I. Köszöntő
II. Tanulmányok
The memory of Miklós Zrínyi, the hero of Szigetvár, in Ivan Zajc's opera Nikola ©ubić Zrinski
The article examines the cultural-historical perspective of the most famous Croatian national opera (1876), Ivan Zajc's Nikola ©ubić Zrinski, which captures the cult of the general Miklós Zrínyi (1508-1566) who died a martyr death with his soldiers at the Siege of Szigetvár in 1566. The valiant deed was remembered and honored across the Habsburg Empire and Europe, but Zrínyi/Zrinski’s reputation was shattered by the period of newly formed nation states and their national identity initiatives throughout Europe. Despite his close ties to both cultures, he was revered as a Hungarian hero in Hungary and as a Croatian in Croatia. As a result, Zajc’s romantic opera com-memorating his final siege remained completely unnoticed in Hungary. The article attempts to highlight the his-torical-ideological context that might explain the situation.
Change in attitude towards language learners’ errors in language teaching
Analysing and correcting language learners' errors is an important aspect of language teaching and an integral part of everyday practice in this field. The aim of this paper is to summarize how different language teaching methods, approaches, and associated theories relate to errors and error correction, and how the correction of language learners' errors has changed across these various methods and approaches. The paper examines the issue primarily from the perspective of language pedagogy, focusing on the most significant methods and approaches.
“Why and how shall I learn Hungarian?” Motivational factors and strategies in learning a less frequently chosen language
The paper enumerates the most important general L2 motivational theories developed in the last few decades and examines their relevance in the case of learning Hungarian as a foreign language or as a minority mother tongue. Learners of Hungarian confess in YouTube videos about questions such as why they started to learn Hungarian; how they maintain their motivation in the long run; what the most challenging features of the Hungarian language are for them; what methods they use in acquiring the language; what advantages they have from speaking Hun-garian. Their answers confirm that having positive attitudes towards and deep knowledge of the target culture, desiring to talk to native speakers, experiencing tangible benefits and getting positive reactions when using the target language, being patient in learning the basics, being surrounded by the target language in one’s daily life, taking the opportunity to switch to different methods of language learning, using the language to gain subject specific knowledge of one’s own professional or recreational interests, and – most importantly – enjoying learning the language are crucial motivational factors in the acquisition of the Hungarian language.
Peculiarities of language, culture, and translation in the East-Central European language area
Central Europe is a meeting place for the peoples, languages and cultures. It is a region where it is impossible to draw borders between languages and cultures with a single line, and where even state borders change (perhaps too often). Trans- or Subcarpathia is a typical Central European region. In this small area, many nationalities and languages (Ukrainian/Rusyn, Hungarian, Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Gypsy, German), several religious de-nominations (Orthodox, Roman and Greek Catholic, Reformed, Israelite) and many cultures live side by side. This region lies in the transitional zone of Western and Eastern Christian civilization and culture; several linguistic and cultural borders overlap here, the dividing line of which can be drawn somewhere along the ridge of the Carpa-thians. In this article, we present some examples from the area of language and culture, which prove how colorful and interesting this region is. The article reveals that even in this corner of the world, it is not enough to know only the standard dialects of the languages. For successful communication and effective translation, it is also necessary to know the region, the local culture, and the regional language variants; and of course it doesn't hurt to be curious about the people who live there.
The pragmatics of the image
The study examines visual images that appear embedded in text, within the context of teaching Hungarian as a foreign or second language (THL). By focusing on the receptive side, the paper emphasizes that these images do not or cannot only serve the function of illustration. Indeed, the role of the images in THL is not limited to their aesthetic function: they contribute to the meaning-making of the text by activating the process of bisociation. By using direct visual experience and by evoking the knowledge activated by the image, the recipient is able to create the meaning by which the foreign language text and its components are prepared. In THL, this property of the image facilitates the process of language acquisition, the acquisition of meaning in context which supports com-prehension, and the pragmatically appropriate use of language tools; the creation of the sequence of events of the image can take place in a specific cultural context, specific to it. In addition, the image can also directly transfer (socio-)cultural knowledge.
