Turkey's Vernacular Discourses

Abstract

Although vernacular architecture is one of the most popular fields of discourse production in Turkey, no practice of literature exists in this field that is as productive and varied. Thus, this paper primarily intends to analyze the writings of a group of researchers regarded to be the representatives of the early period of this field, through a set of arising questions. An overview of the vernacular discourse which is dealt with in the first part of the article demonstratres that different writers have similar discoursesrecurring over the years. These discourses, and their linguistic and theoretical characteristics, are defined as “essentialism” oriented in the article, for they intend to draw boundaries particularly by assigning appellations for the houses, identify the main components, and determine origins. The essentialism oriented vernacular discourses create the perception that traditional houses have specific values and associate the societal values of "true" and "real" with these houses. However, those who attach certain values to structures and societies are obviously the people themselves who generate these discourses. To shed light onto the ideological nature of essentialism oriented vernacular discourses, the second part of the article analyzes the Turkish discourse on vernacular through the “unspoken” rather than the already spoken. To this end, it questions the subconscious of the vernacular rather than reads it for direct meaning. With this psychoanalytical reading, it aims to deal with both the spoken and unspoken aspects of Turkish vernacular discourse.