The paper deals with three grievous language problems, which have been present in the community of Hungarians in Slovakia for a long time and which will probably persist in the future, although they do not seem to be unsolvable. The problems are presented by Katalin Misad (2009). The first issue she specifically deals with in her book, is the problem of the language for specific purposes used by the Hungarian community in Slovakia; the second – the problem of mother tongue teaching in the schools with Hungarian as the language of instruction; the third – the problem of the second language teaching, again, in the schools with Hungarian as the language of instruction. The aim of this paper – as well as of the book it is based on – is to contribute to the handling of these problems. continue reading →
The paper deals with the 20th and 21st century revisions of Károli Gáspár’s New Testament, from the point of view of linguistics and translation. It is based on a long-term research program, in which the linguistic forms found in the 20th and 21st century revisions of Károli Gáspár’s New Testament are compared with an older Károli revision from the 17th century and a number of new translations and (non-Károli) revisions from the 20th and 21st century. The short-term aim of the research is to find out how the revisers changed the texts to make it fit to the 20th and 21st century Hungarian language norms, how they succeeded in eliminating those features of the revised text, which were or became erroneous or problematic from the point of view of linguistics or translation, actually: how they were able to render the message of the original Greek New Testament to the 20th and 21st century Hungarian reader. The long-term aim of the research is to make a contribution to the research on how classic literary works and translations, which are becoming archaic, can be “saved” by adjusting their language to the contemporary language norm. continue reading →
In my paper I deal with the question of how some of the existing Hungarian Bible translations could be developed into different types of translations aimed for different audiences and designed to fulfil partly different functions. In the first part of the paper I give an overview of the most important existing Bible translations, based mostly on the papers presented on a 2013 conference on Hungarian Bible translations. Then I outline some of the features of Relevance Theory, accentuating its advantages for Bible translation. Finally I deal with the questions how new revisions of some of the existing translations could lead to translations which differ from each other in a meaningful way and they consequently fulfil the needs of different kinds of Bible readers and also fulfil partly different functions István Lanstyák 22:81`255.4 On the future of the Hungarian Bible translations 811.511.141`255.4:22 Keywords: Hungarian Bible translations, direct and indirect translation, relevance theory, the principle of relevance, communicative clues, formal and functional equivalence, language ideologies. continue reading →
In this paper the author continues with what he has been dealing with in the previous two issues of this journal: language problems. This time he presents the various strategies of treating language problems in general, with special regard to the bilingual minority communities like the community of Hungarians in Slovakia. He distinguishes the following language treatment strategies: solving, preventing, avoiding, denying, eliminating, accepting and enduring language problems. In each case, he gives a short definition and then illustrates every strategy with a number of examples, many of which come from language diaries written by students of Hungarian language and literature. He also deals with the question of the impact of language ideologies on discerning, evaluating and treating language problems. continue reading →
The study deals with misconceptions about language, and language usage; the author calls them „language misconceptions“. One part of language misconceptions is generally used in the given community; they have recently been called „language myths“. One of the characteristic groups of language myths consists of widely-used language misconceptions about human language as such, the general features of language, the functioning of language, the relationship between language and its speakers, and similar questions. Another group of language myths is made of misconceptions about particular language phenomena, their „incorrectness“; these are called „superstitions about language correctness“, or „myths of language usage“ by the author. Nevertheless, there are also language misconceptions that are much less-known; they can be called „superstitions of language cultivators“. Superstitions of language cultivators do not differ from the superstitions about language correctness in their character, but in their frequency of occurrence. The superstitions about language correctness are widely-used, a considerable part of the members of a given community knows them and they influence their language usage – this is why they belong to myths. On the other hand superstitions of language cultivators are much less known; they are created mainly by the language cultivators themselves (though many times... continue reading →
