A keresztnévdivat változása Szlovákiában

Author(s): Ján Bauko / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 2/2017

Following­ the­ 1989­ change­ of­ regime,­ there­ were­ more­ factors­ that­ influenced­ the forename­ giving­ in­ Slovakia.­ After­ opening­ the­ state­ borders­ the­ rise­ of­ migration, both­ emigration­ and­ immigration­ has­ resulted­ in­ a­ dynamic­ change­ of­ given­ name stock­ that­ has­ mainly­ broadened­ by­ foreign­ language­ name­ elements.­ While before­ the­ change­ of­ regime,­ the­ loadedness­ of­ a­ name­ was­ bigger,­ strivings towards­ having­ more­ unique­ and­ rare­ names­ registered­ have­ been­ more­ powerful nowadays.­ Due­ to­ interethnic­ relationships­ the­ name­ stock­ is­ being­ enriched­ by given­ names­ of­ various­ foreign­ origins.­ There­ are­ also­ generational­ differences­ in name­ bearing:­ the­ younger­ generation­ uses­ many­ of­ those­ given­ names­ that­ are absent­ from­ the­ older­ generation’s­ name­ stock.­ The­ number­ of­ the­ registered given­ name­ variants­ is­ increasing;­ the­ foreign­ spelled­ names­ are­ also­ frequent. Movie­ and­ TV series­ characters­ often­ serve­ as­ inspiration­ for­ naming.­ More­ and more­ nicknames­ become­ registerable­ given­ names.­ Giving­ two­ forenames­ has become­ a­ new­ fashion­ in­ Slovakia­ in­ recent­ years.­ The­ members­ of­ minorities have­ a­ wider­ choice­ of­ names­ since­ they­ might­ choose­ from­ the­ minority­ as­ well as­ majority­ name­ stock.­ Among­ the­ members­ of­ the­ minorities,­ the­ name registration­ in­ mother­ tongue­ is­ increasing. Minority­ name­ planning­ is­ one­ of­ the­ fields­ of­ applied­ onomastics,­ the­ tasks­ of which­ include­ propagation­ of­ the­ mother­ tongue­ name­ usage.­ The­ minority­ name planning­ deals­ primarily­ with­ the­ official­ use­ of­ personal,­ geographical­ and institution­ names.­ Publishing­ a­ Hungarian–Slovak­ forename­ dictionary­ (under preparation­ by­ me)­ may­be­ one­ of­ the­ methods­ for­ the­ minority­ (mother­ tongue) name­ planning­ in­ Slovakia,­ which­ could­ serve­ as­ a­ guideline­ for­ mother­ tongue name­ planning,­ for­ registering­ the­ personal­ names­ of­ Hungarians­ living­ in Slovakia­ in­ their­ mother­ tongue.­ The­ study­ deals­ with­ the­ laws­ of­ the­ Slovak Republic­ concerning­ personal­ names,­ the­ name­ registers­ and­ name­ catalogues­ in Slovakia­ and­ Hungary­ used­ at­ registering,­ the­ importance­ of­ name­ planning­ as well­ as­ the­ features­ of­ the­ planned­ forename­ dictionary­ and­ the­ structures­ of­ its entries.

A kódváltás lexikai-szemantikai aspektusai a vajdasági magyar nyelvben

Author(s): Ilona Rajsli / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 2/2015

In the process of code-switching in the communication of bilingual people, different sorts of loanwords appear (mostly lexemes ans phrasemes). The analysis of this typological and terminological aspect shows extraordinary variety, because classic, diachronic vocabulary in some cases fades into elements of sociolinguistic approach. For this reason, first and foremost aspects of our research are those that are used in the systematization of contactology, we have looked at types of borrowing in the corpus: we analized direct word-loaning, morphologic and semantic loans, as well as other combined forms (morphology-semantics, overcorrected types). Code-switching is analized in the given context, this way except for lexical-semantic analysis one can interpret basic pragmatic aspects of code-switching.

