Philologica Vol. 12, No. 3, 2020

Acta Universitatis Sapientiae The scientific journal of Sapientia Hungarian University of Transylvania (Cluj-Napoca, Romania) publishes original papers and surveys in several areas of sciences written in English.

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Acta Universitatis Sapientiae Philologica Executive Editor Judit PIELDNER (Sapientia Hungarian University of Transylvania, Romania) pieldnerjudit@uni.sapientia.ro Editorial Board Zoltán ABÁDI-NAGY (University of Debrecen, Hungary) Zsuzsanna AJTONY (Sapientia Hungarian University of Transylvania, Romania) Attila IMRE (Sapientia Hungarian University of Transylvania, Romania) Daniela IONESCU (Bucharest University, Romania) Dániel Z. KÁDÁR (Dalian University of Foreign Languages, China/ Research Institute for Linguistics, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Hungary) Boróka PROHÁSZKA-RÁD (Sapientia Hungarian University of Transylvania, Romania) Krisztina-Mária SÁROSI-MÁRDIROSZ (Sapientia Hungarian University of Transylvania, Romania) Zsuzsa TAPODI (Sapientia Hungarian University of Transylvania, Romania) Issue Editors Gabriella KOVÁCS (Sapientia Hungarian University of Transylvania, Romania) Judit PIELDNER (Sapientia Hungarian University of Transylvania, Romania) Krisztina-Mária SÁROSI-MÁRDIROSZ (Sapientia Hungarian University of Transylvania, Romania)

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Acta Universitatis Sapientiae

Philologica

Volume 12, Number 3, 2020 STUDIES ON CULTURE

Sapientia Hungarian University of Transylvania Scientia Publishing House

Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Philologica is indexed by the following main databases: Central and Eastern European Online Library (CEEOL) ERIH PLUS (European Reference Index for the Humanities and Social Sciences) Genamics JournalSeek NSD (Nordic Scientific Database) SCImago (SJR) SCOPUS

Contents Lindita TAHIRI, Nerimane KAMBERI Internal Perspectivism and Empathy in Ismail Kadare’s Novels in the Communist and Post-Communist Period . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Orsolya ANDRÁS From Subversive Strategies to Women’s Empowerment Feminist Humour in Quino’s Mafalda and Flavita Banana’s Vignettes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Zsuzsa TAPODI, Ingrid TOMONICSKA Humour as a Postmodern Weapon in a Totalitarian Regime. Ioan Groşan’s One Hundred Years at the Gates of the East . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 Sorin Gheorghe SUCIU V. Voiculescu’s Novel: A Modern Depository of the Traditional Beliefs . . . . . . 55 Attila IMRE Rendering Science Fiction, Culture, and Language While Translating Ready Player One . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 Ágnes KUNA, Ágnes DOMONKOSI Social Meanings of the Hungarian Politeness Marker Tetszik in Doctor-Patient Communication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88 Igor IVANOVIĆ Mitigating Devices within the Context of Two-Way Mediated Shop Conversations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105 Elena BUJA The Treatment of Final Coda Consonants in the Acquisition of Romanian Phonology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120 Csaba Attila BOTH Hungarian Dialectology. From the Beginnings until the Division of Hungary (1920) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138 Andrea PETERLICEAN, Elena-Cristina BERARIU On the Discourse of Online Sports News Headlines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155 Imola Katalin NAGY Apple Varietal Names as Culturemes: Translation Issues in Scientific Textual Environments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172 Attila KELEMEN Das Verhältnis zwischen den zwei norwegischen Sprachvarianten Bokmål und Nynorsk heutzutage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188

Book reviews Daniel DEJICA Claudia Elena Stoian – The Discourse of Tourism and National Heritage: A Contrastive Study from a Cultural Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198 Attila IMRE Doina Butiurca, Réka Suba (eds.), Dicţionar multilingv de gramatică I Többnyelvű grammatikai szótár . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202

Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Philologica, 12, 3 (2020) 1–16 DOI: 10.2478/ausp-2020-0020

Internal Perspectivism and Empathy in Ismail Kadare’s Novels in the Communist and Post-Communist Period Lindita TAHIRI

Department of English Language and Literature University of Prishtina (Prishtina, Kosovo) lindita.tahiri@uni-pr.edu

Nerimane KAMBERI

corresponding author Department of French Language and Literature University of Prishtina (Prishtina, Kosovo) nerimanekamberi8@gmail.com Abstract. This paper compares the literary work of the Albanian writer Ismail Kadare in the communist and post-communist periods, pointing out the stylistic traits that have made his work resistant to the communist rule.

In a political context which managed to disfigure literature as a tool of the daily interests of politics, Kadare succeeded in protecting language from an Orwellian absolute repression. During the communist period, Kadare broke out not only of the Albanian political isolation but also of the stylistic limits and literary incapability of Socialist Realism. Yet, scholars such as the eminent Balkan historian Noel Malcolm (1997) have condemned Kadare for opportunistic relation with the regime, and this opinion emerged every time the writer was announced as candidate for the Nobel Prize. The paper argues that Kadare’s narrative style characterized by lack of authoritarianism is the best argument which refutes this condemnation. The stylistic features of his prose are analysed through linguistic indicators such as agency, transitivity, passivation, animacy, free direct and indirect discourse, intensifiers, deictics, thematization, and cohesion. This study points out the internal perspectivism in Kadare’s prose written during the communist period and identifies metafiction and inter-subjective focalization in his post-communist novels.

Keywords: Ismail Kadare, interior monologue, inter-subjective focalization, metafiction, mind style

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1. Introduction: The writer’s survival in totalitarianism The work of Ismail Kadare created after he left Albania attracted the attention of the international literary criticism more than in his homeland, Albania, and the surrounding Albanian-inhabited countries. Kadare received the prestigious English award The Man Booker International Prize (2005), the Spanish literary honour Prince Asturias Award for Literature (2009), the Jerusalem Prize (2015), the Neustadt International Prize (2019) and has been mentioned as a possible recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature. The most appraised novels in the author’s oeuvre, such as Pallati i ëndrrave (The Palace of Dreams, 2011 [1981]), Prilli i thyer (Broken April, 1990 [1980]), Ura me tri harqe (The Three-Arched Bridge, 2005 [1978]), and Kronika në gur (Chronicle in Stone, 1987 [1970]), were written during the communist regime, whereas his post-communist opus has been valued abroad more than at home, in particular Vajza e Agamemnonit (The Daughter of Agamemnon, 2006 [2003]), Pasardhësi (The Successor, 2005 [2003]), and Piramida (The Pyramid, 1996 [1992]). Albanian literary criticism has not expressed enthusiasm about the novels that Kadare wrote after leaving Albania, and there is a predominant opinion about the waning quality of his work after the fall of the regime. Furthermore, there has been criticism regarding his ambiguous relationship with the dictator, and this denunciation sounds like a typical dictatorial mentality intending to punish a writer because he needed to survive in “the strictest Marxist-Leninist regime on earth – with the possible exception of North Korea” (Vickers–Pettifer 1997: 1). Peter Morgan argues that “Ismail Kadare chose to compromise in order to continue living and writing in Albania, without adopting the suicidal role of the heroic outsider on the one hand, and without supporting the dictatorship on the other” (2010: 86).

Albanian literary critics have primarily focused on Kadare’s political messages, pointing out the political allegory and irony in his work, which expressed opposition towards dictatorship. Outside his country, he has been acclaimed not only for the allegoric resistance through literature but also for the realism, regarded as “the last great chronicle of everyday life under Stalinism” (Morgan 2006: 7). James Wood praises both his irony and narrative skills: “Kadare is inevitably likened to Orwell and Kundera, but he is a far deeper ironist than the first, and a better story-teller than the second. He is a compellingly ironic storyteller because he so brilliantly summons details that explode with symbolic reality” (2010: 141–142).

After he left Albania in 1990, Kadare engaged himself directly into politics by appearing in the media through declarations, articles, and interviews, trying to influence the public opinion about important issues such as the war in Kosovo or the fall of communism in Albania. Although the political dimension of his work has been extensively discussed, the writer himself expresses aversion against labelling his work as political: “[w]hen I say I am not a political writer […] I am aware that a dosage of politics is unavoidable in literature, as politics is a part of the writer’s

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life and he should not be embarrassed about this. However, reflecting the political context of your life in your own work does not mean that you are a political writer”1 (Furxhi 2005). When awarded the Booker Prize, Kadare declared for The Guardian that he cannot be portrayed solely as a Balkan writer, nor as a political writer, as writers cannot be reduced to these labels (Henley–Scott 2005).

Living in France, Kadare used the opportunity to directly articulate his political messages in the media, and he was very vocal against the use of violence by repressive regimes, particularly in the case of Albania and Kosovo. However, he kept his political engagement completely detached from the literary work, staying away from the typical cliché of heroic dissident Eastern writers in the West. According to Morgan, “[t]his is what makes him a great writer rather than a political dissident” (2006: 10).

A central dimension in Kadare’s work was national identity, and many of his works under the communist regime covered themes of the Albanian national history and culture. Morgan observes the political power of these themes, declaring that “[w]here Orwell and other earlier critics of totalitarianism focused on aspects of individual desire as inimical to dictatorial control, Kadare showed prescience in identifying ethnic identity as a destabilizing force in communist dictatorships and as a resurgent political force at the end of the post-war era” (2002: 379).

Ethnicity was an unacceptable category in the Marxist-Leninist ideology, wherefore Kadare’s insistence on national identity was a challenge and a threat for the dictatorial system. The communist-controlled readership experienced the ancient identity of Albania in Kadare’s work as superior compared to the harsh and grim dictatorship. The foregrounding of the national dimension in his work does not produce an isolated local narrative about the exotic nation whom internationals should be curious about. On the contrary, as Angusheva has asserted, Kadare’s novels transmit universal messages initiating an intercultural narrative (2004: 51–54). When awarding the Ballkanika prize for literature, the American scholar Andrew Wachtel declared for the Albanian media: Personally, I prefer novels which are not necessarily governed by the Balkan reality. In my opinion, novels which should get this literary award are those which contain typical Balkan features; however, at the same time, they should be able to reach beyond them. […] American readers think that literature which comes from dark places should reflect the reality of such places. Regretfully, writers believe that the stereotype of the folkloric Balkans should be transmitted the way the international reader expects it. But it is true that the American or the English reader is looking for the typical and for the peculiar in this kind of literature, otherwise they would not have been interested in it. (Gazeta Shqip 2010) 1

The translations from the Albanian and Kosovo media are by L. T. throughout the article.

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The theme of ethnicity is still fundamental in Kadare’s recent prose; however, it is not associated with the “demonization of the Other” as it used to, according to scholar Shaban Sinani (2016: 125–127). Initially, according to Sinani, this demon was the Western imperialism and the Ottoman Empire, later on the Soviet imperialism, then China, and so on, but in his most recent prose Kadare reduces the amount of stereotyping “the enemy” and raises the dose of the readers’ empathy for the Other.

2. Narratological components and ideology Kadare’s non-intrusive narrating technique and the foregrounding of the “narratorial distance” (Ducrot–Todorov 1979: 331) made it possible for him even in circumstances of the most extreme totalitarian conditions to create fiction away from the authoritarian position and to let readers interpret freely (Tahiri 2009, 2015). The stylistic affinities of Kadare and, in particular, the perspectival narration are conventional traits of contemporary literature. According to Jesse Matz (2004: 53), there are three main reasons for the departure of perspectival writers like Woolf and Faulkner from the traditional objective narration, the first of which is the epistemological motive of the writer, or the desire to show how knowledge and understanding take place. There is also an aesthetic motive for choosing the perspectival narration which offers subtle nuances compared to the unvaried omniscient narration, and furthermore there is the ethical motivation to make readers understand different perspectives and to reflect on their own.

Without dismissing the other two motives, it seems that the ethical motivation has been pivotal in this case as the perspectival narration in Kadare’s work is a strong divergence from Socialist Realism, a doctrine which implied a lot of dogmatism, moralization, and propaganda, imprisoning readers within the imposed ideological interpretation of the text.

Kadare managed to break out of the stylistic bareness of the novels of Socialist Realism, which have been sometimes qualified as “panoptical narrations”, applying Foucault’s (1977) notion of the scheme of “the disciplinary society” to the formal relations between characters and narrator. Literary critics have used this model of disciplined societies such as schools, prisons, and other controlled institutions to describe realist fiction as a genre which exhibits total control in the life and thoughts of characters. Dorrit Cohn discusses the Foucauldian reading of novels, applied in particular to the writers belonging to realism “as a genre whose form replicates the malevolent power structures of a society that both produces and consumes it” (1999: 166). It is exactly what Kadare’s work prevented through his fiction, namely the replication of the dictatorship’s repressive structure into language. To put it in Cohn’s words, his fiction refused to give in to the absolute rule by using the “form”.