Picture-book stories in the Hungarian classroom (First lessons from an experiment)
The paper presents the first results of a longitudinal research project. As of the fall semester of the academic year 2023–2024, we have introduced story-based language teaching as an experiment among beginner learners of Hungarian at the Faculty of Humanities, University of Pécs. We implemented story-based modules in our A1-level courses (which mostly include full-time scholarship holders), which we integrated into our standard communica-tive syllabus. At the end of each major topic (such as introduction, food and drinks, in the city, daily routine etc.), we used in-class reading of picture-books specifically designed for students who had just started learning Hun-garian, to supplement the traditional course materials. After describing the theoretical (pedagogical, psychological) and methodological background of story-based language learning, the paper presents the findings of a first round of questionnaires on students' experiences, opinions and attitudes towards this approach, after the first semester. The initial results show that despite possible age-related preconceptions, university students find the use of pic-ture-book stories in the Hungarian class beneficial for several reasons, mainly because of their vocabulary learning potential and due to the fun they bring into the classroom and into the learning process. Differences in the learners’ responses suggest that various characteristics of the stories (mostly their length, storyline, characters, lexis, and relatedness to the standard course material) and the learners’ individual differences (especially their earlier expe-riences with stories), as well as the activities linked to the stories (shared reading, interactive reading, vocabulary exercises) play a major role in how students reflect on the experience.
The concept of universal disintegration and the realization of linear cohesion in the English and Spanish translations of Magda Szabó’s novel, Katalin street
Szabó Magda’s novel Katalin utca (Katalin street) uses several expansive, syntactically complicated sentences, which at times pose serious challenges to the reader as well. While this is probably a deliberate technique on the author’s part to create a confusing atmosphere, translators must find a balance between preserving this textual feature and applying appropriate transfer operations, which may make the target language text more explicit. This paper examines how the devices of local, linear text cohesion are handled in the English and Spanish translations of the novel. The analyses of the excerpts identify similar translation operations in the approaches of the two texts to the problem of linear cohesion but the degree of explicitation is often higher in the English translation.
The implementation perspectives of the Hungarian terminology strategy
The aim of the study is to present an overview of the implementation perspectives of the Hungarian national terminology strategy and the planning of the Hungarian National Terminology Database (MaNTA). The study briefly describes the background of the MaNTA project, the establishment of the terminology strategy, and pro-poses the need to create a detailed roadmap and implementation plan. It then outlines the purpose of the work, the current tasks, and finally summarizes the main tasks to be undertaken.
The possibilities of a functional approach in mother tongue teaching
The problems of mother tongue education in Hungary are long-standing and persistent. Pupils find the classes useless and boring, and they benefit almost nothing from them. A functional approach offers new possibilities. The teaching practices of Hungarian as a mother tongue and those of foreign languages could be combined. It would be useful and important to design parallel curricula for these school subjects to promote language awareness and linguistic sensitivity in students.
Beggars couldn’t be choosers (at Indiana University in 1980)
When I taught Hungarian as a foreign language to American students at Indiana University at Bloomington (USA) in 1978–81, only methodologically and culturally badly outdated textbooks were available. Instead of these, I employed the textbooks of Endre Fülei-Szántó, which were successfully used by international students from dozens of countries at the Summer School of the University of Debrecen (Hungary) in the 1970s. The textbooks used in Debrecen had to be “Americanized” in Bloomington, therefore I compiled a workbook and recorded five audio cassettes for students to use at home and in the language lab. As a brief illustration of the materials I produced for the students in Bloomington, this paper offers a few listening comprehension tasks and a sound discrimination task. In 1980, teachers of Hungarian as a foreign language in the English-speaking world were beggars who couldn’t be choosers. This situation has not improved much in the past four decades. However, teaching Hungarian as an L2 has been established as a legitimate academic discipline in Hungary, and teacher education programs for Hungarian as L2 have also proved successful in a number of universities. For such ground-breaking work we owe special gratitude to Professor Orsolya Nádor.
Botchat
This paper investigates the ability of three chatbots to detect and correct errors in language correctness and ap-propriateness. The study specifically examines how these AI models respond to various text styles and contextual cues when tasked with editing prompts. Through an open letter addressed to Orsolya Nádor, the author presents findings derived from experiments conducted with these AI models. The primary research hypothesis posits that chatbots are sensitive to contextual and stylistic factors, leading them to prioritize corrections that favour linguistic appropriateness over strict adherence to language correctness. The results indicate that chatbots are indeed sensitive to context and text style, demonstrating a preference for linguistic appropriateness over rigid conformity to the rules of language correctness. However, in decontextualized sentences and addressing strongly stigmatized language forms, the chatbots exhibited a greater tendency to pri-oritize language correctness. Additionally, the chatbots consistently applied corrections based on spelling rules, regardless of context. These findings confirm the hypothesis that chatbots are capable of discerning nuanced linguistic patterns and making editing decisions accordingly, reflecting their increasing sophistication in natural language processing.
