I. Nyelvleírás – Nyelvoktatás
The acquisition of Hungarian noun stems and noun endings by foreign learners
This paper investigates the acquisition of the Hungarian noun stems and certain endings by foreign learners. The results presented here are based on 210 test questions filled in by 83 subjects in a larger research project. We can clearly see a difficulty order among the noun stems. The morphologically complex plural, accusative and superessivus endings were also more difficult than other endings with less variations.
Creative communication in teaching Hungarian as a foreign language (HFL)
How should the teacher of HFL manage to teach Hungarian at the beginning of the 21th century? The current issue of this paper is the programme of language teaching based on competence. This paper, after introducing the most relevant pedagogical arguments of teaching HFL, introduces a new method for the teaching Hungarian: the so-called creative communication.
Fuzzy categories: Theory and usage
The scientific research of the language assumes the existence of a uniform theoretical basis; when one steps out of the framework thereof, the scientific value of the research may be questioned. Each theory, language desciption is characterised by clearly distinguishable and therefore readily manageable categories set up by itself.
In my paper I would like to point out that the theories – as far as their methodology and principles are concerned –, which take the permeability and fuzziness of these categories into account, converge to a teaching-oriented description, which make allowance for the use of language.
Incongruent structures in Hungarian language
Agreement as a grammatical term means that the parts of some grammatical categories (person, number, gender, case, definiteness etc.) belonging together are marked by the same or synonymous grammatical tools. This formal sameness or similarity seem to be important and characteristic tools of the sentences and texts, i.e. the harmony produced by the same or synonymous morphemes insures syntactical transparency, and makes easier the perception and the understanding of the sentence and the text. The agreement is an obligatory operation, nevertheless there are some exceptions in Hungarian which can be explained by two – contrasting to each other – factors of communication: on the one hand the speaker wants to formulate his own thoughts with minimum quantity of grammatical signs in order to avoid the redundancy, on the other hand he wants to make his own statements clear and unmistakable. This study aims to give a brief overview of the typical Hungarian categories (person, number, definiteness and case) constituents of which are not marked by the same or synonymous grammatical tools. In particular, the research focuses on the question of incongruence in definiteness, i.e. in some sentences the direct object corresponds to the criteria of the definite direct object, nevertheless it takes indefinite conjugation.
Between the mother tongue and the foreign language – The methods of teaching pronunciation and reading to young learners in HFL
The teaching of Hungarian as a Foreign Language (HFL) boasts with many decades of history in modern language teaching. An increasing number of experts study the theory and methodology of Foreign Language (FL) teaching and the processes applied in the practice. Up to now there has not been any work that collected methods, processes and steps applied in HFL. There are especially big gaps in the literature of teaching HFL to young learners.
This paper combines the methodology of teaching and learning of pronunciation and reading from the disciplines of teaching Hungarian as a mother tongue, the methodology of teaching foreign languages and HFL. On the other hand it introduces those classroom procedures and practicalities which proved to be successful in learning, understanding and acquirement the Hungarian system of phonemes and letters to young learners.
II. A kontrasztív szemlélet tükrében
Additives to a functional education of Hungarian as a foreign language – Based on the analysis of German–Hungarian interference phenomena
The target of this study is to map some grammatical interference phenomena in the field of Hungarian as a second language. It is based on empiric material gained by interviews of a male speaker of Hungarian as second language. He is 76 years old with German as first language background. The research covers 76 phrases. As a result the following categories can be stated –– as especially problematic: 1st the inflection personal pronouns, 2nd the use of articles, 3rd the congruence of noun and verbal forms, 4th the use of uxiliary verbs, 5th the use of simple and double negation, and 6th lexical and syntactical specifities.
The Hungarian and the Croatian system of participles and gerunds
In the first part of the paper the authors point out the formal and functional overlap and the differences between the Hungarian and the Croatian system of participles and gerunds based on a structural and systematic overview. The next part analyzes the typical Croatian translations of the Hungarian adjectival present participle appearing in attributive function examining a corpus derived from the Croatian translation of a contemporary Hungarian novel. The results suggest that this Hungarian structure can rarely be translated into the Croatian active present participle which can be considered its equivalent and this tendency is independent of the subordinated elements linked with the Hungarian participle. The most common form used in Croatian for the translation of the Hungarian present participle is a relative clause which requires a characteristic word order. Deverbal adjectives and adverbial clauses can also be found in great number among the forms used in the translations along with some other types of participles.