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For Cohn, different narrative techniques correspond with different ideological orientations (1978: 177). Furthermore, Auerbach (1968: 552) attributes social and political significance to the precise and impartial presentation of the internal world of characters because, according to him, this literary trait is a concrete means of arousing tolerance and understanding between people.

Internal perspectivism in fiction has often been associated with understanding and empathy. One of the linguistic indicators strongly associated with the representation of the characters’ consciousness is the free indirect discourse (FID).

According to findings in cognitive narratology by Fletcher and Monterosso (2016), who modified text samples by increasing the amount of FID in contrast to narrated thought in the original, the increase of the usage of FID invites the emotional reaction of readers and makes them feel empathy for the characters. However, another scholar in this field, Suzanne Keen (2016), does not agree that this narratological component is uniquely capable of prompting readers’ empathy as their reactions depend on their literary competence. She says that findings regarding the effect of FID is “often promulgated in the popular press in an oversimplified form” (2016: 110) and thus may cause simplification of the research about the stimulation of empathy in readers. Furthermore, while discussing techniques inviting the reader’s empathy, Vera Nünning (2015) recommends for literary cognitivists to be more cautious, reminding them of the Proteus Principle (Sternberg, 1982), according to which there is no simple form-to-function mapping. Nünning emphasizes the fact that readers are not passive, and they have “the ability to deal with narrative as a cognitive schema, and to create and comprehend complex narratives” (2014: 150).

Some scholars think that recognizing someone else’s frame of mind is as ancient as human interaction. In his book How Literary Worlds Are Shaped, Pettersson refers to Michael Corballis’s “reformulation of the old hypothesis that the origins of language are gestural, since even iconic gesturing presupposes one of the prerequisites of language, the ability to adopt the mental perspective of another individual” (2016: 20). Pettersson discusses findings in recent evolutionary anthropology about the crucial importance for individuals to learn to “imagine themselves ‘in the mental shoes’ of some other person, so that they can learn not just from the other but through the other” (2016: 25). Furthermore, he mentions the evidence that “the area made use of when a subject is trying to gain insight into another person’s mind is one of the most evolved parts of the brain, the middle of the prefrontal cortex” (2016: 25), which implies that imagining someone else’s outlook is one of the crucial differences between humans and other primates.

In order to demonstrate the narrative features in Kadare’s fiction that contribute to freely understanding the mind of the other, a fragment from his novel Prilli i thyer (Broken April, 1990 [1980]) will be analysed, focusing on the linguistic devices responsible for creating the illusion of inner speech and for building up the character’s “mind style”, a concept coined by Roger Fowler as a reference to “any

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distinctive linguistic presentation of an individual self” (1977: 76). Fowler’s notion has been taken on by several scholars (e.g. Booth 1983, Fludernik 2009). In Mind Style 25 Years On (2007), Semino reviews the contributions made on the notion of mind style, pointing out its significance as it refers to the characters’ minds, which is central to understanding fiction. Leech and Short consider mind style as “a realization of a narrative point of view” (2007: 152), and they analyse it through the “style markers”, which are particular linguistic features of style in a specific text.

Broken April was written in the communist period and has been translated into English directly from the original, which is not the case with most of Kadare’s novels, as they have been mainly re-translated from their French versions into English. This is a novel about revenge in the North Albanian highlands according to the provisions of the ancient Code. Gjorg, a young mountaineer, has avenged the death of his elder brother and expects to be killed himself in accordance to the provisions of the Code that regulates their life. Although some scholars consider this novel attractive for the Western reader because of the local colour of the vendetta (Elsie 2005), we believe that Kadare depicts the despotic character of the Code and suggests its resemblance with the communist regime of the time through the tyrannized and repressed mind style of Gjorg, the main character in Broken April.

His mind style will be analysed by means of linguistic features such as agency, transitivity, passivation, animacy, free direct and indirect discourse, intensifiers, deictics, thematization, and cohesion.

Below is the closing passage of the novel Broken April: At that moment, Gjorg was walking with long strides on the Road of Banners, that he had reached an hour ago. The air was rippled with the first shiver of dusk when he heard, off to one side, a few short words: “Gjorg, give my greeting to Zef Krye….”

His arm, in a sudden motion, tried to slip the rifle from his shoulder, but that gesture became confounded with the syllables qyqe, the last half of the hateful name, which made his way confusedly to his consciousness. Gjorg saw the ground reel, and then rear up violently to crash against his face. He had collapsed.

For a moment, the world seemed to him to have gone absolutely still; then through that deafness he heard footsteps. He felt two hands moving his body.

He’s turning me on my back, he thought. But at that instant, something cold, perhaps the barrel of his rifle, touched his right cheek. God, according to the rules! He tried to open his eyes, and he could not tell if they were open or not.

Instead of his murderer, he saw some white patches of snow that had not yet melted, and among those patches, the black ox, which still had not been sold.

This is it, he thought, and really the whole thing has been going on too long.

Again, he heard footsteps, drawing away, and a number of times he wondered,

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whose steps are those? He felt that they were familiar. Yes, he knew them, and the hands that had turned him on his back. They’re mine! The seventeenth of March, the road, near Brezftoht. He lost consciousness for a moment, then he heard the footsteps again, and again it seemed to him that they were his own, that it was himself and no one else who was running now, leaving behind, sprawled on the road, his own body that he had just struck down. (Kadare 1990: 215–216) There is a double syntactical role of Gjorg in this passage both as subject and object of the verb. The nouns denoting parts of his body become subjects in the role of actors in contrast to Gjorg, who takes the role of the experiencer. This suggests not only lack of the will to act but also lack of awareness and lack of control towards one’s actions, and the text foregrounds the agency of the character’s limbs unconnected and alienated from his own self. The character’s semantic and syntactic passive role affects the reader to see him as a mechanical performer rather than someone responsible for his actions. Gjorg is experiencer both in relation with the outward environment but also with his own self: the shortness and the tense of the sentence – “[h]e had collapsed” – imitates the physical action of falling by transmitting his internal perspective of experiencing the fall and his becoming aware about falling after it had already happened, as if he had been an observer. Gjorg is experiencing unconsciously the actions of another actor: the part of the character which is a victim is being acted upon by a second detached self. Consequently, his alternation from the subject role to the object role signifies his effort towards his own identity, which ends in annulment.

These linguistic indicators are reinforced with indicators of FID, where the words and thoughts of the character and the narrator are blended. Intensified repetition of the third person pronoun sets up the narrator’s distance and focuses the reader’s attention on the character, creating the impression of immediately transmitted experience. The syntactic order of clauses imitates the experience of Gjorg and follows his actions, creating an impression of direct transmission of his thoughts and feelings. This style inclines towards psycho-narration, a term coined by Dorrit Cohn (1978) to indicate not only the character’s thinking process but emotional extra-linguistic processes as well.

In the last paragraph of the text, which is the ending of the novel, the character’s double function both as object and subject symbolizes his split identity. His self that emerged on the specific date when he committed the murder, the unconscious crimecommitting self, performs his actions mechanically obeying to the ancient Code until it eventually manages to completely extinguish the other self. The final position of the verb clause “had just struck down” is both the end of the character’s life and the end of the novel’s text, metonymically connecting the signifier with the signified. The character’s split identity ends with the complete fusion within the sign.2 2

A reduced version of the linguistic analysis of this passage was used as a demonstration for the pedagogical benefits of stylistics in teaching literature in Tahiri 2015.

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As Sinani rightfully claims (2016: 333–348), the discourse and the theme in Broken April are ethnographical; however, the novel does not glorify the ancient code of revenge, but, on the contrary, it foregrounds the totalitarianism of the code, figuratively denoting the weight of oppressive dictatorships. The internal perspective of narration manages to portray the character as a victim of alienation that the ancient code causes to him.

The concrete analysis of this fragment indicates FID as well as other style markers of internal perspective in narration. Kadare managed to stay away from the role of the preaching narrator and let the readers do the work of interpretation themselves.

All the foregrounded linguistic indicators in the text create the distance of the narrating self from the experiencing self, transmitted through character focalization although the discourse markers belong to the third-person narrator.

3. The inter-subjective perspective of narration Kadare claimed that his oeuvre had historical distribution from the antiquity to modern times as well as geographical distribution from Albania to Egypt. All those thousands of pages are driven by the writer’s mission to nourish the power of imagination and the freedom of thought, which he continued to perform after leaving his country and settling in Paris. Kadare’s prose created after the fall of communism is stylistically more innovative with a particular focus on the perspective of narration and the presentation of the characters’ internal world. In his most recent prose, the perspectival technique is even more foregrounded, and the author often transmits unfinished versions of events. The characters in his latest novels have more subjective traits, and their identity is constantly changing. In fact, even in communist Albania, Kadare was accused of deviating from Socialist Realism with fragmented and foggy characters.

In the work created after the fall of communism, Kadare continued experimenting with interior monologue and the characters’ limited perspective. The related metaphorical terms “perspective of narration”, “point of view”, and “focalization” are most commonly discussed concepts in narratology. The term perspective has been used by some scholars like Fowler (1986) following Uspensky (1973) and distinguishing between internal and external perspective – the former one denoting the character’s perspective and the latter one offering the narrator’s point of view.

Point of view has been classified in relation to focalization, and Genette (1980) distinguishes between the external and internal focalization as compared to the objective stance, or zero focalization. The focalizer is called reflector by Stanzel (1984), and there has been continuous narratological discussion on this classification (e.g.

Mieke Bal, Gerald Prince, Ansgar Nünning, etc.). Christian Huck draws attention to the visual predisposition of the narratological terminology related to “perspective”

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and takes the example of the Englishman James Holman, who travelled 250,000 miles in the first half of the 19th century; however, as he had been blind since the age of twenty-four, his experiences were considered invalid, and he was soon forgotten.

“The Enlightenment’s epistemological paradigm of the eyewitness did not allow for other sense data to become the basis for new knowledge”, says Huck pondering if there is an “aural, olfactory or even a haptic” counterpart to a point of view: a point of smell, maybe, or a point of taste (2009: 201–202). In fact, many of the discussions about the point of view or focalization highlight the broader meaning of these notions including not only the visual but also the cognitive, emotive, and ideological orientation.

Besides perspectival narration, additional stylistic features that we would like to point out in Kadare’s post-communist prose are the instances of self-reflection and metafiction when the text self-consciously takes as its subject its own narration. The term “metafiction” was initially used by Scholes in 1970; however, Shklovsky (1921) pointed out self-references within the narration of Tristram Shandy, and Booth (1952) discussed self-conscious narration. Genette (1980) considers meta-narration as a function of the narrator, whereas Prince (2003) considers it as function of the text. One of the first comprehensive studies of metafiction was done by Hutcheon (1980), who looks at metafiction as a narrative technique as well as the essence of the novel and as a superior form of literary creativity. In the light of the Aristotelian concept of mimesis, Hutcheon considers metafiction as a “reworking of the mimetic novelistic tradition” (1980: 5) which both acknowledges the artifice of art and at the same time demands responses from the reader, who becomes co-creator in interpretation. According to Waugh (1984), metafiction foregrounds the relation between fiction and reality, whereas for Currie (1995) it is the discourse between literature and literary criticism. On the other hand, Nünning (2004) distinguishes between meta-narration and metafiction as the first one reflects on the narrative process, whereas the latter one is self-reflection about fiction – hence, self-narration is present in non-fiction texts as well.