A latin u-tövű semlegesneműek végződése nominativus-accusativusban

Author(s): Levente László / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 1(2)/2001

A Lexicological Approach to Look-up Frequency of Turkish Sign Language Dictionary Users

Author(s): Erdem Önal,Bahtiyar Makaroğlu / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2021

From a lexicography perspective, the phenomenon of dictionary lookup frequencies can answer many critical questions on the dictionary users’ needs and the relationship between corpus data and look-up tendencies. Although numerous studies have been carried out on the theoretical and functional aspects of look-up frequencies in the field of spoken language to date, there are relatively a few attempts to describe the characteristics of look-up behaviors in sign languages. This paper investigates the relationship between the objective frequency list of the Turkish Sign Language Corpus (Makaroğlu, 2021) and The Contemporary Turkish Sign Language Dictionary (Makaroğlu & Dikyuva, 2017) look-up occurrences. Using an approach to compare corpus data and log files, the results demonstrate that there are very limited similarities between the two and that there is no positive relationship for the percentage of the highest ranked items. In addition, the current study concludes that the corpus-based objective frequency list is a comparatively poor predictor of the dictionary look-up frequency and this difference could be direct result of the morphological structure of the words/signs in TİD (rather simultaneous realization) compared to Turkish (rather agglutinative morphology).

A Lost Lady: A Narrative of Manifest Destiny and Neocolonialism

Author(s): Ammar Aqeeli / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2020

The greatly examined story of A Lost Lady usually depicts Mrs. Forrester’s success in meeting and adapting to the challenges of a changing world, a world characterized by materialism and self-fulfilment. However, the overlooked story, one far more disturbing than the privileged story in the text, is the narrative of oppressed groups of people of other races and the lower class. Drawing on some aspects of postcolonial theory, this paper explores Willa Cather’s own reactions to real changes in her society, to the waning power of imperialism, and of her nostalgic longing for the western prairies of her youth, without showing any sympathy for the dispossessed Native Americans and other oppressed races. It will also disclose the unmistakable colonial overtones, which remarkably resonate with the common discourse of “Manifest Destiny” during the time period of American expansion to the Wild West.

A magyar nyelv tantárgy tartalma és oktatása a romániai oktatásszabályozási keretben

Author(s): Edith Kádár / Language(s): Hungarian

As part of a joint research programme of the Termini Hungarian Language Research Network focussing on the teaching of the Hungarian language (and literature) as a school subject in the Carpathian Basin, this paper presents the Romanian case. It gives an overview of the contents, theoretical and methodological background, legal framework, actors and documents regulating the teaching of Hungarian as a school subject, in the context of the Romanian educational system.

A magyar–szlovák kétnyelvűség témaköre az anyanyelvoktatásban.

Author(s): Ilona Szerdi / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 2/2019

Difficulties about the problem of bilingualism and first language teaching have been present in Hungarian primary and secondary schools in Slovakia for decades now. In my study, I propose exercises in which I use language samples taken from social me-dia websites as sources for tasks for elementary and high school students for learning and having discussions about Hungarian language use, i.e. language interactions, in-terference, bilingualism and Slovakisms. The reason for taking language samples from social media websites is that Internet use as well as presence and communication on social media websites are integral parts of students’ everyday lives. Therefore these texts can have great motivational power in the classroom.

A miks sa torusse ei räägi? Miks-küsilausetega tehtavad suhtlustegevused argitelefonivestlustes

Author(s): Kirsi Laanesoo / Language(s): Estonian Issue: 13/2017

This paper analyses interrogatives formed with the why pronoun in Estonian everyday telephone conversations. Why-interrogatives are regularly defined as questions asking for reasons for or accounts of actions. This paper, however, demonstrates that only a small fraction of why-interrogatives are actually used for questioning. The data come from the Corpus of Spoken Estonian of the University of Tartu. Altogether 41 why-interrogatives were analysed using the approach of interactional linguistics. The primary social actions conducted by why-interrogatives are the following: question, reproach, command, suggestion, complaint and challenge.The study reveals that why-interrogatives are multifunctional, used to carry out several social actions concurrently. The question form makes it possible for the recipients to interpret why-interrogatives as questions (by giving a neutral answer) or as some socially dispreferred actions, such as reproaches, challenges etc (by justifying themselves). Why-interrogatives demonstrate the speaker’s negative stance towards a preceding action.