Teaching of the accusative, the use of the definite and indefinite conjugations for French speaking students
The paper deals with one basic grammatical phenomenon of teaching Hungarian as a foreign language for French speaking students. This phenomenon is the different way of the expression of the accusative in Hungarian and in the French language. Because of the complexity of this grammatical phenomenon the contrastive study of this question is indispensable.
The most important reason of that difference comes from the compound (Hungarian) and the uncompounded (French) system of the two languages. While the accusative in French is expressed with the word order of the phrase, in Hungarian the same meaning is taken by a suffix: the accusative suffix –t, which should be explained and made clear by the teacher. Only after this process could start the explication of the two different conjugations of the Hungarian verbs which always depends on the object. The definite conjugation is used with a definite object while the indefinite conjugation is used where there is no object or only an indefinite one. For that reason the first step should be to make that clear what is considered indefinite and definite object and than comes the practice. The difference in the use of the two conjugations can be explained and practiced later.
The paper presents one possible method to teach this complex phenomenon, advises and showes exercices for the practice.
II. Nyelvizsga
Analysing disfluency phenomena in Hungarian as a second language using written C1 level language exam tests
Just like in the case of spoken discourse, production disfluency phenomena often interrupt the continuity of written communication, too. Investigating disfluency phenomena in writing, such as various slips of the pen, misspellings, unintended repetitions, grammatical and lexical mistakes, you can experience the way the mind creates the language, which remains unrevealed in case of faultless continuous writing. Disfluency signs offer us the change to look into the mental lexicon of a given person based on the language examinees' self-corrected mistakes in their advanced level written textual production in Hungarian as a second language.
Combining business with pleasure: preparing for the matura examination in Hungarian as a foreign language
In the 2008/2009 school year I was happy to get involved in preparing two of my students for the matura examination in Hungarian as a foreign language. In my paper I tried to give an overview of the legal status of the new Matura examination as well as an insight into the structure of it. The new system is based on a Directive by the EU that facilitates migration. In practice there is a collection of advices to help teachers and pupils alike compiled by the Hungarian Ministry of Education and Culture. In the second part of my paper I summarised the work process of the above mentioned period through the examples of my Mongolian and Vietnamese students showing some details of their work.
IV. Nyelv és kultúra
Music, game and dance in the methodology of the teaching Hungarian as a foreign language
This paper examines such theoretical basis through which the methodological base of teaching Hungarian as a foreign language could be enriched in the adult education. It examines the folk game as an instrument with which students can quickly and unawares gain understanding and use of the different grammatical problems. In this methodology the ditties, the singing, moving and dancing play and the complexity of dance have an important role. The songs, the lyrics and the moves help and strengthen each other and the effect of these elements can make the language teaching more effective and can enhance the students' relation towards the Hungarian language. The tools and practices created based on the above principles can bring the foreign students emotionally closer to Hungary with their subject matter and their versatile approach.
Classified dokuments from the Berlin Prussian State Archives. About the circumstances of the founding of the first department of hungarology
In 1916 the Berlin Hungarian Department was founded (this is the first and still operating foreign Hungarian Department of this type). I researched in the Berlin Prussian State Archives into what the circumstances were for the founding in this year, and I tried to reveal what was the context and what were the processes that brought about this event of great cultural significance. Among the files were a number of classified and confidential documents. These previously undiscovered documents contribute much to the reconstruction of the exact circumstances of the founding of the Department, as well as providing insight into the search for information about Gragger Róbert, who was appointed Professor and Head of the Department. Therefore, I would like to acquaint my Hungarian as a Foreign Language teaching colleagues with the results of my research.
A look at scientific vocabulary
A basic knowledge of the scientific and technical fields belongs to general education, so this vocabulary should be familiar not only to native but also to foreign speakers. The paper outlines how to teach the basic Hungarian scientific vocabulary at an advanced level based on the experiences of the author at the Hungarian Department of Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan.
Lexical and communicative exercises are presented for these fields, making use of the science popularizing material of Mindentudás egyeteme (ENCOMPASS: ENCyclopedic knOwledge Made a Popular ASSet) and of the scientific vocabulary in the Hungarian-Polish Thematic Dictionary.
V. Hungarológia a nagyvilágban: Bemutatkozik az Osservatorio Letterario
VI. Európai és amerikai kitekintés
Teaching Hungarian as a foreign language in the higher education of Austria and Germany from the 1980s until today
The present paper gives a short overview of teaching Hungarian as a foreign language from 1980 until today at the Universitiy of Vienna (Austria), the Humboldt University (Berlin), the Georg August University (Göttingen), the University of Hamburg and the Ludwig Maximilians University (Munich).