Kadare’s post-communist novel The Accident (2010) has received contradictory evaluations, sometimes seen as a detective story, a political allegory, as a story of love and power, or it is disappointingly considered as an “accident” in the oeuvre of this author. The New Yorker calls it a difficult novel with “a very interrupted form, continually looping back on itself, so that dates and place names seem almost scrambled and the reader must work a kind of hermeneutic espionage on the text” (Wood 2010: 142–143). The novel begins with the crash of a car heading towards Vienna airport, causing the death of the passengers – a mysterious couple who, according to the confused driver’s report, was trying to kiss at the moment when the accident happened, as if the kiss had triggered the crash. The story unfolds through the testimony of the couple’s friends, of letters and phone calls, exploring human relations, politics and war, love and power, all interconnected by the dark and

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dreamy setting, typical of Kadare. Although it looks like one, it is not a conventional detective novel, not only because the mystery is never solved but also because both the obscurity and the explanations move into many directions within a narration of shifting points of view. The twelve-year love affair of the couple occurring in hotels in Europe ends with an accident which could be murder, suicide, or an agreement for suicide, as one of the characters was connected with the NATO decision to bomb Serbia and with the investigations in The Hague. Let us see a passage of this novel presenting the reflection of the accident investigator, who is the narrator of the story: Like every story, it would have three phases: the first purely imagined, the second clothed in words and the third finally told to others. He had a presentiment that he would only be able to manage the first. And so, one night in late summer, he started to imagine their story. But this effort of imagination was so strenuous, and consumed so much passion and empathy, that it drained his entire life-blood away. (Kadare 2010: 146) In this fragment, the reference to the phases of telling a story invites the reader’s self-awareness about the fact of being told a story. At the same time, paradoxically, the reader is invited to see this story as a reflection of the phase of “pure imagination” because the narrator is not able to “clothe it in words and to tell it to others”. Furthermore, the process itself of the “imagination of the story” is difficult and “drains the life-blood away”. This double status of the story, which is simultaneously told and not told, powerfully suggests to the reader that the narration is not about reality, and it is not able to replicate the “life-and-blood” reality; however, the story is reality itself.

There are many narrative instances of self-reflection in this novel, some of them highly figurative as, for instance, the request of the accident investigator to be buried with a piece of the broken mirror of the crashed vehicle, which for him carries the key to the mystery. Hence, the mirror recalls the mimetic power of the fictive narration, but at the same time it suggests the impossibility of narration as the investigator cannot get hold of the story, and, therefore, he is left with only a broken piece of the reflection of the story in the mirror.

To illustrate the narrative technique of the character’s point of view in Kadare’s prose, let us see another fragment from this novel: At that time, our whole lives were enveloped in lies, like a dense fog obliterating every horizon. There wasn’t a glimmer of light anywhere. One after another, plots loomed out of the mist, first vaguely, like the shape of a foetus in its mother’s womb, and then in clear outline. Some people still believed that even if one plot failed to topple the dictator the next might have better luck. But each plotter turned out to be more abjectly faithful than the last. The

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conspirators’ letters from prison became more and more ingratiating. Some requested Albanian dictionaries, because they were stuck for words to express their adoration of the leader. Others complained of not being tortured properly.

The protocols sent back from firing squads on the barren sandbank by the river told the same story: their victims shouted, ‘Long live our leader!’, and as they conveyed their last wishes some felt such a burden of guilt that they asked to be killed not by the usual weapons but by anti-tank guns or flamethrowers. […]

Sometimes the leader’s mind was easier to read. He had enslaved the entire nation, and now the adoration of the conspirators would crown his triumph.

Some people guessed that he was sated with the love of his loyal followers, and that he now wanted something new and apparently impossible – the love of traitors, behind which the West was hidden, NATO, the CIA, which he had persuaded himself he hated, but in fact secretly loved. […]

One imagined him howling during the night […] Who was standing in his way? And he would guess who: it was his loyal followers, who clung to his coat-tails and would not let him go. At the very foot of the rainbow, they held him back from making that great leap. (You won’t allow me to live.)

They pinned him by the arms, they clung to his buttons, his bloodstained boots: you belong to us, not them. Do not leave us. He wanted to shriek at his contemptible pack of lackeys: ‘It’s you who are in my way. (You have destroyed my sex life.) Wait and see.’ And he could lash out at them. The more they ingratiated themselves, the harder his whip fell. Then, even as they screamed, he thought they were making fun of him, or so he came to believe. In the end, they were the victors.

Outside, the snowstorm had subsided. Besfort Y. felt tired. He could no longer tell how much of this farrago he had merely rehearsed in his mind, what he had actually told Rovena, and still less how much of it she had listened to.

(Kadare 2010: 238–242) In The Accident, the objectivity of the narrator is expressed through metonymy: the story is told by an anonymous investigator who is collecting the evidence after the accident in order to find out the truth. Hence, the interplay between facticity and fiction is suggested, as the narrator is looking for “facts.” As seen in the fragment above, the character’s internal perspective is indicated through linguistic traits such as deictic expressions, usage of tense, cohesion, and FID. In the last paragraph, there is a shift from the interior monologue to the external perspective, which is figuratively expressed with the spatial deixis: “Outside, the snowstorm had subsided”. There is a movement from the “inside” world of the character to the “outside” setting, and the psycho-narration of his thoughts seems to take place on the threshold of the non-verbal, suggested in particular by the evaluative tone of “this farrago” and intensifiers such as “no longer, merely, actually, still less”. What is

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in particularly interesting in this passage is the insertion of the words and thoughts of one character within the perspective of the other: in this case, the dictator’s and Rovena’s point of view within the interior perspective of Besfort. This insertion is represented graphically with brackets and linguistically with the second-person pronoun. This narrative technique creates a unique blend between the focalization of different characters, where their languages become one. Although there are graphological and morphological indicators of boundaries, the reader is invited to see the uttered words and thoughts as belonging simultaneously to multiple mindsets and beliefs. This kind of narration constructs the inter-subjective consciousness and the interconnection of individual cognizance, which goes beyond the isolated individual such as in the fragment above, which inter-relates the focalization of the character with his lover’s as well as with the standpoint of the communist dictator. With the portrayal of the inter-subjective focalization in his most recent prose, Kadare has developed to the maximum the technique of transmitting the internal language of thoughts, thus making his work more challenging for the reader.

This unification of subjectivities is very similar to the daily experience of others’ emotions, even when they are not articulated verbally. The writer has ultimately displayed the fact that the language of the other, be it speech or thoughts, allows for dialogism and absence of uniform and single narration. As Bakhtin points out, the speech and the thoughts of characters allow for dialogism, and this constant dialogue of different languages in any point of narration enables the writer to avoid a single and unvarying code (1982: 259–422).

4. Conclusions This study compares the prose created in the communist and post-communist period by Ismail Kadare, most likely the only Albanian writer known broadly outside his country. In the communist era, Kadare’s narration foregrounds the style markers of the internal perspective, creating the impression of proximity with the inner world of the characters without exerting domination over them, contrarily to the dictatorship that kept people under absolute control. This narrative strategy opened up paths of intellectual freedom for readers and replenished with energy the publicly consumed language under dictatorship. Without aiming at simplified conclusions about relations between the narrative form and its ideological functions, the narratorial distance in Kadare’s prose is identified as a strategy of challenging the authoritarian structures of the communist society by refusing to reproduce those structures in the language of fiction.

In the post-communist period, the national and political dimensions are less prominent in Kadare’s work, while, on the other hand, he has been present in the public opinion about important issues such as the war in Kosovo or the

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fall of communism in Albania. In his fiction, he diminished the stereotyping of the “enemy” and intensified the empathy for the Other. His latest novels are stylistically more innovative and continue to refine narratorial perspectivism. The writer has sharpened his unobtrusiveness by exploiting effects of a dynamically ambiguous interaction between the mindsets of characters. He manages to create a blend of inter-subjectivity between the characters’ point of view and to portray inter-subjective focalization. Furthermore, he foregrounds the relations between reality and fiction with instances of self-reflection and metafiction when the text self-consciously takes as its subject its own narration.

Kadare continues to narrate through uncompleted versions of events, melting the boundaries between fiction and reality, creating fluid characters which flow into each other’s consciousness, dissolving the self of the author as a final source of meaning and truth. This stylistic choice of the great Albanian writer is congruent with the need of the formerly communist-controlled readership still struggling to get free from the detention of dogmatic thinking and authoritarian agendas in the new democracies.

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Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Philologica, 12, 3 (2020) 17–33 DOI: 10.2478/ausp-2020-0021

From Subversive Strategies to Women’s Empowerment

Feminist Humour in Quino’s Mafalda and Flavita Banana’s Vignettes Orsolya ANDRÁS

Department of Hungarian Literary Studies Babeş–Bolyai University (Cluj-Napoca, Romania) orsolya.andras@gmail.com

Abstract. This paper discusses the potential of humour in understanding and deconstructing gender inequalities and analyses the representation of some feminist issues in two Spanish-speaking artists’ works. The theoretical framework explores the interpretation of laughter by feminist authors as well as different approaches of feminist humour in the context of cultural studies. The definition of humour presented here is that it can function as an open space where we can safely observe social structures and experiment with our imagination. In the second part of the paper, some examples from Quino’s comic series Mafalda and Flavita Banana’s vignettes are discussed.

In the interpretation of these artworks, the paper highlights two types of feminist discourse and, specifically, of feminist humour. The first one, exemplified through Quino’s Mafalda, uses subversive strategies in order to expose social injustice and sexism. However, these strategies are sometimes still not able to propose an alternative to the existing status quo. The second type of feminist discourse and humour, characteristic of Flavita Banana’s art, also starts from depicting the consequences of patriarchy. However, her approach is not only subversive but also empowering and liberating, constructing a safe imaginative space through humour.

Keywords: feminism, humour, comics and vignettes, subversive discourse, imagination

1. Theoretical framework 1.1. Laughter and feminism: Different approaches Humour is deeply rooted in our existence in groups and communities. We hardly ever laugh alone, and, even if we do, our laughter usually starts with a social interaction

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or an impulse which makes us realize something about ourselves and the way we perceive the world. Laughter as shared joy can give us a sense of belonging, to a certain level of complicity, such as in the case of so-called “inside jokes” or moments of happiness amplified by the presence and participation of others. At the same time, laughter which expresses mockery, malicious joy, or envy is part of the most humiliating experiences, resulting in exclusion, separation, and loneliness. Humour is, by consequence, something we can experience when defining group boundaries.

If we choose to view gender in a paradigm of binarities, and we are attached to traditional gender roles when we determine our identity – and through identity we define our affinity to a certain group –, we perpetuate these exclusive boundaries in gender-related humour. In this context, there can be two possible extremes of humour: one marked by exclusion and antagonism and the other one by belonging and solidarity or complicity. In the first part of this paper, the interpretation of laughter by feminist authors as well as different definitions of feminist humour in the context of social sciences and cultural studies will be presented. Through this literature review, the paper aims to demonstrate that these two mentioned extremes of humour are sometimes the two faces of the same coin. Hopefully, at the end of the literature review, we can find a position between these extremes, to observe both of them with attention and question the system that produced our binary-bound thinking. A new definition is going to be proposed, according to which humour can function as an open space where we can safely observe social structures and experiment with our imagination. This approach is introduced in order to deconstruct gender and transgress the binarities of male vs. female, misogynist humour vs. male-mocking humour. After the theoretical part, the paper will focus on the works of two Spanish-speaking artists, Quino’s comic series Mafalda and Flavita Banana’s vignettes, and analyse the discourses of humour they use and activate.

Feminist humour, or the importance attributed to laughter in the deconstruction of power relations between the genders, is not a new topic at all. In her book about 18th-19th-century female authors, Laughing Feminism (1998), Audrey Bilger dedicates a chapter to the role of laughter in the interaction between the genders as described by Mary Wollstonecraft as well as to her definition of feminist humour.

The writer and philosopher, considered one of the pioneer feminist thinkers, whose work is crucial for the first-wave feminism, paid special attention to laughter.

According to Bilger, Wollstonecraft’s iconic work, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1796), makes the difference between misogynist laughter, which she wants to silence, and the laughter caused by identifying and ridiculing it, addressing an attack on the stereotypes behind it. In contrast to this powerful, bold, or even aggressive laughter, Wollstonecraft refuses the smile of complacency, often expected from women according to the traditional gender roles (Bilger 1998: 42–43). Here, one can clearly observe that humour serves as a means to define group boundaries;

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to put it practically: as feminist women, we will not laugh at the misogynist jokes they laugh at but at them and their limited thinking, which we refuse.

Second-wave feminism takes distance from this antagonistic perspective focusing on men seen as “enemies”, and this is reflected in its interpretation of humour. As Leigh Marlowe formulates it, “[f]eminists want to ‘pick up’ women, not ‘put down’ men” (qtd. in Mackie 1990: 21). Obviously, feminists will always fight against misogyny on the comedy scene, such as sexist or rape jokes, as Kira Cochrane states and exemplifies in All the Rebel Women (2013). However, the main objective becomes to define women’s voices, to make them heard, to liberate and activate women’s writing, women’s laughter. In her essay The Laugh of the Medusa (1976), Hélène Cixous associates women’s laughter with unsuppressed rage, untamed energy, free expression, with breaking the mould and deconstructing stereotypes.

