Romanian-Hungarian Relations in Mixed Communities: A Case Study of Intercultural Communication Patterns in Sfântu-Gheorghe
Romanian-Hungarian Relations in Mixed Communities: A Case Study of Intercultural Communication Patterns in Sfântu-Gheorghe

Summary/Abstract: This paper studies the patterns of intercultural communication between Romanians and Hungarians living in Sfântu Gheorghe, a city from Covasna County in Romania. It aims to identify the nature of the relations of these ethnic communities, revealed in their communicational behavior, as a basis for societal cohesion. The study is based on Dell Hymes’s (1997; 2001) SPEAKING framework, operationalized in the autochthonous environment by the second author who previously studied the intercultural communication patterns in rural areas from Romania (2015), and on data collected by the first author through participant observation and interviews with both ethnic Romanians and Hungarians living in the city. The data collection took place in four different periods dedicated to the fieldwork, in the months of January, February and March 2024. The paper seeks to offer an emic perspective of Romanian–Hungarian intercultural relations, as the studies of these relations were rather developed on ethic coordinates. The results of the research show the non-conflictual nature of these relations, the formation of cohesion within the local community, which is not however lived homogenously by the participants, being still impacted by the historical memory and present-day developments which still maintain a suspicion on the non-acceptance by the “different other”.

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