Corpus-Driven Lexical Profiles of Feminine Words in Turkish: Bayan, Kadın and Karı

This study aims to examine the semantic and pragmatic features of the three female-referential words “bayan,” “kadın,” and “karı” using a corpus-driven approach. Accordingly, colligations, collocations, semantic preferences, and semantic prosodies of the words were analyzed using concordance lines obtained from the Turkish National Corpus (TNC) with an “extended lexical unit model.” To this end, the concordance lines of each word were subjected to multiple readings, and recurring formal and semantic patterns were classified to determine the semantic relationships between words. The findings show that words have different discursive functions and social representations. The word “bayan” is concentrated in institutional, formal, and neutral contexts; in classificatory and labelling areas of use, while not carrying a distinct emotional prosody. “Kadın,” on the other hand, exhibits a multi-layered pattern of meaning in semantic fields such as emotional evaluation, motherhood/family roles, cultural identities, and political discourse, in addition to physical description; it develops positive and negative prosodies depending on the context. The word “karı,” on the other hand, is used in pejorative, slang, and derogatory contexts; it carries a predominantly negative connotation, producing a distinct negative prosody through insulting adjectives, demeaning comparisons, and masculine possessive discourse. The study demonstrates that female-referenced words are shaped at the level of linguistic choice by gender ideologies, value attributions, and discursive positioning. In this respect, the findings provide important clues for broader sociolinguistic research on how representations of women are constructed.