She reinterprets the Greek myth of Medusa, originally a woman absurdly punished for having been raped. Cixous sees in this character a wonderful empowered woman, whose voice must be heard: “You only have to look at the Medusa straight on to see her. And she’s not deadly. She’s beautiful and she’s laughing” (Cixous, 1976: 885). Cixous’s essay can be interpreted as an intense and explosive flow of rage, strength and courage, which her female readers acutely need in order to create in a world dominated by patriarchy. However, we cannot gloss over Cixous’s aggressiveness and dominance, as in the first paragraphs of her essay she repeatedly uses “must” and “must not”. This is not the aim of any empowering discourse, to enforce one’s ideas in the name of emancipation, because an emancipatory context lets everyone’s voice heard.

1.2. Definitions of feminist humour This is why feminist theoreticians can also take distance from both the male and the female perspective and try to transgress the oppositions, also leaving behind the binarity of gender. Instead, some authors focus on the social system as a whole, and this enables a more distant analysis of the power relations and the role of humour. In Who’s Laughing Now? The Role of Humour in the Social Construction of Gender (1990), Marlene Mackie attributes two different functions to humour: it can either confirm the patriarchal status quo or can be subversive and rebellious, challenging the established order. The author generalizes, takes distance, and tells much more than just positioning women against men, because the issue itself is also more complex. One has to look at all layers of the social establishment, which are, of course, interdependent, arriving at an intersectional feminist approach.

For instance, patriarchy is not something that would only harm cis-heterosexual women, and it is not less damaging for cis-heterosexual men; gender is not even as limited as these two categories and cannot be thought of as binary; it also cannot be separated from the factors of international relations and world economy. Attuned

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to the second-wave feminist discourse, Mackie defines gender as a social construct (1990: 12), that is, separated from biological sex and connected to the ideas created and perpetuated by society.

This widespread conception was further explored, and humour was defined as a way of gender deconstruction, for example, in Sabah Al Mushtaq’s Humour: As a Tool for Gender Construction and Deconstruction (2017), or as a means to dismantle stereotypes and prejudices. Mushtaq focuses on the ambiguity of humour, which, according to her, allows us to discuss taboo topics or approach power relations in a critical, even playful way (2017: 33). She defines feminist humour as having an emancipatory potential, building the sense of group identity and solidarity and resistance to social control (Mushtaq 2017: 34). However, she mentions that in communication the parts engaged in a conversation should define together if the interaction is in “serious mode” or “humorous mode” (Mushtaq 2017: 33). The safe space of ambiguities can, therefore, be accessed with consent from all parts – this is why group identity and solidarity in these terms is not exclusive but inclusive –, and it is also open to everyone who is ready to question and let go of their own preconceptions. This way, humour can help us leave behind the binarity of gender and gender roles, the binarity of values, and enter a free space of discussion with infinite opportunities.

Jo Anna Isaak considers laughter a metaphor for the transformation of society and culture: “[l]aughter can also provide an analytic for understanding the relationships between the social and the symbolic while allowing us to imagine these relationships differently” (qtd. in Bilger 1998: 39). This statement resonates with the definition of humour proposed in this paper – namely, as a safe space which allows us to observe social structures rather than to take them for granted.

In this context, imagination seems to play a crucial role. When we use humour in our communication, we allow our partner not to take us too seriously (when we use humour, we can almost always say: it was only a joke). When we, on the other hand, do not take ourselves too seriously, we enter a radically free space, where we observe the current structures of our society just as they are, as structures, and not as unchangeable rules. We are in an ambiguous space, and, by taking distance from the established power relations, we are free to imagine something completely new, to rethink the world we inhabit.

Hopefully having highlighted the potential of humour for an empowering and emancipatory discussion of gender-sensitive topics, the paper will focus in the following on the examples selected from Quino’s and Flavita Banana’s work. Both authors deal with the problem of gender stereotypes and inequalities, using different discourses of humour. This paper asks to what extent and how these comic strips and vignettes use the imaginative and safe space of humour and whose voices they make heard. Before analysing some examples from Quino’s and Flavita Banana’s work, a brief outline of some current feminist issues present in the public space

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in Spanish-speaking countries will be given in order to explain the popularity of both artists and the background of the decision to discuss their work. Afterwards, the specificities of comics and vignettes in the context of feminist political direct action will be discussed.

2. Contextualization of the selected artworks 2.1. Current feminist issues in some Spanish-speaking countries Joaquín Salvador Lavado Tejón aka Quino is from Argentina, and his iconic comic series Mafalda was published between 1964 and 1973 in different periodicals.

Although his work is not contemporary, Mafalda is still very popular in Spanishspeaking countries, especially among readers who are politically active. The comic series addresses multifarious social issues, but the strips with feminist content seem to gain topicality in Latin America since the problems represented by Quino have not disappeared after the second wave of the feminist movement, which was at its peak in his lifetime. In Argentina, the feminist movement Ni una menos [Not one [woman] less – making reference to the main goal, to stop femicides] started with massive demonstrations in 2015 and spread through many Latin American countries. This initiative can be described as an intersectional feminist movement, involving the fight for equality in all domains: reproductive rights (legalization of abortions), equal salaries, LGBTQ+ rights, criminalizing gender-based violence.

Flavia Álvarez-Pedrosa, aka Flavita Banana, is a young illustrator living in Barcelona. Her Instagram account @flavita.banana has 611,000 followers, and she has posted vignettes here since 14 November 2014. Her work has also been published in Spanish newspapers El País, Revista Mongolia, El Salto, and S Moda as well as in books of which she is either individual author or co-author. The empowering feminist message of her work becomes politically relevant if one considers some recent events in Spain. The shocking case of the 2016 gang rape known as La Manada [The Wolf Pack – the case being named after the WhatsApp group which contained the plans and discussions of the five criminals], and especially the unfair and sexist way in which justice handled it, started a wave of indignation and gave the impulse to several feminist protests. Today, fighting machismo, gender-based discrimination, and domestic violence represent priorities in Spain both on the political agenda and in the public discourse. These two cases are only examples for the rise of powerful feminist discourses in Spanish-speaking countries. Even if, or especially because, they concern very serious problems, we cannot neglect the role of humour in them.

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2.2. Comics and vignettes: From popular culture to critical thinking As mentioned before, humour allows us to take ourselves less seriously – which obviously does not mean neglecting severe social problems, but this attitude can activate the potential of our imagination and start social change. As Marlene Mackie points it out in her quoted essay, sociologists and scholars of gender studies ought to take laughter, humour, and fun very seriously (1990: 11). This is especially true for popular genres such as comics and vignettes, which reach many readers through printing and online press. It would be anachronistic to exclude popular culture from our research, especially in the era of social media, if we want to understand the impact of humour on society.

Inger-Lise Kalviknes Bore, Anne Graefer, and Allaina Kilby analyse the appearance in social media of some banners from Women’s March 2017. The three authors highlight an affective turn in social sciences, based on the fact that media content is not simply decoded by people as neutral information but is also a matter of emotional attachments, feelings, and embodied experience. They emphasize the affective potential of humour and the role of emotion in active citizenship – for example, they see anger as an empowering force and energy (Kalviknes Bore–Graefer–Kilby 2017: 529–530). Messages which are easily spread through social media, especially those containing images, such as comics and vignettes, are definitely activating emotions.

Through the simple yet intense representation of social problems, as in the case of Quino’s and Flavita Banana’s work, these are also able to activate the critical thinking of the readers. Furthermore, as the three authors demonstrate, social media is able to mobilize feminists who are physically apart but emotionally close and offer them the sense of community (Kalviknes Bore–Graefer–Kilby 2017: 530).

The ironic or sarcastic vignettes perform an accessible representation of burning issues, and, as Kira Cochraine explains, in the case of feminism, this kind of humour helps to involve young women in activism. She defines humour as a political tactic that also helps activists facing depressing issues to stay focused and optimistic (Cochrane 2013).

3. Analysis of the selected artworks In the following, the selected examples from Quino’s and Flavita Banana’s works will be presented. In the analysis, two different approaches to the gender-related issues will be highlighted. The first one, which I mean to exemplify through Quino’s Mafalda, uses subversive strategies in order to expose social injustice and sexism. Among such tools, this paper focuses on the protagonist’s perspective and the little child’s power to unmask the truth. Although this discourse is able to represent the social situation, it sometimes falls into one of the extremes mentioned

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in the theoretical introduction, and therefore cannot transgress binary thinking nor properly use the imaginative space of humour in order to offer an alternative to the existing status quo.

The second type of feminist discourse and humour, which seems to be characteristic of Flavita Banana’s art, also starts from depicting the consequences of patriarchy, but it goes a significant step further. Namely, the artist does not present women as victims, rather as independent beings, highlighting their agency, which makes her approach not only subversive but also empowering and liberating.

Her imaginative art opens a dialogue and constructing alternatives to the current situation.

3.1. Mom, look: The patriarchy’s naked! – Subversive humour in Quino’s Mafalda Quino’s Mafalda series started in 1964, originally as advertisement for electrical domestic appliances. Soon it grew into a complex portrait of the Buenos Aires middle class and the social changes of the 1960s and 1970s, being published in the newspapers Primera Plana, El Mundo, and Siete días until 1973. The Mafalda strips appeared in collections in many Spanish-speaking countries and were translated into different languages. Franco Marchionni and Romina Sales describe the major historical events, social, political, and economic transformations which they consider emblematic for the background of Mafalda such as the success of The Beatles, Franco’s dictatorship in Spain, the US embargo on Cuba, the baby boom, the anxiety caused by nuclear weapons, the raise of anti-racist and postcolonial discourses, the Vietnam war, the hippie movement, the establishment of consumerist society, and the spreading use of television (2012: 6). Quino tries to observe all these events and phenomena with critical distance, which is the source of his humour.

His main character is a little girl called Mafalda, characterized – according to David William Foster – by an “acute sensitivity to the world around her” (2004: 498). Foster points out that Mafalda always seems more mature than her age, giving surprisingly sharp comments to the adults, while the rest of the comic’s universe is constructed with great accuracy – this contradiction is coined by Foster as “judicious inverisimilitude” (2004: 498). In her book about the social and political history of Mafalda, Isabella Cosse also focuses of the protagonist’s perspective and the child’s voice, which is supposed to mellow and ease the often very sharp criticism (2014: 50). According to Cosse, the character Mafalda defies both gender and generation stereotypes: she is the one who confronts her parents with unpleasant truth, and not vice versa. She is a little girl speaking and behaving as little girls “shouldn’t” (Cosse 2014: 44). Among many different social issues, Mafalda approaches the transformation of gender roles. Isabella Cosse also mentions that Mafalda questions the female roles of her mother, representing the traditional ideal of a spouse (2014: 48). The author describes

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Mafalda’s implacable logic, typical of children, as a means to unmask the adults’ condition (Cosse 2014: 49). This is where the mentioned free imaginative space of humour can come into being, although, as we will see, not to a full extent.

The examples selected from the comic series are scenes of Mafalda and Raquel, her mother and Susanita, her playmate. These sequences both represent the little girl’s mature thinking and her agency similar to the child’s one in Hans Christian Andersen’s famous tale The Emperor’s New Clothes. She is able to rapidly and sharply unmask many problems concerning Argentinian middle-class women’s condition in the 1960s and 1970s. This kind of humour can have a bitter taste to the reader, but it can definitely open their eyes to the social reality.

Source: Quino 1997, no page number

Figure 1. Mom, what do you think about the future prospects of this movement for the liberation of wome… nothing, never mind.

Second-wave feminist ideas started to be widely spread in the 1960s and 1970s.

Since the action of the comic strips is taking place during these years, the main character is obviously curious about the new phenomena, as we know Mafalda as a girl who listens to the news and is always up-to-date with what is going on in the world. Here, the source of the bitter humour is the interaction between the picture and the text as well as the graphical structure of the latter. The reader follows Mafalda’s gaze through the family’s apartment, looking at the props of chores (ironing, cleaning), while the words about change, future, and feminism literally sink and disappear between these objects, which makes Mafalda avoid the enthusiastic discussion she wanted to start with her mother about women’s empowerment. In the final scene, Raquel appears dressed for cleaning, with messy hair and an exhausted facial expression. Here, a radio is part of the scene, but it is half hidden and in a peripheral position, expressing Quino’s irony and bitter caricature of the discrepancy between militant activism and the daily life of many women, dominated by domestic oppression. Mafalda’s shocked and sad face at the end is exactly the mirror of this dissonance. Her and Raquel’s face almost touch, expressing the differences and tensions between two very different generations, the moment of transformation in society, which is everything but easy.

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Source: Quino 1997, no page number

Figure 2. Might he think that you are Venezuela and he is the I-don’t-know-which Oil Company?