The emphasis is on the changes in the number and content of the Hungarian language practice seminars, the aim of teaching Hungarian, the teaching material (course books, grammar books) and the methods used throughout the two decades. Information on teachers and the motivations of students are also dealt with. The study hints at the importance of teaching Hungarian to students with different motivations in separate seminars. Finally, after summerizing the results , the paper calls the attention to the fact that despite the united higher educational system, it will be difficult to create a united curriculum of teaching Hungarian as a foreign language in the German-speaking countries in the future.
The memory of Kálmán Keresztes (1919–2006)
Kálmán Keresztes was born in the village of Kákics in an archaic subregion Ormánság, within the county Baranya, in Hungary. After high school graduation, he attended the old theology of the Hungarian reformed (Calvinist) church in Pápa; then he earned an M.A. diploma (majoring in Hungarian and Italian philology) at State University of Debrecen. There he became a member of the center of – Finnish and Estonian type – dialectology conducted by Professor Bálint Csűry (1886–1941), who produced the first Hungarian regional dialect disctionary: the Szamosháti Szótár (then region Szamoshát is in Transylvania).
In 1952 Keresztes was invited into the Research Insitute of Linguisitics of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences for the task of editing and preparing for publication the manuscripts of the Ormánysági Szótár of Géza Kiss (1891–1947). Kiss, a Calvinist pastor, was a well-known ethnographer who died before finishing his oeuvre. Keresztes achieved the task excellently. After this success, Keresztes became a member of the famous the field worker team of the Magyar Nyelvjárások Atlasza [Linguistic map of Hungarian dialects]; in which project he was perhaps the most diligent „field worker" in collecting dialect data in cca 75 villages with exemplary minuteness.
At the same time he was commissioned to edit the third Hungarian dialect dictionary, which appeared only at the end of the 20th century, edited by another team, because Mr Keresztes decided at the end of 1956 to emigrate with his family to the United States.
In the United States Keresztes settled down with his family in Silver Spring MD, near Washnington DC. Then he enrolled to the program of Uralic Studies of Columbia University in New York NY, which he finished with an excellent dissertation in 1964. Dr. Keresztes also became an authority in English and Hungarian contrastive linguitics with another extraordinary monograph. He has also taught Hungarian language and linguistic problems at other American universities.
The Keresztes family repatriated in 2004 to Budapest, Hungary, where Dr. Kálmán Keresztes died of heart failure in 2005 after a life in which he suceeded to be a very good, active and beloved man in both of his home countries: in the tiny Hungary and in the mighty United States. (His scholarly legacy is being united by his son, Peter Keresztes, an American and Hungarian journalist and well-known specialist in communication matters.)
VII. Ismertetők
Bokor József: Nyelviség és magyarság a Muravidéken
Magyar Nemzetiségi Művelődési Intézet, Lendva, 2009. (p. 182)
The book titled "Language use and Hungarians in Prekmurje" comprises an excellent summary of József Bokor's work in Slovenia. The volume provides an extensive overview of the language situation of the Hungarian minority living in the Slovenian Prekmurje. Moreover, it gives an insight into the author's achievements in education, language policy, and into his research in dialectology. The Hungarians of Prekmurje were of importance to J. Bokor since – in addition to being the subjects for his research – they were the community where he lived for decades, and which he wished to support with his work. The volume, a selection of J. Bokor's earlier publications on the Hungarians of Prekmurje, attempts to be a summary of the linguistic situation of this minority, as well as of the position, status and role of the Hungarian language in Slovenia (Bokor, 2009:8). The book has a clear structure: each of the chapters deals with a distinctive linguistic issue of the Prekmurjean Hungarian minority. The outcome, therefore, is a carefully outlined, well-detailed picture of the Hungarians and of the language use in Prekmurje. The papers are not merely re-published in a chronological order but are thematically arranged within the chapters. This sequencing results in new and new interpretations as the questions are answered and the problems are rephrased again and again.
The Modern Hungary
„La Hongrie moderne" by Francois Cadilhon, professor of University Michel de Montaigne of Bordeux, is one of the rare French monographies about modern Hungarian history. Taking the results of newest researches in consideration but breaking with traditional periodisation in a measure, the book subsumes Hungarian history between 1450 and 1848 in two independent chapters (one from political and the other from economical and cultural aspect). The main merit of the work is presenting history of a peripheral country in European context from a French researcher's special point of view.
A kötet (a címek után * megjelöléssel) tartalmazza a XIX. Magyar Alkalmazott Nyelvészeti Kongresszus (Eszterházy Károly Főiskola, Eger, 2009. április 16–18.) 8. szekciójának előadásait is. (A magyar mint családi, származási, környezeti és idegen nyelv)