The state of teaching Hungarian in the Transcarpathian region of Ukraine
The primary objective of the paper is to provide a brief summary of the circumstances of teaching Hungarian as a (second) foreign language in Transcarpathia, Ukraine. In the recent years (2018, 2019 and 2022) I have conducted several small-scale empirical studies with the aim of getting a picture of the possibilities of teaching Hungarian as a foreign language in Transcarpathia. My goal was to reveal and summarize the problems, shortcomings and good practices that help or hinder the effective teaching of Hungarian as a foreign language within institutional frameworks among non-Hungarian speakers living in Transcarpathia. A new pilot study was conducted in 2024, which, in addition to the previous research questions, also sought answers to the question how the specialized further teacher training programme of teachers at the Ferenc Rakoczi II Transcarpathian Hungarian College of Higher Education in Berehovo, Ukraine (an off-site teacher training programme of the Károli Gáspár University of the Reformed Church in Hungary) furthers and supports the effective teaching of the Hungarian language in Transcarpathia.
Teaching Hungarian for healthcare purpo
The paper discusses major issues and current challenges in the field of teaching Hungarian as a foreign language within the context of healthcare specialist language education. The study describes the specialist language and crucial language skills that healthcare professionals such as midwives, physiotherapists, and nurses need to acquire and develop. It also discusses the unique challenges and responsibilities that language teachers teaching medical terminology and communication skills to university students are facing in the context of teaching Hungarian to international students at the Faculty of Health Sciences, Budapest. Finally, it concludes with insights into curric-ulum design and curriculum development tailored for healthcare settings.
Hungarian as a foreign language at Comenius University in Bratislava
The Faculty of Arts at Comenius University in Bratislava has been offering Hungarian studies in various forms of education for over a hundred years. The study presents the diverse domains for teaching Hungarian as a foreign language there and explores the difficulties native speakers of Slovak have in understanding the grammatical system of Hungarian.
Creating a special corpus for language learning and a short study of its thematic vocabulary
The paper introduces a specialized corpus relevant to language teachers and learners. The corpus consists of writings from participants of the online teacher training course titled Naturally! Model-based Language Teaching at Beginner Level. Over two years, 78 participants developed and submitted their responses to the course's essay questions, resulting in a specialized corpus that explores various issues related to language education. This study focuses on a portion of the corpus that is particularly applicable to language teaching. The article details the pro-cess of creating the corpus and demonstrates how to uncover basic vocabulary and multi-word units related to the subject matter. The analysis of the corpus provides insights into the observation and teaching of the lexicon. It highlights that an effective method of teaching vocabulary involves learners acquiring words and expressions within real-life language contexts.
Principles of the editorial process and lexical data of the Termini Online Hungarian–Hungarian Dictionary and Database
The Termini Online Hungarian–Hungarian Dictionary and Database describes the lexicon of the Hungarian language as it is spoken in the countries surrounding Hungary. It is considered to be a general dictionary of pre-sent-day Hungarian. Each entry contains authentic sample sentences to illustrate the use of the headword, making it possible to examine the special use of a word or construction in a grammatical and pragmatic context. The lexicographical database is edited online in eight countries. The study outlines some main tasks of lexicography management regarding the dictionary as well as the life cycle of the editing process. The fact that editing is done online makes it possible for the dictionary to expand, as a result of activity in eight countries. In the study pecu-liarities of the editing process and of the dictionary are highlighted, concerning the following topics: dictionary structure, database character and the use of the dictionary for linguistic research purposes.
Reactive Communication
Globalization has brought people from different linguistic backgrounds into societies around the world, creating superdiverse linguistic spaces. Upon arrival the newcomers begin to acquire the language of the host country. This paper examines the initial phases of this language acquisition, the process of reactive communication. It illustrates the stages with linguistic examples from the author's research database on multilingualism. Finally, the phenomenon of reactive communication is defined.
Empirical findings on neologisms in the language use of learners of Hungarian
The paper focuses on the use of neologisms in speakers of Hungarian as a foreign language. Following a summary of the various ways in which neologisms can be characterized by language learners, the findings of a questionnaire filled out by speakers of Hungarian with other mother tongues are discussed. The study aims to demonstrate the language users’ knowledge of the phenomenon of neologisms, the types of Hungarian neologisms that they are familiar with, and their opinions regarding neologisms in contemporary Hungarian language use. Twenty in-formants from various nations completed the questionnaire online in May 2024; their proficiency in Hungarian ranged from B2 to C1.
Once again on the Conversation Lessons (Remarks on a Hungarian textbook by Mikszáth)
In 1895, comissioned by the minister of public education, Kálmán Miszáth, an outstanding figure of Hungarian prose writing wrote his short 16-page book titled Conversation Lessons, which was meant to be a language book. It was published as a language book for Hungarian as a foreign language to help teaching Hungarian in minority schools in Hungary. It appeared in six different versions. As far as its structure is concerned, it contains 4 chapters and 112 sentences or communication units written in Hungarian with translations in German, Romanian, Slove-nian, Serbian, Croatian and Ruthenian. The book, which was released in 100,000 copies, generated heated debates both politically and language pedagogically on the turn of 1895 and 1896. This article has two ambitions: on the one hand, to present the goals and the circumstances of the publication, as well as the debates and evaluations which followed it and which keep coming up even today; on the other hand, to gather the full bibliography related to the book.