As David William Foster mentions it, in Mafalda, Quino deals with social inequity and Argentina’s foreign exploitation, the loss of national identity (2004: 502). The second example establishes a connection between women’s oppression and the global social and economic injustice. Mafalda observes her mother breastfeeding her new-born brother, Guille. Initially, her face is calm, her expression shows affection for her sibling, and her mother smiles lovingly at the infant. However, later on, Mafalda starts to think about the baby’s greed (suggested by the frequency of onomatopoeias) and shocks her mother with a question.

The comparison between the woman fulfilling reproductive tasks and the country being exploited by a great power (in this case, a reference to the relation between Venezuela and the US is made) would generate very intense discussions even today.

The definition of motherhood is an overly sensitive topic for feminists. It can be seen as the supreme manifestation of unconditioned love, as sacrifice, as a complex relationship, as a spiritual experience. The problems of post-partum depression, emotional labour, and the incredible power of mothers to overcome difficulties often at the cost of their own mental and physical health are personal experiences which should be approached with tactfulness and without any judgement. What is, however, certain: women are generally more engaged in the raising of children than men, and this is also true for chores, reproductive work, unpaid and informal labour. Women, on the global labour market, generally give more of their time and resources than they get, at least economically. In this sense, the comparison unmasks the global inequity with negative effects on developing countries and women. The bitter taste provoked by this strip is only increased by the focus on the material, and not the emotional aspects, being an example of cruel humour.

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Source: Quino 1997, no page number

Figure 3. 1. – When I grow up, I want to have a lot of dresses! – And me, a lot of knowledge! 2. – Do you get arrested if you go out without knowledge? – No. 3.

– Well, try going out without a dress!... 4. It is totally sad to have to hit someone who is right.

Mafalda is a little girl who adores going to school, learning, and staying informed.

She also regrets that her mother did not graduate from the university she started to attend. Culture as one of her most important values clashes with her playmate’s, Susanita’s preference for material values and traditional female roles, as she dreams in many strips to become a mother and wife. In the third example from the comic series, the two girls compare their future perspectives. Susanita demonstrates the primacy of her desires through a practical argument, and Mafalda, in spite of her aggressive reaction, deep down has to accept that she is right in that moment, at that place.

This example illustrates very clearly my conclusion about the feminist content of Quino’s Mafalda. The artist manages to draw some attention to social problems relevant from a feminist point of view, through the child’s perspective and subversive approach, offering the possibility for the reader to question the takenfor-granted system and reality around them. However, the characters do not appear in an empowered position, and they do not manage to overcome or transgress the framework of the social structures. Showing the problem, exposing sexism, unmasking traditional gender roles which degrade women to servants, addressing the lack of access to education – all this is very important, but not enough. Quino’s representation of women is on the fine line between the bitter realization of the problem and cynical, misogynist laughter, which can be humiliating for many women. It is also emblematic that in both examples where Raquel appears she remains silent, a passive and voiceless character, which is not an empowered position at all. Looking back at Marlene Mackie’s quoted categorization, according to which humour can either consolidate or subvert the status quo, here, Quino’s humour is clearly not sufficient to completely transgress the existing gender inequalities and stereotypes.

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3.2. Between vulnerability and empowerment – Flavita Banana’s vignettes Flavita Banana has a clearly expressed feminist attitude, as she states in an interview: “We need to fight by the means of our own example, we need to carry on with our lives as we like it, and, above all, we need to claim equality of rights” (García Navarro 2018: 113). Flavita Banana’s art is an empowering sort of humour, raising her voice against sexism with scepticism and rebel approach (Blanco Martínez 2017: 22).

Flavita Banana’s humour can be considered feminist in an empowering sense.

She is able, like Quino, to show the inequalities produced by patriarchy in a sarcastic way, but she goes a step further and puts female characters in empowered positions, highlighting their agency, independence, and different strategies to fight for equity. In the following three pairs of vignettes, examples for this subversive and empowering discourse will be given. The first two pairs have been published separately (they were put near each other in order to make a comparison), while the last pair constitutes a mini-strip.

Sources: Instagram, @flavita.banana, 10 October 2018 // Instagram, @flavita.banana, 22 January 2020

Figure 4. You must learn to live with it, we call it granite ceiling.

Figure 5. Okay, so when they are approaching, you just grab it this way, you will see that as time passes, they will leave us be.

The first vignette represents two female figures wearing clothes that might seem familiar from the animation sitcom The Flintstones, so the reader might suppose the scene is taking place in prehistoric times. This is exactly the source of humour, together with the wordplay granite ceiling, which is clearly an “ancient” version of the concept glass ceiling, denoting the invisible barriers female professionals face when trying to achieve high positions at their workplace, in academia, or politics.

The message of the vignette – patriarchy and the setbacks experienced by women are as old as Homo sapiens – is bitter, here laughter only serving self-irony and maybe solidarity with women from all ages. Compassion is incorporated in the figure of the wise friend, the character which is speaking in the vignette. Although she shows

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support towards her friend in distress, she only explains and confirms the situation.

Her words do not show an alternative to the status quo and are not uplifting, which is visually represented by her kneeling position, suggesting passivity, surrender, and humiliation.

The second vignette also plays with the historical past of women. Witchcraft has represented independence and the power of women that escaped political and social control, while witch hunts wanted to repress exactly this freedom. This is a common topic of feminist non-fiction (Federici 2009), fiction (Kiran Millwood Hargrave’s 2020 novel The Mercies), and documentary fiction alike (such as The Žítková Goddesses by Kateřina Tučková). Flavita Banana shows a typical feminist strategy of subversion: the witches in the illustration pretend to obey traditional gender norms, using their magical broomsticks for cleaning, and this mask of imitating the dominant discourse allows them to continue with their activities, express themselves the way they are. Here, in contrast with the surrendering position in the former vignette, the two witches floating on their broomsticks in the air symbolize a possibility of both uprising and overcoming the patriarchal status quo, flying freely. The feminist theoretician Barbara Godard gives the example of gossip, which is a form of peripheral discourse, marginalized by patriarchal society, yet it enables a rebellious and subversive discourse (Godard 1989). Similarly, as we have seen in the case of Jo Anna Isaak and Sabah Al Mushtaq, humour offers us the possibility to enter an ambiguous and playful space where we are allowed to imagine a different social order, maybe to invent strategies to escape both sexist oppression and the witch hunt.

Sources: Instagram, @flavita.banana, 15 January 2020 // Instagram, @flavita.banana, 30 April 2019

Figure 6. Have you noticed that her armpit is not shaved?

Figure 7. The only exhausting thing in doing men’s tasks is explaining myself.

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Here, in the first vignette, we see a woman balancing different objects in a complex manoeuvre, symbolically representing the women on whom there is an immense pressure to be perfect in both their professional and personal life, to fit into the roles of mothers, sisters, workers, wives, friends, etc. The man looking at her mentions something he considers a flaw on her body, her hairy armpit. It is a typical situation many women experience, that complete strangers comment on their bodies, but especially that they receive any kind of feedback only if there are errors in the results of their work (above all, in the case of reproductive work: Who has been complimented when the dishes are spotless, and how many times are there malicious comments if even one plate is greasy?). Again, we feel compassion for the female figure and fury towards the carrier of this male gaze. The source of humour is the discrepancy between what the reader sees in the illustration, beyond the male gaze (the multitasking woman), and what the character sees through his male gaze (something that he considers a flaw). His comment demonstrates that he only sees what he can and what he wants to see since there are some beauty standards that direct and influence the way he sees. In the imaginative space of humour, this is deconstructed, and we as readers are able to see why he sees the way he does and also to see more, to see in a different way. The male gaze is not only exposed, but we are offered an alternative to it. However, the female protagonist of the vignette might seem a victim, which is not an empowered position at all.

Here, the artist depicts injustice, but in the next vignette she goes further, to an empowering approach. As Sabah Al Mushtaq mentions in her quoted article, feminist humour contains the positive evaluation of women, celebrates women’s experiences, and asserts their strength, capabilities, and autonomy (2017: 35). The vignette represents a woman repairing a bicycle, traditionally considered a man’s task, related to many experiences of mansplaining. The female protagonist of the vignette implicitly constates that there is no difference between women’s and men’s ability to fulfil certain tasks; she only seems irritated that she has to justify her actions. It is interesting to observe how some minimalist vignettes can depict female agency. Both of these examples represent women engaged in productive, creative, and efficient activities (repairing the bicycle, balancing with many objects), whereas the men are shown in idle states (especially the character playing with the bicycle’s wheel). The aim here is not to humiliate men, only to highlight women’s activity and also the position from which in the patriarchy superficial judgement is often so easily pronounced. In other words: the vignettes do not judge themselves but show the space and the mechanisms that perpetuate this kind of judgement.

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Source: Instagram, @flavita.banana, 29 April 2020

Figure 8. 1. – And don’t dare to come back late from the office ‘cause I want the dinner to be ready at 9 p.m. “Feminism has made many women unhappy.” – Phyllis Schlafly. 2. – And don’t dare to come back late from the office ‘cause I want the dinner to be ready at 9 p.m. Feminism has made the past of many women unhappy.

This example deconstructs the stereotype that all men are misogynists and all women must be feminists. It suggests that it is time we left behind such binary-bound and shallow thinking. The two vignettes play with a quote from ultraconservative and antifeminist lawyer Phyllis Schlafly. There are only two small changes between the images: the protagonist’s facial expression, suggesting at first irritation and sadness and then happiness, at first carrying a briefcase and later a suitcase.

The modification of the quote also suggests the ability of the woman to leave her unhappy past behind and start a new life thanks to the shift produced by feminism.

The manipulation of the quote is a typical strategy of subversive discourse.

Flavita Banana’s humour is considered a balance between laughter and cry, as two Spanish scholars mention; her vignettes should be read twice: the first lecture is comic, the second one provoking a certain bitterness; the artist uses the amusing moment to encourage the reader to reflect and think critically (Del Río Castañeda– Benito Temprano 2018: 44–47). Flavita Banana herself reflects on the role of humour.

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Source: Instagram, @flavita.banana, 13 March 2017

Figure 9. (From bottom to top): shock, fury, denial, sadness, order, humour. – Which doesn’t mean that being up here doesn’t hurt as hell, ahh!

In this vignette, Flavita Banana depicts different emotions such as shock, fury, denial, or sadness. All these feelings are visually represented as the base of a mountain or the lower part of an iceberg, which is usually invisible under the surface of the water, while humour is the very tip of this structure. The female character is balancing on the top of this pyramid. Her sentence suggests that reaching the state of mind of acceptance, as a result of letting go other emotions and taking distance from the original situation, does not mean that humour makes all unpleasant parts of the reality invisible. On the contrary, it is rather associated with clear insight and a better knowledge of the world, as Flavita Banana expresses in an Instagram post (10 January 2020): “If you work with humour, it is because you think a lot. If you think a lot, you realize more things than happy people.”

4. Conclusions This paper has proposed a definition of humour as a safe and free space meant to imagine alternatives to the existing gender stereotypes and inequalities. In the analysis of Quino’s and Flavita Banana’s works, we could observe different strategies in the presentation of gender-related issues and different roles of humour.

While Quino’s Mafalda uses humour in order to expose sexism and injustice, the comic series cannot transgress stereotypes and confirms the status quo. Flavita Banana’s vignettes depict empowered women, and therefore her humour is a means to imagine a more just world.

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Comics and vignettes with feminist content can draw attention to genderrelated issues. This is especially true in the case of these popular and accessible genres spread on social media. With the feminist issues currently on the agenda in Spanish-speaking countries, artworks such as Quino’s Mafalda and Flavita Banana’s vignettes can also contribute to raising awareness and constructing politically active citizenship.

References Bilger, Audrey. 1998. Laughing feminism: Subversive comedy in Frances Burney, Maria Edgeworth, and Jane Austen. Detroit: Wayne State University Press.

Blanco, Martínez–Miguel, Ángel. 2017. La traducción desde la perspectiva de género. Una traslación de compromise del comic feminista contemporáneo del español al inglés [Translation from a gender perspective. A translation of social commitment applied to contemporary Spanish feminist comic books translated from Spanish to English]. In: Anne Bécart–Viviana Merola–Rafael López-Campos (eds.), Current approaches to translation and interpretation studies. Seville: Editorial Bienza. 19–26.

Cixous, Hélène. 1976. The laugh of the Medusa. Transl. by Keith Cohen–Paula Cohen. Signs 1(4): 875–893.

