The paper discusses a double case study of two Hungarian calques borrowed from Slovakian, used only in Felvidék, the part of Slovakia inhabited mostly by minority Hungarian native speakers, as a first step in a larger research on semantic variability. The two verbs (feléget ‘write, burn on CD, DVD’ and elvezet ‘remit, transfer money’) have their literal Slovakian equivalents, even on the morpho-semantic level. Nevertheless, the Hungarian calques fully harmonize with the Hungarian preverb + verb construction schema. The analysis of the two verbs demonstrates how direction is dynamically conceptualized through the preverb by the source–path–goal schema, and how the stem verb gives the main part of the temporal process. It is pointed out in the functional cognitive analysis (based on Langacker’s theoretical framework) that feléget ‘write, burn on CD, DVD’ is a composite structure with the preverb component fel ‘up, upwards’ and the verb component éget ‘make burn’ resulting in ‘burn into a surface’. As for the use of fel ‘up, upwards’, this construction is similar to felvisz, felhord valamely felületre ‘apply, e.g. paint on a surface’, literally ‘upcarry’. Other expressions used for ‘write, burn on CD, DVD’ have similar semantic structures, albeit with preverbs denoting other directions: rá ‘onto’ and bele ‘into’. It is demonstrated how the diverse perspectives of the preverb + verb construction conceptualize the content ‘write, burn on CD, DVD’: rá ‘onto’ profiles the outer surface of the disc, bele ‘into’ focuses on the depth of that surface, while fel ‘up, upwards’ profiles the writing process directed towards the surface of the disc. The other example has similar features. It is also recognized that the process of borrowing has a converging character: the two calques have their supporting networks of similar constructions in the Hungarian varieties, mainly in the standard, i.e. the two relatively new Slovakian Hungarian lexical items come as much from Hungarian as from Slovakian.
Hungarian minority language variety in Slovakia, preverb, preverb + verb construction, semantic structure, semantic variability, Termini online dictionary
Nyelv és stílus
The paper enumerates a number of linguistic phenomena in works of present-day Hungarian prose fiction sharing certain stylistic traits. These can be classified under the umbrella label of ‘postmodern’ and their most characteristic stylistic feature is irony. The postmodern era is characterised by stylistic pluralism, and a number of different styles are attributed even to specifically postmodern writers. The prose writers adduced as examples in this paper belong to diverse generations in a narrow sense: Ferenc Temesi (1949), Szilárd Podmaniczky (1963), Zoltán Egressy (1967), Gábor Vida from Partium/Transylvania (1968), as well as, from the youngest generation, Krisztián Grecsó (1976), Csaba Hartay (1977), and Viktor Nebehaj (1980). The phenomena analysed, found in works of several authors from that list, are as follows: (i) the influence of scholarly literature on prose fiction and vice versa; (ii) reflecting on style and the process of writing; (iii) the problems of narration (revealing the difficulty of storytelling, metalinguistic hints); (iv) obscuration, querying, putting off; (v) difficulties of (reporting) dialogues; (vi) alternating narrator’s perspectives; (vii) writers’ language care behaviour; (viii) linguistic features of literary texts.
the language of present-day Hungarian fiction, postmodern, irony, scholarly vs. literary texts, narration, obscuration, narrator’s perspective, language care in literature
The paper continues the description of aspectual functions of the preverb meg- that was started in the first part. The relevant groups of achievement and accomplishment verbs are presented. A detailed description of peculiarities of their use is given, the distinction between lexical and viewpoint aspect is commented on, the range of elements encoding telicity is extended and classified, and the difficulties of lexical presentation of verb pairs referring to activity vs. accomplishment are listed.
lexical aspect, viewpoint aspect, achievements, accomplishments, telicity markers
In this article we are concerned with the issue of metaphor universals in poetry. By metaphor universals we mean any (universal or potentially universal) metaphor-related phenomena. Metaphor universals are approached from a conceptual metaphor theory (CMT) perspective here. The majority of our examples are taken from American English, British English and Hungarian poems, including a number of Hungarian folksongs. Since universality assumes non-universality, we are concerned with both universal and non-universal aspects of metaphor in poetry. We attempt to answer two questions: What makes some metaphors universal? and What makes some other conceptual metaphors non-universal in poetry? In answering these questions, we use an extended view of CMT provided by Kövecses (2017, 2015), which has two main components: the multi-level view of metaphor and the contextualist version of CMT. The analysis demonstrates that this complex approach offers several new insights into the study of poetic metaphor.
conceptual metaphor theory, poetic metaphor, universality, non-universality, context, multi-level view of metaphors, Hungarian folksongs
Focusing on Creole styling and performance as metrolingual practice in Sam Selvon’s The Lonely Londoners, this essay explores the role of culturally embedded vernacular repertoires and resources in the (re)construction of identity and space. On the one hand, styling involves the ongoing negotiation of im/migrant life, and the rewriting of racial sociosemantics and – semiotics in the imperial metropolis. On the other hand, Creole styling crafts a new and rival space that challenges the racial structuration of London. The paper hence shows how Caribbean Creole styling is an embodied and embedded, complex and ordinary, performative and habitual, spectacular and opaque, translingual and transcultural multimodal practice with profound affective, speculative and political implications.
metrolingualism, Creole, styling, performance, Black British identity, im/migration, Caribbean literature, race
A nyelvtudomány műhelyéből
This paper gives an overview of the processes underlying the emergence of critical sociolinguistics and the development of its key concepts in current scholarship. It points out that the critical turn in sociolinguistics can be traced back to two interrelated sources: the first is the discipline’s internal development resulting in the study of language ideologies, and the second is the consequence of social, economic and political changes that are connected to quotidian experience of language matters. Whereas the study of language ideologies is well established within Hungarian sociolinguistics, empirical research on language and globalisation is scarce. The authors argue that this research, which is both part of linguistics and based in the social sciences, has to be reflexive about its legitimising force in the social effects of linguistic differentiation. This reflexivity is paramount to the success of developing a truly critical sociolinguistics.
critical sociolinguistics, language ideologies, superdiversity, reflexivity, language revitalisation, translanguaging