boğuluyorduPrag’dan He too bored depressed Prague He is bored, too, and is depressed of being in Prague. As it is seen in the examples (2), (3) and (4) subjects of the sentences feel boredom out of emptiness. In ex. (2) mentions about the people being bored because there is nothing to do. Ex. (3) is about being at home and feeling bored also because there is nothing to do. And in ex. (4) as in (2), (3) the situation is a matter of ‘boredom’ of being abroad alone and having nothing to do. Instances from notion of ‘monotony of an occupation’ are presented below. (5) Filmdensıkılankimiköşeyazarlarının… Movie bored some writers Some writers are bored of movie … (6) Eğersıkıl(ma)dan bunoktayakadarokuduysanız… If bored(not) this point till read(you) If you have read till this point without any boredom… (7) … kendisindensıkılmışkarısıylaile… … himself bored wife with … with his wife who is bored of him… These three cases of word sıkılmak we observed another type of boredom which, as it is mentioned above, originates from repeating and monotony. Ex. (5) tells us that the writers are bored because the movie contains repetitive contents. Ex. (6) is about a book and its being not monotonous, so the readers read it to a certain point. Ex. (7) mentions about a wife and her monotonous life with her husband. So far, as a conclusion of this section it is possible to say that Turkish word sıkılmak stating boredom has constitutively two types of boredom, one originates from the concept of ‘nothing to do’, other one from ‘monotony’. As a result, sıkılmak, as a word stating boredom, has two equivalents in Korean. One is simsimhada, other one is jiruhada. Korean dictionary explains the former as ‘state of being bored of nothing to do’, the latter ‘being bored of the things taking a long time and being repetitive’ . That explains that these words stating boredom in Korean are more specific than the words in Turkish. While it is possible one to express his/her feelings in Turkish with one simple word; it is two different words necessary to identify the feeling in Korean. Also, the Korean words which are being used to express boredom provide us the situational context, but the word sıkılmak barely gives us the main meaning, yet the comprehensive sense of itself. 3.2 “sıkılmak” as Shame The verb sıkılmak stating shame and/or embarrassment appeared only 45 times in corpus. And it is mostly used with the verb utanmak which also states shame and/or embarrassment. Another feature of sıkılmak is it is almost always used in negative form. While 65 percent of them are used with verb utanmak, 95 percent is used in negative form. With some examples it can be approved that both of its features are solid. (8) Sıkıl(ma)dan, büyükbirrahatlıklaböylekonuşabiliyorlar Shame(not) big one comfort (like)this speak He can speak such easily with no shame. (9) … hiçsıkıl(ma)dan “Amabizimbaşkabirnumaramız yok ki” diyor(lar) … any shame(not) but we other one trick there(not) say(they) Without any shame, they say “we don’t have any other tricks” (10) … utanıpsıkıl(ma)dan tam aksiniiddiaedebiliyor … embarrassed shame(not) exactly opposite claim … without any embarrassment or shame he/she can claim exactly opposite. (11) Hiçutanıpsıkıl(ma)dan ileridemokrasiyedoğrugidildiği… Any embarrassed shame(not) further democracy towards move With no embarrassment or shame he/she says that we are moving to the democracy (12) …çeyrek bile götürmeyesıkılanhalkımızartık … … quarter even take away shame people anymore … people who feel shame to give even a quarter… As it is seen in the sentences (8), (9), (10) and (11) sıkılmak expressing shame and/or embarrassment is used in a negative form, and are also used with its synonymous utanmak in sentences (10) and (11). Besides there are not much examples of its positive form, one simple positive usage is presented as in example (12). However, the word sıkılmak in negative form does not always stand for shame. In ex. (6) presented above (in 3.1.) even though it is in negative form it still stands for them meaning of boredom. To recapitulate, the Turkish verb sıkılmak, in a resembling context, is possible to compare with the Korean word changpeehada which is an adjective (or a state verb), or its possible synonyms . Even though its synonyms might have shown some minor differences depending on the context they appear, in basic level they show similar characteristic features of shame and/or embarrassment. As a consequence of this feature, it is possible to say sıkılmak as shame has a wide sense of usage in text, on the other hand Korean has several words for the same word or the same situation. This shows us Korean, besides other emotion words, has multiple alternatives for emotion words which can be used for the contexts of shame. 