Cochrane, Kira. 2013. All the rebel women: Exclusive Guardian Shorts ebook extract. The Guardian December 16. https://www.theguardian.com/global/2013/ dec/16/all-the-rebel-women-guardian-shorts-ebook-extract (downloaded on: 4 May 2020).

Cosse, Isabella. 2014. Mafalda: historia social y política [Mafalda: Social and political history]. Buenos Aires: Fondo de Cultura Económica.

Del Río Castañeda, Laro–Benito Temprano, Claudia Sofía. 2018. Flavita Banana: Ilustración y microrrelato [Flavita Banana: Illustration and flash fiction], Microtextualidades. Revista internacional de microrrelato y minificción (3): 41–55.

Federici, Silvia. 2009. Caliban and the witch. Women, the body and primitive accumulation. Brooklyn: Autonomedia.

Foster, David William. 2004. Mafalda: An Argentina comic strip. The Journal of Popular Culture 14(3): 497–508.

García Navarro, Nerea, 2018. Pinceladas con nombre de mujer: El humor gráfico y sus ilustradoras [Brushstrokes with women’s names: Graphic humour and its illustrators]. Aularia. El país de las aulas (1): 109–119.

Godard, Barbara. 1989. Theorizing feminist discourse / Translation. Tessera (6): 42–53.

Hargrave, Kiran Millwood. 2020. The Mercies. London: Picador.

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Kalviknes Bore, Inger-Lise–Graefer, Anne–Kilby, Allaina. 2017. This pussy grabs back: Humour, digital affects and women’s protest. Open Cultural Studies (1): 529–540.

Mackie, Marlene. 1990. Who’s laughing now? The role of humour in the social construction of gender. Atlantis 15(2): 11–26.

Marchionni, Franco–Sales, Romina Giselle. 2012. Mafalda reload. Aproximaciones conceptuales a la cultura latinoamericana a través de la obra de Quino [Mafalda reload. Conceptual approaches to Latin American culture through the work of Quino]. Registros. Revista de Investigación Histórica 8(8): 2–24.

Mushtaq, Sabah Al. 2017. Humour: As a tool for gender construction and deconstruction. International Journal for Intersectional Feminist Studies 3(1): 29–38.

Quino (Lavado Tejón, Joaquín Salvador). 1997. Toda Mafalda [Complete Mafalda].

8th edition. Buenos Aires: Ediciones de la Flor.

Tučková, Kateřina. 2012. Žítkovské bohyně [The Žítková Goddesses]. Brno: Host.

Wollstonecraft, Mary. 1796. A vindication of the rights of woman: With strictures on political and moral subjects. London. Facsimile edition 1996. Dover: Thrift Editions.

Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Philologica, 12, 3 (2020) 34–54 DOI: 10.2478/ausp-2020-0022

Humour as a Postmodern Weapon in a Totalitarian Regime. Ioan Groşan’s One Hundred Years at the Gates of the East Zsuzsa TAPODI

Sapientia Hungarian University of Transylvania (Cluj-Napoca, Romania) Department of Human Sciences tapodizsuzsa@uni.sapientia.ro

Ingrid TOMONICSKA

Sapientia Hungarian University of Transylvania (Cluj-Napoca, Romania) Department of Human Sciences tomonicskaingrid@uni.sapientia.ro Abstract. The paper aims to show that O sută de ani de zile la Porţile Orientului [One Hundred Years at the Gates of the East], Ioan Groşan’s historical picaresque postmodern novel, can be seen – due the presence of different techniques and devices of humour – as a weapon in and against a totalitarian system. In order to do so, our approach takes into account the problem of an East European totalitarian system, the East–West antipode, the condition of the author and his possible intention in a totalitarian system, the condition of the reader and his horizon of expectations in the same system, and the sources of humour used by the author. Humour as a weapon can have a lot of roles, for example, cracking, evading, or surmounting reality, and we want to show that Ioan Groşan succeeds in doing all that. In our paper, we grouped the humour-generating incongruences and contradictions into several categories: composition, frame (space and time, situations), identity (social status, names, physical appearance, ethnic and religious belonging), and language to underline the wide range of tools used by the author.

Keywords: Ioan Groşan, totalitarian system, Postmodernism, humour

1. Introduction Evasion from an unbearable universe is an ancient practice. The causes and solutions are multiple, the reason behind it being the search for an alternative universe free of social and historical rules, which is able to offer an alternative. Virtuality, no matter whether it is (literary) fiction or a computer-simulated environment, can be

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regarded as the psyche’s means of self-defence, a promise of a better life as well as a task in order to be accomplished or “a problem to solve”.

The aim of this paper is to highlight that by means of his postmodern novel One Hundred Years at the Gates of the East1 Ioan Groşan – one of the “best-known ‘fiction writers’ of the eighties”2 (Cărtărescu 2010: 423)3 – not only creates an alternative, hybrid, fictional literary world but also offers an alternative history, a stand-up history (Stan 2008: 5), humour used as a weapon against a totalitarian regime being one of his main devices.

Our approach is focused on three coordinates, the first one representing the social, historical, and literary context in which Ioan Groşan lived and worked, the second one is the author, the paper trying to identify the intentions, strategies, and devices of humour used by the writer, while the third one is the audience and their horizon of expectations.

2. Context. Introduction to the social, historical, and theoretical background A detailed presentation of the crimes committed by the totalitarian regime has been elaborated by the Presidential Commission for the Study of the Communist Dictatorship in Romania headed by Vladimir Tismăneanu, which published a detailed report on this topic (2006). The findings of the commission revealed that following World War II, due to the pressure of the Soviet Union, the Communist Party gained power in Romania, instating a Stalinist totalitarian dictatorship based on terror and the annihilation of the rule of law and pluralism by show trials and frauds as well as by the elimination of the social strata considered “class enemies” (i.e. the bourgeoisie, the nobility, the peasantry, the intellectuals, or the students).

Tens of thousands of people were imprisoned on political grounds; abuses, assassinations, tortures, and executions were committed.

The transformation of the society was carried out through fear and massive propaganda having in view the instauration of a despotic political system led by the only Party, and a caste profiting from it gathered around the supreme leader, the 1

2 3

The novel consists of 230 chapters and appeared in sequels in the periodical Viaţa studenţească [Student Life] before 1989, under the pseudonym Ars Amatoria, the name of a group whose soul was Ioan Groşan. The plot is set at the beginning of the 17th century, presenting a series of travels and intrigues. Voivode Barzovie, the banished ruler of Moldavia, followed by Vulture, his sword-bearer, and Broanteş, the rhapsode, travels to Istanbul to seek help for regaining his throne. In the meantime, two monks, Metodiu and Iovănuţ, are appointed with the secret mission of conducting negotiations with the Papal Court to form an anti-Ottoman alliance.

Romanian literature operates with several labellings of the cultural and literary periods, one of which being the decadal division. Writers of the ‘80s are usually associated with Postmodernism.

Translations from Romanian literature and specialist literature were made by Árpád Kémenes throughout the article.

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General Secretary of the Communist Party. After a brief opening to the West and a relaxation of the internal repression, at the turn of the 1960s-1970s, when Nicolae Ceauşescu became leader of the Party and of the country, a new period of closure and repression followed, which lasted until the 1989 revolution, when Ceauşescu was executed. The Communist regime was restrictive on freedom of speech – making use of censorship,4 interceptions, and spying – and on the freedom of leaving the country, while those who expressed their discontent or attempted to defect from the country were considered traitors, the protesters being humiliated and arrested.

The prosecution of ethnic, religious, or cultural minorities and of those who had a different sexual orientation targeted the expurgation and homogenization of the masses of people, trying to create a unitary nation-state with downtrodden citizens easy to manipulate. During Ceauşescu’s leadership, the heads of the ideological apparatus propagated xenophobia and the idea of protochronism,5 introducing the cult of the leader’s personality.

For most writers, this period is a battle to create enclave-like spaces for free manifestation, it is “the story of a struggle to reconquer a space for the production of genuine cultural values and to create counter-institutions to protect these, followed by a desperate defence of that space and those values from the Party leadership’s relentless assault” (Verdery 1991: 110–111).

In the early 1980s, there arose the generation of self-reflexive writers, who reshaped literature and shared a common programme, paying tribute to Postmodernism on the way. It is a generation which – due to the political context – could not totally express itself, “whose full political and aesthetic implications could not be articulated before 1989. It was only after the fall of Communism that the writers of this group overtly adopted and theorized the term Postmodernism for their preexisting literary agenda” (Spiridon 2004: 69).

Having to face the problems imposed by a totalitarian regime, this generation needed to use different strategies, tactics, and devices to avoid censorship and promote the aesthetic coordinate by “embracing relativism and structural eclecticism” (Spiridon 2004: 69), creating thus a literature which was incongruent with the official metanarrative. Hence: the young authors were accused of being decadent, hypertechnical, caught in textualist games, but the unspoken real reason for putting them on trial […] (some […] literally)6 was the subversive anti-totalitarian drive of their literature. Hence, the striking discrepancy between the alleged technical 4

5 6

Between 1965 and 1971, during the first years after Ceauşescu’s ascension to power, there was an attenuation of censorship, the leader’s official attitude being one of disapproval towards the Soviet Union.

It is a term related to Romania, which covers the basic national ideology manifested under Ceauşescu.

Not only in the ʼ80s. See the Black Church Trial (1958), for example.

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Zsuzsa TAPODI, Ingrid TOMONICSKA artificiality of their literature and the strong political reactions they elicited from their censors. (Spiridon 2004: 69)

Therefore, the solution chosen by the generation of the ‘80s was to eliminate all kinds of anterior models, such as the West–East antipode, and to find a new, innovative identity, which “emphasized hybridity and cross-fertilization of models” (Spiridon 2004: 69).

Due to its geographical position and, as a consequence deriving from it, the social and political situation, Romanian culture – including literature as well – is a contact culture, an aspect of which is, among others, an interference7 of the West – representing “confidence in progress, rationalism, historicism, individualism, secular spirit, the cult of originality, and commitment to a capitalist economy” (Spiridon 2004: 67) – with the East – “overrating of primitivism, exoticism, anachronism, authenticity instead of individualism, Orthodoxist spirituality, phobia of capitalism, and fatalism” (Spiridon 2004: 67). These antinomies became part of the Romanian identity, giving birth to literary genres, topoi, stereotypes, and clichés which can be both positive (the use of multiple sources and models) and negative (giving birth, sometimes, to confusion).

Categories of West (Occident) and East (Orient) have been present throughout Romanian literature since its very beginnings,8 gaining particular importance in the 19th century, occupying a well-defined role in the literature of the late 20th century, and having a well-defined theoretical, historiographical9 as well as literary significance in the 21st century, too.

Thus, the choice of an alternative universe, able to abstract from reality and to surpass the problem of the system and censorship, but which is at the same time familiar to the Romanian audience, finds a solution in the East–West10 antinomy, metamorphosed in hybridity, for which, among others, Ioan Groşan’s novel One Hundred Years at the Gates of the East is an illustrative example not only due to the characters’ travels to the East (Istanbul) or the West (Vatican) but also because of blending the features characteristic of the two worlds (e.g. the Tatar student in Padua).

Hybridization – the seventh feature of Hassan’s catena of postmodern features, his “paratactic list” (1986: 504), alongside Indeterminancy, Fragmentation, Decanonization, Self-less-ness, the Unrepresentable, Irony, Carnivalization, PerformanceParticipation, Constructionism, and Immanence – is “the mutant replication of genres” (1986: 506). Hassan also speaks of a “different concept of tradition, one in 7 8

9 10

See Verdery (1991).

Cornis-Pope (2004c: 499) points out that the categories of East and West can be traced back to the beginnings of Romanian historical fiction: Istoria ieroglifică ( A History in Hieroglyphs; 1705) by Prince Dimitrie Cantemir of Moldavia and Ţiganiada (The Gypsiad; 1800–1812) by Ioan BudaiDeleanu.

See Djuvara (1995).

The concept of the West was considered undesirable after 1945.

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which continuity and discontinuity, high and low culture mingle not to imitate but to expand the past in the present. In that plural present, all styles are dialectically available in an interplay between the Now and the Not Now, the Same and the Other” (1986: 506).

From Hassan’s highly discussed catena, hybridization became a focal point also for Homi K. Bhabha. Out of his detailed observations, from our point of view, his association of the term with power is particularly important; he sees the effect of colonial power as the production of hybridization rather than “the noisy command of colonialist authority or the silent repression of native traditions” (Bhabha 1994: 112). If accepted, it can be observed that “the ambivalence at the source of traditional discourses on authority enables a form of subversion, founded on the undecidability that turns the discursive conditions of dominance into the grounds of intervention” (Bhabha 1994: 112).

