Assoc. Prof. Dr. Hale IŞIK-GÜLER
(Research Group Leader)
Dr. Işık-Güler works as an Associate Professor of Linguistics at the Department of Foreign Language Education, Middle East Technical University, Ankara.
Her work and those of her graduate students can be best described as being at the intersection of Discourse Analysis, Pragmatics and Corpus Linguistics. More specifically, her academic interests mainly lie within the domains of cross-cultural (im)politeness research, spoken corpora compilation and socio-pragmatic analysis of corpora, critical discourse analysis, gender and identity work, conversation analysis, genre analysis, intercultural communication and applied linguistics.
Personal Website: https://blog.metu.edu.tr/hisik/
Email: hisik@metu.edu.tr
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6859-9377
Assist. Prof. Dr. Yasemin Erdoğan (DISCORE Coordinator)
Yasemin Erdoğan has received her PhD from the English Language Teaching Program, Language Studies Track at METU. Her dissertation explored "Contested Belongings and Identity Negotiations Among Multilingual Turkish Returnee Women in a Digital Community". Her research interests lie in the areas of sociolinguistics, linguistic ethnography and critical discourse studies. She primarily focuses on sociolinguistics of globalization and migration; critical discourse analysis; gender and sexuality; new media discourses and online communities. She works as an Assistant Professor at Karabük University.
Email: yasemin.erdogan@metu.edu.tr
Researchgate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Yasemin_Erdogan5
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5033-0436
Dr. Esranur Efeoğlu-Özcan (DISCORE Coordinator)
Esranur Efeoğlu-Özcan holds a PhD in Language Studies (ELT) from METU. For her doctoral dissertation, she compiled the first Turkish youth talk corpus (CoTY) and examined the interactional dynamics of youth talk utilizing a corpus-assisted approach. Her research interests are (critical) discourse studies, corpus linguistics, sociolinguistics, open science practices in linguistic research. She is a former postdoctoral research fellow at King's College London, United Kingdom. She currently works at Gazi University.
Email: esnure@gmail.com
Web: esraefeogluozcan.com
X: https://twitter.com/esranureo
Dr. Merve Bozbıyık
Merve Bozbıyık is currently a postdoctoral research fellow at Mälardalen University, Sweden: She was formerly a research assistant at Middle East Technical University, Türkiye. She holds a PhD from Hacettepe University. She is interested in classroom discourse, teacher education, English Medium Instruction, medical interaction, and call-center interaction using Conversation Analysis.
Email: merveboz@metu.edu.tr
X: https://twitter.com/mervebozbiyik
METU Avesis: https://avesis.metu.edu.tr/merveboz
Dr. Funda Dörtkulak
Funda Dörtkulak received her PhD degree in English Language Teaching Program at METU. Her dissertation was a contrastive pragmatics study of a Facebook Corpus and investigated "Compliments and Compliment Responses in Turkish and American English". Her current research interests are sociocultural linguistics; corpus studies; discourse studies; social media discourses; gender and language. She currently works at METU, Modern Languages Department.
Email: fundadortkulak@gmail.com
Dr. Hülya Mısır
Hülya Mısır is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Linguistics and Communication at the University of Birmingham, UK. Her PhD disseration study completed at METU focused on "Vlog as a Multimodal Translanguaging Space: Insights From A Turkish Social Media Influencer Corpus". Her research focuses on online discourse and communication, forensic and legal discourse, and computational linguistics. Her current projects develop new computational methods to identify linguistics characteristics of online hate speech and disinformation.
Email: hulyamsr@gmail.com
X: https://twitter.com/hulya_misir
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4103-682X
ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Huelya_Misir
Dr. Özlem Özbakış
Özlem received her PhD (2025) in ELT (Linguistics Track) from METU, her MA (2015) and BA (2011) in English Language Teaching (ELT), along with a Minor Degree in German Language (2009-2011) from METU. For her PhD, Özlem conducted an ethnomethodological multimodal Conversation Analysis and explored "Leadership Configurations in Decision-making Interaction in a Turkish Software Engineering Company". For her MA Thesis, Özlem has worked on positional identities in classroom discourse. Her academic interests mainly lie within the domains of (critical) discourse studies, corpus linguistics and sociolinguistics. She is specifically interested in spoken workplace discourse, professional communication, leadership, gender, the construction of identities in institutional contexts, and multimodality in workplace interaction. She currently works at METU, Modern Languages Department.
Email: ozlem.ozbakis@metu.edu.tr
Dr. Xiaoli Yu
Dr. Xiaoli Yu was a former lecturer at the Department of Foreign Language Education, Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkiye. Her research interests include corpus linguistics, vocabulary research, second language writing, teacher education, educational technology, and so forth. She is particularly interested in using corpus-based approaches to research lexical and syntactical complexity as well as the intersection between vocabulary and writing. Currently, she teaches undergraduate ELT methodology courses and a graduate corpus linguistics course.
Email: xiaoli@metu.edu.tr
Melike Demir Bektaş
PhD Candidate
Melike Demir Bektaş works as an instructor at the Department of Basic English at METU. She holds a BA and MA degree from the Department of Foreign Language Education at METU, and her professional interests lie in "social positioning", "critical discourse analysis", "classroom interaction" and "identity". She is currently working on her PhD at METU, FLE.
Email: dmelike@metu.edu.tr
Galip Karabacak, MA
Galip Karabacak holds a BA and MA from the English Language Teaching Department at METU. His research interests revolves mainly around Queer Linguistics, sociolinguistics, pragmatics and discourse analysis. He currently works at Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University.
