Sustenabilitate sau/şi schimbare a bilingvismului român−maghiar: cercetare longitudinalӑ ȋn Ungaria din perspectiva lingvisticii pozitive = Sustainability of Bilingualism and/or Romanian-Hungarian Language Shift: Longitudinal Research in Hungary from the Aspect of Positive Linguistics

Borbély, Anna (2023) Sustenabilitate sau/şi schimbare a bilingvismului român−maghiar: cercetare longitudinalӑ ȋn Ungaria din perspectiva lingvisticii pozitive = Sustainability of Bilingualism and/or Romanian-Hungarian Language Shift: Longitudinal Research in Hungary from the Aspect of Positive Linguistics. Limbă, cultură și identitate românească, 2023. pp. 29-41. ISSN 3061-4252

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Abstract

The objective of the paper is a longitudinal study of the mental lexicon of two bilingual Romanian speakers in Hungary. The concept of mental lexicon is primarily related to Oldfield's name (1966), and relates to the cognitive system that constitutes the capacity for conscious and unconscious lexical actions (Jarema, Libben 2008: 2). The theoretical frame of paper is positive linguistics (see positive psychology; Seligman, Csikszentmihályi 2000), an approach to the positive side of linguistic phenomena, of linguistic behavior (Borbély 2021), which results from an understanding of what is presented/produced (linguistic forms), what is communicated (message) or how it is communicated (language/languages, dialect, code, style), and requires extensive knowledge of the socio-cultural, situational, interpersonal context regarding a speech community. This linguistic treatment starts from speakers, context and the realities of speech communities. The aim of the research is to justify: in what proportion the resources of the mental lexicon appear in a test situation, containing words from the Romanian language, from the Hungarian language and/or from another foreign language (see multilingualism as a resource; de Jong, Li et alii 2016). We will try to answer two research questions. What differences are shown between the responses received in 1990 and 2010 from two speakers in a lexical test situation? What factors determine the linguistic diversity and bilingualism of speakers over the course of their lives? The follow-up of the sustainability of bilingualism in the process of language shift was carried out in a longitudinal research (see e.g. Borbély 2013). Data collection was carried out with a sociolinguistic interview, including a lexical test, recorded (audio), and the subjects were Romanians, born in Chitighaz/Kétégyháza (Hungary). The linguistic data corpus contains a total of 400 interviews (from 305 people), and other documented units (questionnaires, noted observations, photos) and was collected during four field works (in 1990, in 2000, in 2011 and in 2021). The main interest of the longitudinal research was to reveal the complexity of the linguistic identities of nationality, expressed in the subjects' interviews, which correlate with: (1) historical time, including political, social, economic and globalization changes; (2) the sociolinguistic situation of bilingualism, stages in the Romanian−Hungarian language shift; (3) the characteristics of the subjects: socialization, education, interactional networks, occupation; (4) the data collection situation. The two subjects (we call them Sofia and Petru), whose data will be analyzed in this paper, are speakers with different linguistic profiles. Thanks to the interviews conducted with the two of them three times in twenty years (1990−200−2011), we will reach new knowledge about sustainability of bilingualism (see Borbély 2016). Research results will demonstrate how linguistic knowledge and attitudes towards languages, bilingualism, local and “standard” varieties, styles, etc. are established in the family, in the schools attended, and also the linguistic ideology of standard profoundly spread in the speech community.

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