Any kind of hybridity the generation of the 1980s adheres to emphasizes one of the basic features of “minor literatures”, where Romanian literature also belongs, namely that – owing to their peripheral position – they tame the models borrowed, adapting them to the local context, obtaining new, milder forms.

3. The author 3.1. Context, relationship with Postmodernism, intention, and strategy Groşan belongs to a literary generation formed in a “small marginal culture” (Spiridon 2004: 70), in an oppressive social and historical system, and for whom Postmodernism offers means to rebel against the system. Thus, the context contoured above provides explanation for the type of novel elaborated in the sense adopted by Dekoven: In order to understand what has made possible certain novelistic forms that are culturally powerful at any given historical moment, it is necessary to look at the culture surrounding the production of that novel and to do so in a way that takes into account the historical conditions that in turn produced or made possible that particular cultural configuration. (2009: 334) The question is what the possibilities of a cultural producer are in such conditions, in a historical moment in which “meaning is produced and controlled” (Verdery 1991: 87). In our view, the position of the writer as a cultural producer has to be approached analysing the writers’ relationship with censors, “who call into question everything from words used to the artist’s judgement in framing a story” (Verdery 1991: 88). This relationship could have several coordinates: it was possible for the writer to work for the censorship, to write about the regime either in a way

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allowed by the censors or circumventing the censorship. The last approach offers several possibilities: rewriting the parts “recommended” by the censors or avoidance through “codification” (“acceptable” topic, metaphors, allegories, parody, etc.).

The relationship mentioned above is further complicated if the chosen topic is history, which “is largely a construction that does not withstand the test of either credibility or verification” (Sicher–Weinhouse 2012: 180). The writer could not adopt a topic that dealt with contemporary history – namely the Ceauşescu period – in a straightforward manner if it did not align with the official ideology, and “the control of history remained a priority of party propaganda well into Ceauşescu’s postStalinistic regime. While historical novelists were allowed to experiment formally, their ‘rereading’ of history was closely monitored by censorship” (Cornis-Pope 2004b: 501). Anyway, postmodern historiographic metafiction was a good solution because “the interaction of the historiographic and the metafictional foregrounds the rejection of the claims of both ‘authentic’ representation and ‘inauthentic’ copy alike, and the very meaning of artistic originality is as forcefully challenged as is the transparency of historical referentiality” (Hutcheon 1988: 109–110), giving thus to censors other things to mind about.

Ioan Groşan is fundamentally a humourist, in whose oeuvre “plebeian humour, gross satire alternate with ‘high’ genres: fantastic fiction, metafiction, etc.”

(Cărtărescu 2010: 428), and who creates the most didactic texts of metanarrative postmodernism belonging to the fiction of the ‘80s. […] In his later writings, Groşan parodically ‘recycles’ the historical novel – One Hundred Years at the Gates of the East –, the SF – Planet of the Mediocrities –, and the erotic novel – Nutzi, the Scarecrow of the Constitution –, but the postmodernist spirit of the first volume gets gradually thinner because parody, humour, and satire do not usually get beyond their classical limits despite the avalanche of allusions and heteroclitic quotations.

(Cărtărescu 2010: 428) The fascination of the writers of the 1980s for marginal forms of prose lacking cultural prestige, such as the historical novel or SF, is explained by Cărtărescu through the fact that these genres provided them with “rigid narrative structures easy to manipulate as well as archetypical images that were suitable for ornating fictions, like a game with marbles” (2010: 433), and also with one of the functions analysed above: “a special function to protect the ideological discourse from censorship. Placing some of the events into the past and camouflaging satire with a picturesque prop could make censors overlook even virulent pamphlets written against the Communist establishment and, during the last decades, against Ceauşescu’s despotic dictatorship” (2010: 433). Even if this function was preserved in the historical novels written by the generation of the 80s, Cărtărescu argues that

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this function has just a secondary role compared to the adherence to postmodernity, which – to their luck – hands on a plate a range of subversive devices. He also points out that these authors, together with Groşan, use historical conventions in a particular way because the constructed “real” eras – devoid of time – are, firstly, an excuse for introducing false perspectives and narrative loopings (2010: 427–434).

As a writer, Ioan Groşan did not have – even if he had wanted to – the possibility to remain neutral in the historical and cultural situation outlined above. Thus, in his novel One Hundred Years at the Gates of the East Groşan creates – through humour – a historical and parodical (meta)novel, a hybrid where one can identify the intention – associated with the novel by Amigoni – to “ask its reader to entertain instead more sceptical and playful questions about the relationship between narration and our knowledge of life, reality and history” (2000: 129).

3.2 Main instrument – The humour If the system forms its own intellectuals, there is always a counterpart that uses the same weapons. Of all the weapons used by the system, we are primarily interested in language. The intelligentsia who fought the system found in language an aspect which they could use as a weapon, namely the humour.

Humour is one of the most effective literary weapons to please the audience, as it develops characters and makes plots useful and memorable. […] It arouses interest among readers, sustains their attention, helps them connect with the characters, emphasizes and relates ideas, and helps the readers picture the situation. Through this tool, writers can also improve the quality of their works by pleasing the audience. Apart from that, the most dominant function of humor is to provide surprise, which not only improves quality, but improves memorable style of a literary piece. The writers learn how to use words for different objectives. (Hyman 2019: 31; emphasis in the original) So, not only does it have the capacity and role to assert life and identity, catharsis, entertainment, amusement or – as we saw above – to avoid censorship and undermine authority, but it also contributes to help evasion and the creation of shields or – on the contrary – to spark out conflicts. All these, of course, are in line with the author’s intentions, who is able to create and raise everything from a micro, individual level – in our case, that of a writer living in a totalitarian regime, who wants to evade into another reality and/or lead the reader into an alternative world where, with humour, he can reach catharsis, having thus both therapeutic11 and compensatory goals – to a macro level – where the author intends to use humour to highlight a number of social and historical flaws and follies.

11

See Stephenson 1951.

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Concerns related to the definition and clarification of the concept of humour can be identified in European culture as early as in Plato’s and Aristotle’s works. Humour is the result of a number of complex factors determined by historical time and individuality, with roles, effects, and application in psychology, culture, sociology, and geography. Some even claim that there is communication between man and computers, where computers would be able to generate humour (Ţifrea 2008).

Humour’s ubiquity in space and time raises the problem of its definition, humour being – like many other concepts and phenomena – a very elusive category, a manifestation that continuously eludes attempts to provide it with well-defined contours, as shown by Farber, who states that: humor remains somewhat mysterious and elusive. Or not even that. It may be that most people, even teachers in the arts, bypass theory entirely and simply accept humor as a given: an unanalyzable fact of human life. I’ve sometimes wondered if it may be that we don’t want to understand humor, either because we’re afraid that this understanding will spoil the game or, just possibly, because we sense that, as a consequence of it, we may discover things about ourselves that we would prefer not to know. (2007: 67) Basing on the same idea, Eduardo Jáuregui Narváez (2014) explains that each theoretical school which dealt with humour concentrated on certain aspects of laughter, excluding others, elaborating a reasonable description of a limited part but without managing to understand the authentic nature of the whole. Some of the scholars, frustrated with so much futile flurry between less plausible theories, have decided that there is not one single cause of laughter. Instead, there are different types of humour. The problem is that there is no consensus as far as its number and types are concerned.

In this complexity, humour research12 has presented three basic theories, none of which having proved to be fully adequate: (1) the superiority theory, present from classical times, from Plato and Aristotle until the end of the 17th century; (2) the relief theory, associated with Herbert Spencer and Sigmund Freud, with two scenarios: “First, the laughter may release some pre-existing nervous energy, or second, the humorous stimulus may itself cause the build up of the nervous energy and then relieve it. […] In the second scenario mentioned above, the energy released in laughter is energy which the humorous stimulus – say a joke or cartoon – has built up itself” (Morreall 2008: 222); (3) the incongruity theory (deriving from Aristotle and Cicero, taken over and further developed by Kant, Schopenhauer, and Kierkegaard), which has been present in different forms since the 18th century.

12

One of the first steps in this direction, according to Morreall (2008: 221), is Lord Shaftesbury’s 1711 essay The Freedom of Wit and Humour.

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Despite the fact that it dominates today’s humour theory, this last theory is still widely regarded as not a complete, exhaustive theory.

None of these three theories – considered traditional – can be viewed as satisfactory, a fact proved by their hybridization, by the multitude of research studies that aim to sustain the idea or to offer possible solutions, even attempts to create new theories.13 Apart from the definition, each researcher tries to label the types and sources of humours and to divide them into classes. Thus, we can talk about verbal or non-verbal humour, primitive or high/elevated humour, universal and local, derisive humour, empathic humour, and counter-restriction humour with its subcategories – aggressive humour, sexual humour, and nonsense humour, though there are others, too, such as scatological humour, which play a role in the arts (Farber 2007: 72–84), or bawdy or ribald humour, parental or genealogical humour – called “device” by Stamm (1959: 482).

Similarly, the various devices of humour must also be mentioned, such as absurd, ambiguity, bathos, caricature, carnival, coincidences, comédie noire, confusion, double entendre, exaggeration, excess, extraction, hyperbole, incongruity, intertextuality, irony (verbal, situational, dramatic), juxtaposition, litotes, ludic, malapropism, mistaken identity (twins, names), over- and understatement, oxymoron, paradox, parody, pathos, pun, sarcasm, satire, sensorial (over-) stimulation (visual, aural, etc.), slapstick, stereotype, substitution, surprise, taboo, and so on,14 many of which being regarded characteristic features of certain genres.15 There is also a wide range of subject matters, such as society (social classes, ethnic or racial minorities), history, politics, and so on, but, generally speaking, “in all cases, a consistent stereotype of these positions in the stratification system is developed” (Stephenson 1951: 571); in our case, history – the past that is sufficiently distant for not raising the problem of the allusions to the present.

4. Audience If we talk about the author, we must also mention the audience, the Reader, because, despite the myth according to which “serious artists don’t pay attention to their audiences but instead focus only on expressing their visions […] it’s impossible to make meaningful rhetorical choices without some sense of whom you are addressing – about their beliefs, background knowledge, values, taboos, sense of humour” (Phelan–Rabinovitz et al. 2012: 140).

We regard the audience not from the point of view of narratology, because we do not aim to exemplify concepts as actual, implied, authorial reader, etc., but 13 14 15

See Morreall 1983.

Quintilian identified over 200.

For example, the picaresque novel.

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rather have in view the flesh and blood reader from the perspective of the context presented above, the situation of a socio-political reader in a totalitarian system and his relationship with the postmodern novel, more exactly, that of Groşan’s. Besides its social role of shaping identity, humour also had a cathartic role in the life of the reader in the totalitarian system.

As regards the first steps of the Romanian audience in its relationship with the genesis of the novel, Cornis-Pope identifies the reading public as being the weak link: “At the beginning of the nineteenth century the reading public was composed still of landowners and clergy, whose reading tastes had been formed by religious and didactic literature. By mid-nineteenth century the reading public included also tradesmen, craftsmen, functionaries, officers, and middle-class women” (2004b: 442). In the 20th century, a diversification of the audience took place; they became more and more familiar with the novel (having its roots in the 19th-century novels). However, during the second half of the 20th century, readers turned away from the grand narrative structures. In our particular context, we refer to an audience influenced – like the author himself – by the context of a totalitarian regime. This type of socialization can be identified even during the first years following the 1989 events, when the analysed novel appeared for the first time in a book format (1992). In his study The Search for a Modern, Problematizing Historical Consciousness: Romanian Historical Fiction and Family Cycles, Cornis-Pope shows that the number of family cycles and epic historical novels is scarce after 1989, the reason being that “writers emerging from Ceauşescu’s peculiar brand of national communism, have understandably little faith in grand narratives — those of nationalism included” (2004c: 504).

The primary audience in our case is the Romanian one, and it has to be, first of all, a connoisseur – not only but necessarily – of the Romanian context, society, history, politics, and, last but not least, of Romanian literature because they have to “decode […] concepts: their meaning will always depend on the precise culture they are part of” (Spiridon 2004: 70). So, the reader of Groşan’s novel was supposed to have certain social, cultural, political, cultural, and – above all – literary knowledge to be able to discern and understand the author’s intentions and the devices he uses in this particular book and to be ready to get involved in the dialogue initiated by the author. In this regard, we speak of an educated reader, able to interpret and also read between the lines, an ability developed also due to the totalitarian system and censorship, as remarked by Cornis-Pope: “One positive outcome of this confrontation with censorship was the emergence of several generations of subtle if oblique writers and of alert close readers, looking for hidden political references” (2004a: 41), residing in a strong bond between author and reader, the first to express the forbidden and the latest to discover the hints, “an art perfected under communist censorship” (Vianu, qtd. in Cornis-Pope 2004a: 41).