A missing chain? On the sociolinguistics of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania

Author(s): Andrii Danylenko / Language(s): English Issue: 41/2017

The article critically assesses the theory of communicative networks and its applicability in the study of multilingualism as found in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (GDL). The author analyzes foundations for postulating the existence of a speech community in the GDL and adduces counterarguments against viewing this community as a linguistic alliance of the Balkan type. The article offers new sociolinguistic and areal-typological methods of the study of language contacts. The author substantiates a systematic approach toward the problem of the ethnic attribution of Ruthenian. Based on the literary, linguistic, and cultural parameters, the author offers to drop the term ‘Old (Middle) Belarusian’ or ‘Old (Middle) Ukrainian’ in reference to this language.

A multimodal analysis of conventional humorous structures on sensitive topics within rural communities in Romania

Author(s): Violeta Rus / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2017

When it comes to humour, performing humorous structures means not only producing amusement, but also implies the ability of perceiving the comical, ludicrous or absurd in human life. In this paper, I consider humour as a way in which people in the rural community express themselves freely, without boundaries or constraints. Therefore, the interest of the present article is to identify and analyse sensitive humorous topics in Romanian rural communities. In conducting the study, the following steps were taken: I videotaped people from the Upper Valley of the river Mureș (selected with sociolinguistic criteria such as gender, age, occupation), I transcribed the audio-video records and I divided the data into thematic categories: jokes, traditional shouts and funeral songs or dirges with humorous structures. Starting from these methodological steps, I attempt to perform a multimodal analysis, which consists of analysing both the text and the audio-video record. In the first part of my research, the analysis of the text focuses on specific structures of conventional humour performed in jokes, traditional shouts and dirges by the main theories of humour: superiority, release and incongruity theories of humour. In analysing the audio-video stimuli, I dwell upon identifying the degree of influence of the psycho-sociolinguistic parameters (gender, occupation and context) on the performance of humour, concentrating on markers of humour such as intonation and visual cues. After analysing the humorous sensitive topics in Romanian rural communities through a multimodal perspective, my conclusion is that speakers combine linguistic and non-linguistic elements in order to make a text humorous.

A multimodal generic perspective on Nigerian standup comedy

Author(s): Felix N. Ogoanah,Fredrick O. Ojo / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2018

Studies in stand-up comedy in Nigeria have recently begun to gain serious attention. Several articles that describe the psychological and socio-cultural contexts of joke texts of stand-up comedy in Nigeria have appeared within the last few years (Orhiunu 2007; Imo 2010;Adetunji 2013; Filani 2015, 2016, among others.). However, one aspect of the phenomenon that is yet to be explored is the function of a multimodal generic framework and its contributions to the humorous content of the genre. While it is important to maintain the spoken text as many writers have done, the “multiple embodied modes” (Norris 2008: 13) that amplify the spoken text must be given due consideration. This study, therefore, examines the Nigerian stand-up comedy from the perspective of a multimodal-ESP theory to genre analysis.This theory takes cognisance not only of joke-texts, but also of the visual features that enhance the performance. The material for analysis is videoed data of a popular stand-up comedy show in Nigeria, A Nite of a Thousand Laughs. The study demonstrates that stage management, nonverbal cues (e.g. gesture, movements, and gaze), speeches, body postures, and music/sounds contribute to the communicative value and the production of the genre. Also, it shows how plausible multimodal-ESP approach to genre is in the description of stand-up comedy in the Nigerian context.