Side notes on an 18th century multilingual colloquiorum (Miklós Liszkai’s Recueil de Dialogues...)
The paper presents Miklós Liszkai's French–German–Hungarian conversation collection, or colloquiorum. The book was published in 1741 and was assembled in line with similar works written in the 18th century. Taking a broader look at books teaching French in Europe at the time and comparing the themes of their dialogues, the paper proposes that Liszkai’s book goes back to a previous source: the dialogues in Jean Robert des Pepliers' French book published in 1689. The aim of the paper is to draw attention to the fact that this book, or this type of books can serve as useful resources for historical pragmatics and the history of Hungarian language and culture.
Diaspora research: on the margins of sociolinguistic research among the Hungarian diaspora in Austria
The main purpose of the study is to provide insight into the background of the online survey of Hungarians in Austria in 2021, and to provide a framework and methods necessary to understand the language use and language preservation motivations, community-constructing cross-border mobility patterns and plans of the otherwise differentiated Hungarian diaspora community. To obtain the results, I conducted an online questionnaire survey and interviews with NGO leaders. I do not consider the Hungarian diaspora in Austria as a homogeneous group; it is very heterogeneous, differentiated by the period of emigration, religious and political affiliations, economic power and social stratification, in addition to the country of origin (which can be any country neighbouring Hungary) and the different social milieus. The questionnaire was completed by 1418 people in Hungarian and 36 in German – the majority of them being women. The study focused on language use patterns across five generations, the relationship between education and language, leisure and language use, and language attitudes. The originality of this research experince lies in that it can provide basis for a deeper understanding of the Hungarian diasporisation process and of the habits of language use in the diaspora.
Supplements to teaching materials for Hungarian as a foreign language
This paper offers ideas for additional materials in the teaching of Hungarian as a foreign language. In the context of lexicography and grammar, for example, the following resources may be particularly useful: etymological word families, internationalisms and relevant foreign words, lexical functions (with special emphasis on lexical en-hancement), collocations, cognitive metaphors, suffixing of place names, error typology (for documenting inter-language). In the dimension of pragmatics, a multimedia dictionary of situations can contribute significantly to the success of communicative language learning. In the field of language-related culture, the following topics are suitable for compiling collections: realia (culture-specific lexemes/expressions) and Hungarian music. Within this, it is worth having a useful repository of vocal music (especially folk songs, choral works and sung verse), as well as Hungarian-related foreign musical pieces. The paper suggests that it would be desirable for the language teacher to have his or her own bank of examples and tasks, which can be managed individually according to the given level and needs of the language learner.
Augmentatives (morphological derivates with augmentative content) in Hungarian
Evaluative morphology is a field of linguistics that studies the formation of morphological derivatives with evaluative content (augmentatives, diminutives, pejoratives and amelioratives). Although evaluative constructions in Hungarian are not always a matter of morphology (they cannot always be considered end-products of word formation processes), morphology plays a dominant role in the formation of Hungarian evaluatives; however, the role of pragmatics seems to be central too. Another central issue is the wide set of semantic nuances that usually accompany augmentatives, diminutives, pejoratives, and amelioratives. The aim of this paper is to investigate the augmentatives in Hungarian, which is a complex task considering the vast diversity of their pragmatic functions and nuances of their meanings. Nonetheless, the paper tries to demonstrate how and where the three disciplines of morphology, semantics and pragmatics meet in Hungarian evaluatives. The first part of the study is devoted to the examination of archaic, rare and non-productive -Ók suffix, while the second part focuses on the characterization of other suffixes (e.g., -sÁgOs, -(V)s, and -cskA) – derivational endings that express augmentation in various contexts.
The possibilities and (current) limitations of using generative artificial intelligence in Hungarian as a foreign language teacher training
The rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI) has significantly transformed our everyday lives, making it unsurprising that it has also revolutionized language education. This paper delves into the potential and current limitations of generative AI applications within the Hungarian as a Foreign Language teacher training program. The objective is to offer a comprehensive overview of the primary features of generative AI and the various aspects that need to be considered when implementing these tools in teacher training programs and educational settings. It emphasizes how the integration of AI tools can enhance teachers’ instructional strategies and mod-ernize lesson planning and the preparation process. Additionally, this paper also highlights the importance of fostering critical analytical skills among teachers to evaluate and utilize AI tools effectively.