If we would want to define dramatically, we should begin our summary of drawing a lesson from the point of view of the whole EU with the statement that in the EU beside English and French no language can feel safe in a long term. Although, in a shorter term, those languages that are official or regionally official languages of the member states, are not in direct danger. Although, if we do not want them to be in dangerous situation, we have to (should) act now. From the point of view of the European Union the main question is how a multi-lingual – similar to a state union, but basically new type – structure can function effectively considering equality/democracy on the one hand and reasonability/economy on the other hand. From the point of view of the languages spoken in the Union, the question arises more sharply and it is even more difficult to answer it: how can the lagging behind of minority languages be stopped, how can their possible strengthening, stabilisation be achieved in such a way that it would enable success of the speakers, since the disadvantages of languages spoken by small-number communities in certain conditions can put... continue reading →
In the shortened version of the lecture given on the 3rd Grammá Linguistic Days the basic types of linguistic code change are presented. The basis for typifying is the aspect how the sequences originating from different languages infiltrate intő the same discursus. The samples of (living) modern languages originate from the database of modern languages developed in the Grammá Linguistic Office being the basis of the linguistic corpus of spoken Hungárián language in Slovakia. The recordings were prepared and recorded by the students of the Comenius University, Department of Hungárián Language and Literature. The author does not mention the question what determines which type or types of code changes uses the speaker or a community in a certain situation: on one hand due to extensional limits, on other hand because we do not have sufficient knowledge on changing this issue. At the end, he stresses one thing. The majority of selected samples consisted of grammatically well-formed sentence, the significant part of „deviancies” in them are not unknown in the spoken language of monolingual speakers. Obviously, there are sequences that can be analysed with difficulty, their number is evén not small, but there are such in the language of mono-lingual... continue reading →
The author deals with various examples of language myths and other unschol-arly statements concerning linguistic matters as well as with the stigmatiza-tion of non-standard linguistic features and their users. Most of his examples come from the articles on language cultivation published in the periodical called Édes Anyanyelvünk (Our Sweet Mother Tongue). Most of the authors of these articles are laymen engaged in language cultivation activities, but somé of them are professional linguists who work at the Linguistic Institute of the Hungárián Academy of Sciences or teach at renowned universities, neverthe-less consider themselves alsó language cultivators. The author of the present paper comments the “tommy-rot” in language cultivation literature mostlyfrom sociolinguistic point of view. He concludes that “language cultivation” should limit itself to popularizing linguistic knowledge and giving counsels in matters of language use and these linguistic services should be provided solely by well-trained professional linguists. continue reading →
Translation as special type of bilingual speech. Speech contact and language contact. Translation uni-versals as a special type of language contact universals. Contact induced features. Convergence – levelling up. Linguistic insecurity. Simplification – implicitation. Analytic tendency – explicitation. Purism -adherence to the norms. The main goal of the paper is to show that there are a number of questions dealt with in translation theory which can be interpreted and studied in the framework of contact linguistics. No wonder that this is so, since the translators are bilingual persons whose speech shows the same features as that of other bilinguals, even if their language use is more conscious than that of “ordinary” bilinguals and therefore there may be substantial differences between the types of contact induced features characteristic of the two groups. Translation contact is a part of language contact in general, which is one of the most significant factors influencing language change. The problems of universals of language contact as well as translation uni-versals show how important it is to deal with translation theory, bilingualism and contact linguistics in a uniform conceptual frame. The concepts used in contact linguistics seem suitable for describing all the relevant phenomena on... continue reading →
In my paper I deal with language management activities aimed at the standardization of a language. As an introduction I present three concepts of the “standard” (standard as an ideal variety, standard as a dialect, standard as an ideological construct). Further I analyse three constitutive features of standards: regulatedness, polyfunctionalism and high degree of ideological loadedness. The main part of the paper is concerned with various language management activities, the common trait of which is that they play role in creating, developing and maintaining the standard: selection, codification, functional differentiation, elaboration, standardist discourse, creation of sample texts in the standard variety, acquisition and learning of the standard, dissemination of the standard, management of standard discourses. Besides I touch upon the question of the differences between the processes of standardization and koineization. István Lanstyák 811.511.141 Standardization as a language management activity 81`24 81`26 81`27 Keywords: standard, standardization, standard ideology, codification, koineization, variation, dialect, register. continue reading →
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