Volume 125, Number 1 |
ISSN 1585-4515 |
January–March 2001 |
ABSTRACTS IN ENGLISH
Bańczerowski, Janusz
Paradigms in linguistics
This paper consists of three parts: (1) introductory remarks; (2) paradigms in linguistics; and (3) the coexistence and interaction of paradigms in present-day linguistics. In the first part, the author discusses the following issues: (1) implicit and explicit linguistic knowledge; (2) the language system and its model; (3) science vs. metascience; linguistics vs. metalinguistics; (4) the emergence of science and mental operations applied in science: definition, logical division, classification, typology, and conclusion; (5) analytic and synthetic sentences; nomothetic and idiographic explanation; analytical, global, moderate and absolute rationalism. In the second part, the author analyses four major paradigms of science, viz. (1) inductionism; (2) verificationalism; (3) falsificationism, and (4) post-modernism, as well as the way these paradigms are implemented within linguistics. The third part sketches a general picture that reflects the interactions of the above paradigms and their modifications due to those interactions.
Szabó, Zoltán
Reflections on comparative stylistics
Comparative stylistics is rather neglected these days. However, it deserves to be revived, rethought, and, as a matter of course, improved on. A major purpose of this paper is to expose the possibilities of this improvement that can be obtained from the external and internal relations of comparative stylistics. First, it is the coadjacent disciplines that are explored with the aim of disclosing the possible principles and results, that is, the help offered by these disciplines, viz. literary comparatistics, contrastive linguistics, the theory of translation, as well as their common basis, semiotics. Second, the branches of stylistics are examined from the same point of view: stylistic evaluation (of sounds, words, syntactic and text structures, that is, stylistic devices), the stylistic analysis of any kind of text, and stylistic typology (the characterization of colloquial, scientific, literary style, including individual or period style, etc.). In conclusion it is argued that an adequate conception of a possible comparative stylistics implies its extension: what is needed is comparatism in all of the three branches of stylistics, inquiries within one language as well as comparisons among languages and regarding non-verbal communication, too; and finally, both descriptive and historical approaches are to be included. The theoretical basis of the renewal of comparative stylistics must be semiotics.
L. Aczél, Petra
The rhetorics of persuading
A text becomes an instance of the theory and practice of the techne of rhetorics only if its expected effect on the hearer, the process of persuading, is planned into it. In view of the factors of intention, construction, text function, and oral implementation, utterances or communicative messages can participate in affecting extralinguistic relationships, in reorganizing emotions, ideas, decisions, and mental states. The functioning of rhetoric texts is based on the effect the speaker makes on the hearer by way of an act of persuading. Rhetoric awareness, striking a balance between the extremes of what is fashionable and what is classical, shapes individual human utterances into a reflection of careful thinking.
Lukács, László
Popular interpretations of the ringing of bells.
Ethnographic data on the phenomenon of auditory construal
Auditory construal is meant here as the phenomenon that listeners tend to interpret external noises as if they contained meaningful words, phrases, or sentences. On the basis of his own ethnographical field work, the scholarly literature, and the rich source of relevant data in works of fiction, the author introduces one particular area of auditory construal, popular interpretations of the ringing of bells. Such interpretations, often taking a humorous form, or indeed the form of mockery, reflect conflicts between individual villages, social layers, or religious communities. In the Carpathian Basin, the ringing of bells in certain villages was interpreted as referring to poverty, or lack of food. The bells of certain other villages were claimed to reveal the abundance of corn. Names of pieces of clothing characteristic of individual social groups, elegant or poor looking, were also often mentioned by the bells. The interpretation of knell involved comments on the financial status of the deceased. For instance, the tolling of the bell may have indicated the amount of money that had gone through his hands. Interpretations of the ringing of bells are known in German, Swedish, and Finnish folk traditions, too. To collect and taxonomize them is an urgent task both for ethnography and for linguistics.
Hőhn, Mária–Priszter, Szaniszló
The Teleki Herbaria of Marosvásárhely (17–18th century) and their plant names
In the Bolyai Farkas School of Marosvásárhely, a multi-volume Herbarium has been recently found. The fact that it survived to the present day was due to the enthusiasm of the former teachers of that school. Maria Hőhn’s investigations carried out in 1999–2000 revealed that that Herbarium, in seven volumes, contains several hundred pages of wild and cultivated plants of the Carpathian Basin and other areas. Part of the Teleki Herbaria is Count Domokos Teleki’s collection from 1784–1788, entitled Herbarium vivum collectum in Transylvania, Hungaria et Vienna. The approx. 280 pages of plant collection (that subsisted in good condition) is classified in terms of Linné’s system. From a history of botanics point of view, this is the most interesting part of the Herbaria since the Latin names of the plants are supplemented by not only their German, but also their Hungarian equivalents. The majority of those Hungarian names follow the nomenclature of the day but the collection also contains a number of popular names that have not been mentioned in the literature so far. The present paper discusses the latter group of names.
Iványi, Zsuzsanna
Conversation analysis in linguistics
Conversation analysis has recently developed into an important branch of linguistics, especially in the German and English speaking world. Encyclopedias, handbooks, university textbooks have been published to advocate the theory of conversation analysis. A number of different schools, trends, and names of this discipline have evolved or been proposed (see Becker-Mrotzek 1992; 1996: 87–90; and Fiehler 1995: 9). On the other hand, its appearance in Hungary is based on scanty publications in this country, mainly in languages other than Hungarian, as well as on papers by Hungarian authors published elsewhere. As far as the author knows, no Hungarian-language overview of conversation analysis has been published as yet. The present paper aims to fill that gap.
Péteri, Attila
The problem of delimiting modal particles in Hungarian
Whereas in Russian and German linguistics modal particles (
, Abtönungspartikel, Modalpartikel) have been in the center of grammatical research since the mid-seventies, it was not before the end of the eighties that the requirement of their consistent delimitation first arose in Hungarian linguistics. The corresponding Hungarian term (árnyaló partikulák ‘tinting particles’) was first suggested by Borbála Keszler (1995); the relevant criteria were summarized, among others, by Nóra Kugler (1998). In the present paper, the author argues that Hungarian is as rich in modal particles as Russian or German is, even though they constitute a syntactically more heterogeneous set than their German counterparts. Recent studies in Germanistics have pointed out that the modal particle function is a secondary feature of linguistic signs that comes into being by what is known as the process of grammaticalisation applied to linguistic signs whose lexical meaning contains some relational aspect to begin with. Given that Hungarian modal particles are difficult to delimit by way of formal grammatical criteria, one possible approach to their delimitation is the study of the process of their development. The paper presents a detailed analysis of three Hungarian modal particles, is ‘too’, hiszen ‘but surely’, and ám ‘yet again’, characterizes the process of grammaticalisation of particles, and discusses issues of the differentiation of the particle function and other functions of the linguistic signs concerned.
Laczkó, Krisztina
Pronouns and reference
This paper deals with the forms of pronominal reference in the various functional groups of pronouns. The following categories are discussed and given a brief summary characterization: (1) deictic reference, (2) context-dependent phoric reference, (3) sentence-internal phoric reference, (4) connectional reference, (5) no reference (i. e., the pronoun has no associated group of referents). The above categories relate to the types of pronouns in the following distribution: (1) personal and demonstrative pronouns, (2) third-person personal and demonstrative pronouns, (3) reflexive and reciprocal pronouns, (4) demonstrative and relative pronouns, (5) interrogative, general and indefinite pronouns. The paper gives an overall general picture of this issue with the intention of summarizing previous results and providing a point of departure for future, more detailed research.