Metaphorical Perceptions of Folk Dances Trainers Regarding the Concept of Folk Dances

This research was carried out with the help of metaphor to determine the perception of folk dances trainers regarding the concept of folk dances. The study was carried out with a total of 141 folk dances trainers (85 men and 56 women), who depend on the Folk Dances Federation of Turkey.In the study, a semi-structured interview form was used to allow participants to freely express their opinions on the specific subject. In this context, each participant was asked to write a metaphor about the concept of folk dances and to explain it. To determine the metaphorical perceptions of the concept of ‘‘folk dances’‘ the trainers were asked to complete such clauses as “folk dances are like….” and “Because ...”.In this study, phenomenological design was used from qualitative research approaches. In the analysis of data, content analysis technique was used. Frequency and percent values were calculated. The opinions of an in-field expert and an out-of-field expert were consulted as a reliability procedure. As a result of the calculation, the reliability of the research was calculated as %98.5.According to the study findings, it is seen that the trainers expressed their opinions on 86 types of metaphors that are divided into 12 conceptual categories for the concept of “folk dances” and 141 views for this. The category in which maximum exists is metaphor of “Happiness, Excitement and Energy Aspect” and the most used the words were found to be “love” (f=8), “ambition” (f=5), “life” (f=5) and “adaptation” (f=5). In addition, it is observed that trainers form metaphors with many concrete tools and abstract concepts such as “labour, gain, stress ball, serotonin, culture, umbrella, pen” regarding the concept of folk dances.As a result, it was determined that the most used metaphor for folk dances is “love” and that the category the most produced by the trainers is “happiness, excitement and energy aspect” and that the trainers have a positive perception in the metaphors produced by the “folk dances” concept.