Nyelv és stílus
This paper reinstates stylistics in the system of rhetoric, taking the latter to be the theoretical background of the former. Thereby it establishes a link between topoi (sources of arguments) and stylistic devices: it points at the cognitive background of stylistic devices. On this basis, it highlights the four master tropes (metonymy, synecdoche, metaphor, and irony), it indicates their origin (the emergence of the four master tropes goes back to Petrus Ramus (16th century); thus, this systematization is older than what the internet generally shows); and it also points out that the four master tropes constitute a current set of categories in the world’s literature on rhetoric and stylistics. The paper then systematizes tropes in their relation to the four master tropes. It re-defines metonymy, on the basis of what the literature refers to as “Aristotle’s four”. It takes synecdoche to be an independent type of tropes, rather than a subtype of metonymy, as its basis is quite different. The cognitive background of metalepsis is the relationship between antecedent and consequence; it is also an independent type of trope, albeit very infrequently attested; it is not a subtype of metonymy, either. The paper recommends the introduction of narrative metalepsis, as first suggested by Gérard Genette. The notion of linguistic image is not taken to be a superordinate category. At the end of the paper, the author lists her actual suggestions. The paper presents the theoretical background of the author’s forthcoming book A Small Dictionary of Stylistics.
rhetoric, stylistics, tropes, figures of speech, the four master tropes, topoi (sources of arguments), metonymy, synecdoche, metalepsis, narrative metalepsis, the system of tropes, linguistic images.
Ferenc Temesi is an outstanding prose writer of present-day Hungarian literature. His love novel entitled 49/49 was first published in 2018. The paper introduces the textological/stylistic structure and devices of the novel, with generous text samples. It points out its text construction based on small prose, its documentary character, its sententious and intertextual, and iconic, way of text construction, as well as the plurality of narration (speech representation) found in the novel.
Ferenc Temesi, short prose, documentary, sententiousness, intertextuality, iconic text creation, plurality of modes of narration (free reported speech, free direct speech)
Nyelv és iskola
The aim of our research was to explore and prove linguistic discrimination. The research has been conducted by a method drawn up by us with more than 550 Hungarian teachers and teacher trainees. The pilot test and the large-scale research clearly supported the fact that linguistic discrimination is largely present in pedagogical evaluation. Oral performances have been recorded that differed in content, in language variety and in language use. Oral performances delivered in the standard variety and/or in elaborated language use were favoured. However, oral productions performed in dialect and restricted language use – despite the fact that the content was correct – resulted in unfavourable evaluation. Comparing oral productions with the same content but different language variety meant even one grade difference in the mean of grades. These differences were statistically significant for each sample, so the fact of linguistic discrimination is proved.
linguistic discrimination, linguistic bias, linguistic disadvantages, linguicism, pedagogical evaluation, Hungarian teachers
A nyelvtudomány műhelyéből
The author undertakes the introduction and evaluation of four extant manuscripts of a linguistic character written by the late 18th-century poet Gábor Dayka. This time, the paper entitled “Grammatical notes” is the actual topic of scrutiny. The paper originally had no title: the above title was attached to it later. Having noted this, the author discusses the topic of the paper and the possible time of its writing. Then he introduces the contents of both parts of the paper. In the first part, Dayka sketches the theoretical framework and, starting from the smallest constituents of language, deals with phonological issues. In the second part he starts with syllables and ends up with words; then he turns to the role of words in building utterances, thus he discusses characteristic properties of parts of speech, and finally, propositions. The present paper emphasises the following characteristics of Dayka’s writing: consistent and logical structure and order of presentation; reliance on general linguistic considerations; the study of the interaction of thought and its linguistic expression, a major aim of Dayka’s discussion; the focus of the paper being on what he calls “notions”; the fact that he normally bases his claims on everyday language use; and that in characterising a certain linguistic phenomenon, he often employs comparisons with its equivalents in various foreign languages. In sum, “Grammatical notes” was a proper preparation for Dayka’s linguistic oeuvre as it unfolded in later decades.
Gábor Dayka, H. Home, history of Hungarian linguistics, textbook, notion, proposition
According to the general linguistic view, verbal prefixes do not express temporality. Still, the primary meaning of the Hungarian prefix designates directionality, a dynamic construal of direction in physical space from the conceptualizer’s perspective. For the earlier cognitive descriptions, the directionality of prefixes is processed through summary scanning, resulting in one static configurational state. The present paper harmonizes the notion of ‘subjective motion’ (Langacker), the idea of the imaginative mental simulation of events (Gibbs and Matlock) and mental timeline (Eikmeier et al.), and also the ‘primordial event’ (Pöppel) for a complex approach to the Hungarian prefix. Within this framework, the dynamic processing of the Hungarian prefix comprises a serial, sequential scanning, and the imaginative processed time of this processing is connected sequentially with processing time (the temporality of the mental process) in a sequential manner.
mental timeline, prefix, processed time, processing time, subjective motion, summary scanning
The language development of twins provides a possibility to study both genetic and environmental effects on the acquisition processes. This study focuses on the recognition of synthesized words and nonsense words in a repetition task. 80 Hungarian-speaking young children (aged between 4 and 5) participated in the experiments. We compared the correct repetitions of the test items in pairs of monozygotic and dizygotic twins, as well as the twins’ performance to those of singletons. Results indicate that singletons performed better than twins in the word recognition task while there was no difference in the non-word repetition task between dizygotic twins and singletons. Results showed specific differences in repetition errors of both words and non-words in all groups.
twins, singletons, word repetition, non-word repetition, errors
In terms of the principle of technological determinism, the linguistic context of computer games influences the (linguistic) behaviour of millions of active gamers. This makes it important to explore gamer communication thoroughly with respect to politeness, too. Indeed, the communication of gamers during games may also affect the users’ communicative situations outside games. It can be assumed on the basis of the international literature that the quasi anonymity of online communication, the lack or scarcity of retortion makes it ruder than offline communication: it involves a higher number of insults or offensively personal remarks. The paper attends to this issue, in particular by a pragmatic – politeness-centred – investigation of a particular kind of online insults. The corpus of analysis is provided by “taunts”, i.e. inbuilt instructions triggering “mocking” remarks of a multipleparticipant online arena game, the League of Legends (LoL). Within-game insults are interpreted by the authors in the framework of speech act theory, the Cooperative Principle (conversational and politeness maxims), face threatening, and a matrix of aims and functions. The paper wishes to be a contribution to cyberpragmatics, a pragmatically-oriented branch of net-linguistics.
net-linguistics, pragmatics, cyberpragmatics, insult, politeness, speech act, computer games, gamer communication
The aim of this paper is to compare the semantic structure of Hungarian and Udmurt motion verbs and to refute the general assertion of the typological literature that the semantic structure of Finno- Ugric motion verbs is typologically Motion + Mode (Motion + Co-event). This paper shows that in Udmurt there are also a number of motion verbs with the pattern Motion + Path.
Udmurt, motion verb, typology, pattern
Szemle