Associate Professor from TSPU Joins International Linguistic Expedition in Western Turkey
Associate Professor from TSPU Joins International Linguistic Expedition in Western Turkey Denis Tokmashev, Associate Professor at the Department of English Philology and Intercultural Communication at TSPU’s Institute of Foreign Languages, took part in an international dialectological expedition in Izmir Province, Turkey. The expedition was organized by the Institute of Turkic Studies at Ege University, in collaboration with the Russian Committee of Turkologists (under the Institute of Linguistics of the Russian Academy of Sciences), Higher School of Economics, and the Turkish Linguistic Society. The project was led by Anna Dybo, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Researchers from the host university, including Ibrahim Şahin, Fatma Uğur Buhur, and Aylin Çakır, also participated in the fieldwork.
The main research sites were villages around Izmir in western Turkey. The goal was to study regional Turkish dialects, particularly those spoken in Western Anatolia, using advanced linguistic technology. The team began their work in the town of Ödemiş and nearby villages — Bıçakçı, Oğuzlar, and Zeytinlik — and later moved to Kemalpaşa, Vişneli, and Hamzababa in the Izmir suburbs. Denis Tokmashev focused on collecting experimental phonetic data. He used an Articulate Assistant Micro ultrasound device designed to study articulation patterns. This method, combined with other tools like electropalatography, laryngoscopy, and MRI, offers deeper insight into how speech sounds are formed across different dialects around the world.
«One of the distinctive aspects of this expedition was conducting interviews in Turkish, with dynamic adjustments to the questions to better capture dialectal features — unlike similar expeditions in Russia, where such surveys are typically conducted in Russian,” said Denis Tokmashev. “We found that the Turkish language is relatively weakly standardized in many areas, especially in phonetics. Many speakers don’t distinguish between voiced and voiceless consonants, but instead show a contrast based on articulatory strength — a feature also found in some Siberian Turkic languages, such as Teleut and Tuvan. In more remote villages, we even observed some Kipchak phonetic elements. We also held consultations with Turkish colleagues to clarify linguistic terminology — particularly around concepts like ‘voicing’ and ‘weakening’ — and presented a range of phonetic tools, including acoustic analysis software and modern data recording equipment, such as ultrasound-based systems».
The researcher noted that local residents shared not only linguistic data, but also valuable insights into the region’s history, cultural traditions, natural environment, and cuisine. Village elders played a key role in organizing the expedition, helping connect the team with native dialect speakers — a contribution that greatly facilitated the research.
The collected data will be added to the phonetic archive of Turkic languages, complementing materials gathered during earlier expeditions by the Tomsk Linguistic School for the Study of Endangered Languages, named after A.P. Dulzon.
Between field trips, a dialectology seminar was held for faculty, students, and graduate students at Ege University. During the seminar, the TSPU researcher delivered a presentation in English on the phonetic features of Tatar and Kumyk. The talk was interpreted into Turkish by Valeria Lemskaia, Deputy Director of the Institute of Foreign Languages at TSPU.
As a result of the expedition, an agreement was reached to further develop and strengthen research collaboration between TSPU and Ege University. The team also plans to publish a series of academic papers in journals indexed in Scopus, as well as in first- and second-quartile journals in the Web of Science database, between 2025 and 2026.
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