A NEUROCOGNITIVE ANALYSIS OF IDIOSYNCRATIC SEMANTIC BORROWINGS IN THE DISCOURSE OF BILINGUAL ROMANIAN IMMIGRANTS IN SPAIN

Author(s): Paul Buzilă / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2020

A Neurocognitive Analysis of Idiosyncratic Semantic Borrowings in the Discourse of Bilingual Romanian Immigrants in Spain. In this paper we look at the semantic borrowings that spontaneously emerge in the oral discourse of bilingual Romanian immigrants who live in Spain, and we analyze them from a neurocognitive perspective. Also known as Relational Network Theory, this approach conceives language as an interconnected relational network composed of nodes and lines. Linguistic processing is a result of spreading activation through the network. We use this approach to explore the mechanisms underlying the oral production of semantic borrowings selected from corpora of Romanian spoken in Spain, and we model them, using the NeuroLab tool, in relational network terms. The network modeling shows that these hybrid forms emerge naturally from the properties of the system and can be explained in terms of shared parts of either phonological or semantic subnetworks involved in the production of analogous forms. It also delivers additional explanation to the proliferation of mixed meaning and sound induced semantic borrowings in the form of a higher pressure for rewiring coming from two different parts of the system.

A New General Atlas of Hungarian Dialects is Forthcoming

Author(s): Jenő Kiss / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2010

The author presents the New General Atlas of Hungarian Dialects which is in progress. We get a short review about the necessity of a new general dialect atlas in Hungary. The main reason is the radical decrease of dialect words which was effected by the end of the traditional agricultural way of life. The other reason is that the data of the first general Hungarian Dialect Atlas was collected between 1949 and 1964. The author presents the aspects of the research and the content of the questionnaires; the character und the number of the lexical, morphological, syntactical, and sociolinguistic questions; and the sociolinguistic aspects of the informant selection. The collection was started in 2007 and will be finished in 2011.

A nyelvi jogok az oktatásban és a közigazgatásban a Karta Szakértői Bizottságának jelentései tükrében

Author(s): István Csernicskó ,Enikő Tóth-Orosz / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 1/2021

This study examines the commitments made by the four neighbouring countries of Hungary with the largest Hungarian minority communities (Romania, Slovakia, Serbia and Ukraine) during the ratification of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages in terms of Hungarian-language use in education, public administration and public services. It analyses on the basis of the latest reports of an independent international body, the Committee of Experts of the Council of Europe (issued between 2017 and 2019) how these states are fulfilling their commitments in practice. The analysis highlights that the four countries involved in the study do not fully meet their international commitments undertaken by the ratification of the Charter in the spirit of European integration in these two essential areas from the point of view of the language retention of their Hungarian minorities. In particular, the examined states lag behind in the practical application of the undertaken commitments in the field of the Hungarian language use in public administration. The analysis also shows that, of the four countries, Ukraine has met its commitments to the least extent.

A plurilingual approach to ELT in primary school: towards an ecological perspective

Author(s): Alicia Chabert / Language(s): English Issue: 14/2019

This paper aims to demonstrate that using a plurilingual and ecological approach to English language teaching can achieve better results in primary school independently of the mother tongue of the student. This article is based on the initial results of our international research carried out in three very different countries (Norway, China and Spain). While the author´s research project involves 328 participants, we will present the results of the first phase of the experiment, including 133 students. In this paper, we propose a plurilingual communicative approach to English teaching as a foreign language, making a distinction between languages for communication and languages for identification. This research examines the current teaching policies in the participating countries, and analyses cross-cultural and cross-linguistic perspectives in English language teaching while promoting the positive use of the mother tongue as a connecting tool in the students’ communication system. The subjects of this study were divided in control and experimental groups, in which they received traditional and plurilingual approach respectively. After the classes they completed a test and were then supplied with a Likert scale questionnaire focused on understanding their attitude and motivation towards mother tongue and English language learning. Based on observation and results obtained, we can conclude that a plurilingual approach that uses L1 as a tool in English teaching improves English learning, as well as develops an ecological understanding of languages.