Email: galip.karabacak@metu.edu.tr
Pınar Turan
PhD Candidate
Pınar Turan (formerly Pınar Topal) is a research assistant and a PhD candidate at the Department of Foreign Language Education, METU. She holds an MA in English Language Teaching from Bogazici University and a BA in ELT with a minor degree in Linguistics from Hacettepe University. Drawing upon multimodal conversation analysis and corpus-based methodologies, she examines discourse and naturally occurring interaction mainly in institutional and pedagogical contexts, including but not limited to mentor-mentee interactions, video-mediated settings, and English-medium instruction. She is currently working on her PhD at METU, FLE.
Email: ptopal@metu.edu.tr
Assist. Prof. Dr. Betül Çimenli
Betül Çimenli works as an Assistant Professor at the Department of Foreign Language Education at Bartın University. She holds a PhD from the Foreign Language Education Program (Language Studies track) at METU. For her dissertation, using Conversation Analysis, she explored "Resources for Alignment and Affiliation in Topic Management During Video-Mediated Virtual Exchange". She holds a BA and MA degree in English Language Teaching from Hacettepe University. Her research interests involve investigating face-to-face and online interaction via conversation analysis, corpus linguistics, and discourse analysis from various environments including classroom discourse and dyadic online conversations. She is also a regular attendee of HUMAN Research Centre dedicated to collaborate on the analysis of social interaction from various environments using a conversation analytic framework.
Email: betul.cimenli@metu.edu.tr
X: https://twitter.com/BetulCimenli
Merve Hırçın-Çoban
PhD Candidate
Merve Hırçın Çoban works as an instructor at the Department of Basic English at METU. She is a PhD student at the Department of English Language Teaching Program (Language Studies track) at METU. She is mainly interested in conversation analytic and corpus-based investigation of classroom interaction and interaction in paired or group L2 oral assessment.
Email: mhircin@metu.edu.tr
Fatma Ege
PhD Candidate
Fatma Ege works as an instructor at ITU School of Foreign Languages. She is a PhD student at the Department of English Language Teaching (Language Studies track) at METU. She holds a BA degree from METU and an MA degree from Kocaeli University. Her main research interests include corpus linguistics, critical discourse analysis, social identity and classroom interaction.
Email: fatma.ege@metu.edu.tr
Zeynep Arısoy, MA
Zeynep Arısoy works as a teacher at a private primary school in Ankara. She completed her MA in Foreign Language Education at METU with her thesis titled "Media Representations of Femicide in The Guardian and Cumhuriyet Newspapers: A Corpus Assisted Critical Discourse Analysis". She also holds a BA in English Language Teaching (ELT) with a minor in Sociology from METU. Her primary research interests revolve around corpus linguistics and critical discourse analysis with a focus on feminist perspectives and mass media discourse in relation to ideology and politics. She is planning to conduct a critical discourse analysis study on newspapers from different countries when reporting femicide news as her thesis.
Email: zeynep.arisoy@metu.edu.tr
Merve Nur Yüce
PhD Student
Merve Nur Yüce is a research assistant in the English Language Teaching Department at Necmettin Erbakan University. She earned her BA and MA in English Language Teaching from Hacettepe University and is currently pursuing her PhD at METU. Her research interests mainly include classroom discourse, teacher education, and language practices in digital spaces, employing conversation analysis and corpus linguistics as the key research methodologies.
Email:
Ali Anaç
PhD Student
Ali Anaç is primarily interested in language teacher education, classroom discourse, and teacher learning. He works as a research assistant at the FLE Department at Amasya University. He holds his MA degree in English Language Education from Hacettepe University. He is currently a PhD student at METU FLE.
Email: ali.anac06@gmail.com
Gamze Kapucu
PhD Student
Gamze Kapucu is a PhD student at the Department of English Language Teaching at METU. Her research interests include pragmatics and discourse analysis, corpus linguistics, classroom discourse, and sociolinguistics. She currently works as a research assistant at the Department of English Language Teaching at Afyon Kocatepe University.
Email: gamze.kapucu@metu.edu.tr
Berkcan Köse
PhD Student
Berkcan Köse is a PhD student and research assistant at the Department of Foreign Language Education, Middle East Technical University. He holds a BA and MA in English Language Teaching from Anadolu University. His research interests include corpus linguistics, language teacher education, and educational technology.
Email: berkcank@metu.edu.tr
METU Avesis: https://avesis.metu.edu.tr/berkcank
Sezin Sevimli
MA Student
Sezin Sevimli is currently a master's student in the English Language Teaching program at METU. She also holds a BA in English Language Teaching (ELT) with a minor in Philosophy from METU. Her research interests include discourse analysis, classroom dynamics, and EMI in higher education.
Email: sezin.sevimli@metu.edu.tr
İsmail Berkand Gök
(former) MA Student at METU
İsmail Berkand Gök is currently an MA student at NAU. He also holds a BA degree in Foreign Language Education from METU. His research interests include discourse analysis, classroom discourse, and the discourse of tabletop roleplaying games (TTRPGs).
Email: berkand.gok@metu.edu.tr
FORMER MEMBERS:
Maheen Haider Alipoor, Visiting PhD Student
Maheen Haider Alipoor works as an English Language Instructor and an Adjunct Professor at the University of Turin, Italy. She is a PhD student at the Department of Translation, Interpretation and Intercultural Studies at the University of Bologna and was a visiting PhD student at METU DISCORE (2022). She holds an MS in Gender and Women’s Studies from METU and a BA in English Language and Literature from Hacettepe University. Her research interests are corpus linguistics; (feminist) critical discourse analysis; ecocriticism; ecofeminism; gender; literature; climate change and media discourses.
Email: maheenhaideralipoo2@unibo.it