The vocabulary is a language treasure that gives important clues about the way a language thinks and perceives the world. Based on the vocabulary, many information can be obtained about societies from their life, tradition, history and beliefs. Culture has an important effect on the shaping of vocabulary. Culture is the mirror, experience and world view of societies. With this understanding, culture is the shaper of the language in which a person expresses what he thinks, wants, likes, sees and lives. The culture in which the language is formed has a great influence on the meanings of words in the language. The animal names in Turkish, which are the subject of this study, have an important place in Turkish vocabulary. Especially when we look at the history of Turkish culture, the way of life related to animal husbandry and life in nature have been effective in the vocabulary of Turkish and many words related to animals have thus taken their place in the vocabulary of Turkish. The metaphorical use of animal names with various words other than their basic meanings is related to Turkish thinking and perception. Every human thinks in his/her mother tongue and perceives the world in his/her mother tongue. The person who learns Turkish as a foreign language will start to understand the world in the perception and thinking of Turkish culture. For this reason, animal names, which have metaphorical uses in Turkish vocabulary, draw attention as a universe of meaning belonging to Turkish culture in teaching Turkish as a foreign language. In this study, within the framework of Russian semiotician Yuri Lotman's semiosphere approach, which sees culture as a cultural system woven with signs, animal names in Turkish are considered as a semiosphere shaped around Turkish culture. The existence of this semiosphere and its importance in gaining vocabulary in teaching Turkish as a foreign language have been mentioned, and animal names in Turkish, which are seen as a semiosphere, have been classified in the study in order to show the effect of the thinking and perception of Turkish culture on the vocabulary of Turkish according to the meanings they carry and their usage areas.
Semiosphere, Yuri Lotman, teaching Turkish, vocabulary, animal names.