A popkultúra-kutatás praxeológiája

Egy hibrid teória vázlata

Author(s): Péter H. Nagy / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 3/2018

This study is devoted to the possibilities of the pop culture research after the media theories of the 20th century. It proposes a praxeology working with a dynamic concept of pop culture, and puts emphasis on increasing complexity. The line of reasoning also notes the role of alternative canons, the distinction between pop culture and mass culture, and the consequences of posthermeneutical practices. Theoretical combinatorics does not give preference to any preliminary theory, it considers each as a research practice. It can also be conceived as an experiment opening the way for metacritical case studies.

A report on the symposium “Juri Lotman and sociosemiotics” (Elva, Estonia, 19–20 May 2017)

Author(s): Remo Gramigna / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2018

Th e fi rst symposium devoted to Juri Lotman’s legacy in the discipline of sociosemiotics was recently held in Elva, a small town situated on the banks of Lake Verevi in Tartu County, Estonia. Th e seminar, entitled “Juri Lotman and sociosemiotics” and organized by the Department of Semiotics of the University of Tartu, saw the participation of distinguished foreign guests as well as a substantial attendance of both local and international fellow semioticians, many of them doctoral students. An informal and friendly environment, coupled with exceptionally warm and sunny weather, created a convivial atmosphere where young and veteran semioticians could meet to discuss the relationship of Juri Lotman, founder of the Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics, with sociosemiotics.

A Review of Armenian Proverbs from the Territory of Iranian Azerbaijan (the Salmast Dialect)

Author(s): Andrzej Pisowicz / Language(s): English Issue: Spec. Iss./2019

In 2016 the author took part in a scientific fieldtrip of German academics to Iranian Azerbaijan. There he received two books devoted to the Armenian dialect of the town Salmast. One of them was a collection of about 800 proverbs in this dialect spoken in the past near a town located to the north-west of Lake Urmia (Orumiye). The present publication gives English translation of about 50 proverbs of the Salmast dialect.

A robust approach to variation in Carpathian Rusyn: Resampling-based methods for small data sets

Author(s): Moulay Zaidan Lahjouji-Seppälä,Achim Rabus / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2021

Quantitative, corpus based research on spontaneous spoken Carpathian Rusyn language can cause several data-related problems: Speakers are using ambivalent forms in different quantities, resulting in a biased data set - while a stricter data-cleaning process would lead to a large scale data loss. On top of that, polytomous categorical dependent variables are hard to analyze due to methodological limitations. This paper provides several approaches to face unbalanced and biased data sets containing variation of conjugational forms of the verb maty 'to have' and (po-)znaty 'to know' in Carpathian Rusyn language. Using resampling based methods like Cross-Validation, Bootstrapping and Random Forests, we provide a strategy for circumventing possible methodological pitfalls and gaining the most information from our precious data, without trying to p-hack the results. Calculating the predictive power of several sociolinguistic factors on linguistic variation, we can make valid statements about the (sociolinguistic) status of Rusyn and the stability of the old dialect continuum of Rusyn varieties.

A Romanian Community in Ōsaka: A Case Study of Class Discrimination in Two Languages

Author(s): Adriana Tămăşan,Carmen Săpunaru Tămaș / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2016

The idea for this research topic came to me after listening to a Romanian acquaintance speak first in Romanian, then in Japanese. Coming from a poor gypsy community from the south of Romania, A. had barely finished high school and her speech contained clear markers of her social background. Her Japanese, however, learned from her Buddhist priest husband and her mother-in-law, sounded cultured and elegant. Focused on field work conducted at a bar in Osaka, owned by a former Romanian hostess and tended by a Romanian man, as well as on numerous interviews, our paper will analyze the language choices made by other Romanian hostesses who tend to gather there when their regular hours are over. The concept of social class is less defined in Japan compared to other societies, but the lines and borders exist and it is our purpose to try to define them.