3.3 “sıkılmak” as Bother The verb of sıkılmak stating bother is the most frequent emotion word among other meanings of it in the corpus. It appeared 238 times because of its morphologic structure, as it is mentioned above, it exactly means be bothered. Because it is in passive form, the subject of the sentences is influenced by external factors. The word sıkılmak in this chapter has a comprehendingly wide range of meaning. With examples below and the interpretations of them some clearness is going to be maintained about the wide range of its meaning. (13) … algılanmaktançoksıkılmışanlaşılan. … being perceived much bothered understood I think he/she is sick of being perceived like this. In example (13) subject is explaining that he/she is being bothered by other peoples’ perception about him/her. Therefore, the expression about his/her feelings is interpreted with the word of ‘sick of’, which states having too much experience from someone or something with the result of feeling annoyed. (14) bakışlardansıkılıyorvesinemaya….. look bothered and movie She/he got tired of being stared at and (went to a) movie The reason for using tired of in this sentence (14) is subject being bothered of external factor like the staring eyes. And it is understood from the rest of the context, which was not presented here, he/she is exposed to this kind of incident frequently. Thus, his/her reaction to this incident can be interpreted by the word tired of. (15) … yapmamışızdiye de iyicecanımsıkıldı. … do not do for good soul bothered. I felt depressed because we didn’t do it. In the sentence (15) word sıkılmak refer to depression (not in medical term), because the subject feels bothered by a mistake he/she did. And at the end he/she realize it and feel sorry for the situation. Another reason for this interpretation is the word appeared before sıkılmak, ‘can’. Even though ‘can’ has several meanings depends on the context, it is mostly used for the soul or spirit. And in a sentence with the idiom of ‘canınsıkıldı’, unless it is used for boredom, the subject mostly represents a slight feeling of depression, depends on the experience he/she had. (16) …içimsıkıldıvallahiyazarken… …inner bothered really writing… I felt really gloomy when I was writing. The word gloomy used in this sentence means ‘not expecting or believing anything good in a situation’. In sentence (16), the subject, while he/she is reporting an incident, talks about the hopelessness of the situation and used the word sıkılmak. (17) … milli takımkazanıncasıkılan … … national team win bothered … Those who feel disturbed when the national team wins Sentence (17) is an expression about a disturbance caused by an external factor. In this context (from a newspaper), the subject is blaming a group of people with treason and is telling about their disturbance about the national team’s success. (18) mahallebaskısındansıkılanaydınlar neighborhood pressure bothered intelligentsia Intelligentsia who was bothered of social pressure. In final sentence the intelligentsia, who are the thinking class of the society, is expressing how bothered they are. Because, even though they are working for society, they are misjudged by the society. Therefore, the word sıkılmak can be expressed with the word bothered in this sentence. The instances and the incidents can be diversified but this only makes the situation harder to understand the meaning of sıkılmak stating ‘bother’. But as a result of this section, it is easily observed that the word sıkılmak as bother is possible to translate in several words in English and other possible languages. ‘sick of’, ‘tired of’, ‘disturbed’ etc. is just a few of them. However, an explanation for the word sıkılmak stating bother, that covers all of the possible words for translation, might be ‘feeling disturbance or bothered out of an external factor’. According to this, Korean word dabdabhada may be an adaptable equivalent for the word sıkılmak. Because also the Korean word contains the same kind of meaning, which is about the disturbance of an external factor, in a similar context.

4. CONCLUSION This study has presented an overview of ethnocentric function of emotion words and given some examples of studies made in different cultures. As the main purpose mentioned above the study introduced the Turkish emotion word of sıkılmak and how its meanings alternate in different situations. After examining the sentences above, it has been observed that the word sıkılmak contains three main emotional notions. The first one is ‘boredom’, the second one is ‘shame’ and the last one is ‘bother’. But in detail, it is analyzed that the meanings of this word appear in more than three words. In the notion of boredom, it is equivalent to Korean word ’simsimhada’ and ‘jiruhada’, in the notion of shame it is possible to interpret ‘changpeehada’, ‘minmanghada’ and ‘pookkeureopda’, in the last notion which is bother mainly ’dabdabhada’ is selective word but depend on the context ‘pigonhada’, ‘jillida’, ‘jigyeopda’, ‘chimulhada’, ‘jaemieobsda’ can be used as an equivalent. In this context, it is possible to say that Turkish emotion word sıkılmak is more comprehended and multidimensional than any equivalent word either in English or in Korean. With one word three kind of emotion and more emotion words can be stated. Considering this from the Korean point of view, Korean words of emotions are more specific and has minimal meanings in various contexts. While Turkish emotion words are situation or context dependent, Korean words are not. As a result of this, this study provides us the knowledge that because both languages’ emotion words have different characteristic features, attention must be paid, either from Korean to Turkish, or Turkish to Korean, both in a learning step and in teaching step. Otherwise, in further level of education, errors and mistakes which can be the reason of confusion for both speakers and hearers, are going to be made by learners of these languages. Quality, of course, matters but the problem of deficiency of quantity in this kind of studies prevents us to understand the differences between cultures and their building blocks, words. Therefore, it is hoped to increase the quantity of studies explaining the ethnocentric feature of words.

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