Of course, one can never talk about a completely homogeneous subclass – because within a language readers can be categorized into different subclasses based on

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gender, ethnicity, religion, etc. –, so they are projected into a generic class, educated and bonded by the socio-political situation.

4.1. Horizon of expectations In this context, this audience with bifocal glasses and different reading strategies is to a certain extent prepared for their horizon of expectations – activated with each appearance of a literary work, as put by Jauss (2005) – to be deceived, which is exploited to the full by Groşan. Our writer deceives expectations in all possible ways, using the devices offered by postmodernism in a totalitarian context, his main weapon being humour and its devices.

Humour can be turned into a weapon because “by its nature tends to seek out and reveal incongruities” (Farber 2007: 84). Incongruous elements can be found throughout the novel, the link between them having the obvious role of triggering a certain humoristic state. In order to present the sources and devices of humour the audience can find in Groşan’s novel, we would like to offer the filter proposed by Farber (2007), which explains the relationship between incongruent elements and humour. It explains the system with psychological incongruous counterpositions, which are external (A and B) and internal (a and b), where B is the strong need or inclination and A internalized constraint or obstacle. On an analogical level, Farber shows that “when the linked, incongruous A/B in the humorous situation suddenly and temporarily alters the relationship between a pair of well-established counterpositions in the perceiver […], and does so in a way that keeps both of these counterpositions in play, something happens that can be compared […] to current flowing across a spark gap” (‌2007: ‌72). He says that in a humorous situation the A is not eliminated, replaced by the B, but that it is successfully opposed by the B, namely “undermined or circumvented or defied or contradicted. What makes humour work is the temporarily altered relative status of the two counterpositions in the perceiver, and for this it is essential that, in the humorous situation, the A must somehow remain in place so that, in the perceiver, the restrictive or blocking counterposition continues to be evoked” ‌(2 ‌ 007:‌ ‌70–71) and has the result “that, within the perceiver, a need temporarily succeeds, not in eliminating, but in defying the restriction that governs it” (2007: 71).

4.2. What the audience gets Humour as a weapon for cracking reality and undermining a horizon of expectations is used by Groşan in several aspects, the incongruences and contradictions being grouped into several categories: composition, frame (space and time, situations), identity (social status, names, physical appearance, ethnic and religious belonging), and language.

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As far as the elements of composition are concerned, one can highlight the problem of titles and the specificity of the text. Before getting acquainted with the text itself, the reader makes a connection with the title of the novel, One Hundred Years at the Gates of the East. This is a clear allusion to the emblematic novel of magic realism, One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez and to Mateiu Caragiale, who quotes in the motto to his novel Craii de Curtea Veche (Gallants of the Old Court) a French diplomat named Raymond Poincaré – “Que voulez-vous, nous sommes ici, aux Portes de l’Orient, où tout est pris à la légère.”

[What do you want, we are here, at the Gates of East, where everything is taken lightly.] This “will become, as the plot unfolds and branches out rhizomatically, a pretext for the narrator to make fun of trouble, simultaneously deconstructing a series of commonplaces, stereotypes of identity, prejudices and literary clichés” (Popa 2017: 198). In a similar fashion, the titles of the episodes also introduce a number of notions, such as allusions to the problems of a capitalist society (Ltd.), problems of everyday life (Days Off), ironic or interpretative transtextuality: A Weaker Episode, Without a Title, Gothic Dialogue, The Second Gothic Dialogue, The Last Gothic Dialogue, The Teachings of Metodiu to the Newly Married,16 The Sorrows of Young Cosette.17 Apart from the episode titles, intertextuality can be captured throughout the text, where one can identify distorted elements taken from the ancient times, blending the elevated with the mundane: “An old Asian saying: Inter arma silent musae” (Groşan 2012: 9); “Animi volant, corpora manet, as the prophets said!” (Groşan 2012: 9), “some letters from the considerable pile gathered over time addressed to Ars Amatoria”18 (Groşan 2012: 326) – the title of Ovid’s work becomes connected with TV series; Horace: “Oh the times, stop a bit!” (Groşan 2012: 78); but also from other periods such as the One Thousand and One Nights (like Scheherazade, Cosette told the sultan stories every evening), Shakespeare: “A Romeo soaping himself in front of the mirror” (Groşan 2012: 97), Don Quixote: “valiant Phoebus […]” (Groşan 2012: 27), Kant: “A cricket could be heard here, an ant there, above them was the starry sky” (Groşan 2012: 27); Stendhal: “the epic threads of a traditional narration (which is nothing but a mirror carried during a long journey)” (Groşan 2012: 308); Dostoevsky: “a Karamazov asking for some suspenders” (Groşan 2012: 97), ironic allusions to feminism, propagated by Virginia Woolf: “If born later, in our century, for example, and not in the middle of the reed, she could have easily become a pilot, a mountain climber, a writer, a tram driver, and actress or a film chronicler. […] Nothing, alas, nothing of the sort; only the reed, the smell of mud, the flock of 16 17 18

Reference to the title of a Romanian Mediaeval literary work: The Teachings of Neagoe Basarab to His Son Theodosie (16th century).

Allusion to The Sorrows of Young Werther by Goethe, Cosette being a character in Les Misérables

by Victor Hugo.

The pseudonym he signed the episodes of the novel with when they appeared in a periodical before 1989.

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children and the sulky man, who beat her half dead on a weekly basis” (Groşan 2012: 207), or references to Kundera (Groşan 2012: 353).

Pastiche of Romanian literary works can be found throughout the novel. The Romanian reader can find references to elements of both folk and written literature, from the chroniclers (“we are coming from Rome”) to the generation preceding Groşan. For example, the Tatars sing “We glorify thee, glamorous Baikal” (Groşan 2012: 12) – an allusion to the lyrics of the old national anthem “We glorify thee, Romania” or in the episode titles (Episode 22 bears the title of Dimitrie Cantemir’s work Descriptio Moldaviae, Episode 23, Halt at Topos refers to Tales from Ancuţa’s Inn by Mihail Sadoveanu). One can identify the postmodern intertextual game on quotations with deliberate false references or without references at all such as in Umberto Eco: “Sweet and beautiful is the language you speak” says Vasea to Metodiu (Groşan 2012: 167), a quotation transformed into the singular taken from the poem Limba românească (The Romanian Language) by Gheorghe Sion.

Analysing intertextuality, we can also mention the use of distorted adages such as the allusion to the slogan of the 1789 French Revolution or, again, to the title of the novel by Gabriel García Márquez: “Where did our good Metodiu take his strides […] after Iovănuţ […] had remained in the Eternal City to share with us the truth of the words ex occidentae lux? Let us not give a straightforward answer, we’d better make slow hints, having at disposal one hundred years of fraternity, equality and solitude” (Groşan 2012: 330).

The text is characterized by fragmentarism, a feature of Postmodernism, which, in order to become a source of humour, also plays on deceived horizons of expectations (for example, contrary to expectations, the episode entitled 7 Days Sick-Leave does not describe health problems, even more, besides the title of the chapter, it contains not a single word) and also by ironic transtextuality, where the audience can recognize some characteristic features of the historical, gothic, adventure, and picaresque novels, such as those written by Voltaire, or some forms like, for example, that of the serial with episodes.19 Regarding the frames, two main axes can be identified: that of the actions and events (including the ones proposed by the author in the novel) that can be placed by the reader on any coordinates of time and space (the 1600s, Moldavia, the Ottoman Empire, and on the way to the Vatican) as well as frames that, although they appear in a certain time and place, are interpretable through allusions and distortions.

The first, narrower category will be illustrated with two examples. The enumeration of the humble food the two monks are having ends unexpectedly: “their lunch was simple: two sorrel leaves, three dry plums, a lump of cold polenta, an onion and a hastily caught rabbit” (Groşan 2012: 5). Another scene describes the meeting of the couple in love, Broanteş and Cosette, the writer arousing certain expectations in the reader, who thinks that an intimate love scene will follow: “We 19

The novel is made up of 230 episodes.

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are in Cosette’s room, the fire is silently crackling, the sun has duly set outside, the light of flames is flickering on the walls, furniture has dozed off, the four-poster bed is fast asleep on its four legs, Cosette has told her story and her prayer, and now she is looking at Broanteş under her eyelashes […]” (Groşan 2012: 97). And now the narrator’s confession follows: “we’d rather state it firmly, dear Reader, that we do not know what went on after that in Cosette’s room” (Groşan 2012: 98).

The second category comprises the historic events that undergo unexpected reinterpretations. For example, the Battle of Mohács, where the Kingdom of Hungary was seized by the Turks, appears as an act of unrequited love, the old Tatar being in love with a Hungarian girl, as the tattoo on his shoulder betrays it: “Youlishka Mohach, 1526” (Groşan 2012: 11). If we further analyse the idea of the lost fatherland, we also have to mention one of the main characters of the novel, Voivode Barzovie, who loses his throne and goes to Istanbul in order to find out the reason and try to regain it.20 When he got home and unboarded the ship, Voivode Barzovie wanted to kneel down and kiss the soil of the fatherland, but he falls in the mud. The grotesque of the situation is yielded by the contradiction between the noble ideas behind the pathetic gesture and the abject reality. “Sublime but awkward movement: having lost his usual centre of gravity in the massive area of his stomach, his most illustrious body falls on its side, and, for a couple of moments, Voivode Barzovie, as he was kicking with his hands and legs, looked like a Slavic Gypsy. He wanted to stand up, but the mud was not scarce” (Groşan 2012: 197).

The comparison emphasizes the character’s helplessness; the hyperbole “his most illustrious body” combines two spheres: an ethical and a rough, quantitative quality referring to the character’s obesity.

It goes without saying that the historical moments do not refer only to the Middle Ages but also to the realities of the 19th and 20th centuries, with references to the totalitarian regime21 (the title of Episode 49 being “the Censored Episode”, the term “comrade” or the blackbird with direct reference to espionage), or “The West reaches as far as this, from here it is the pashalik” (Groşan 2012: 331) – an allusion to the slogan coined by the residents of the city of Cluj: Democracy reaches as far as this, from here it is Mănăştur,22 or the parody of some contemporary radio programmes such as “Response to our readers/listeners”, where the question asked 20

21

22

The truth behind it is that for several centuries rulers of the Romanian states, Wallachia and Moldavia, needed the Turks’ consent for ascending the throne, which was granted in return for money.

A special subcategory of the frame is the large number of references to the totalitarian regime – some of which have already been referred to – regardless of whether they refer to events, practices, spaces, or language.

A district of Cluj-Napoca that supported the 1946 student uprising, being one of the main centres of resistance against the instauration of communism in the region. At the beginning of the communist era, the village gained notoriety because at the entrance the residents displayed a banner with the slogan quoted above, “democracy” referring to the dictatorship installed by the communists.

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by the reader does not have the slightest connection with the plot of the novel.

The absurdity of the situation described by the reader reveals the decision-making bodies’ total ignorance of reality.

Alexandru Constantin, Întorsura Buzăului: we honestly thank you for your nice appreciations of the serial. They touched our hearts. As far as the reason of your letter is concerned – unfortunately – we regret to have to say this – you can’t do anything, that’s what it is: according to the regulations in power, in cases like this, the tax on your pasture that disappeared due to a landslide, and on the place of which a fishpond appeared, has been established based on the quantity of fish you claim not to exist in your newly formed lake.

(Groşan 2012: 326) The novel bears the features of political satires owing to the allusions to dictatorial politics that transcribes history according to its own interests. We find out about Sultan Beşiktaş Mehmet Hamza that “In 1656, after the Battle of Szeged, he gets a scholarship to Vienna.” The Siege of Vienna is anachronistically associated with a concept specific to the age when the novel was written. He “returns to Istanbul, seizes power, moves into the palace and organizes a national referendum through which he is elected Sultan” (Groşan 2012: 56).23 Cosette, the Gypsy girl, says to Broanteş in order to calm him: “Nomadic peoples are those that are unable to control their sensations within a given historic perimeter. Take, for example, the poor Pechenegs: valiant each. Who would dare to think of assimilating them? And what remained after them? Two bracelets and – don’t forget it – a Slavic paperclip!” (Groşan 2012: 91). The last sentence is an ironical allusion to the way communist historiography attributed aleatory identities to the artefacts found by archaeologists. Inverted logic resembling Soviet propaganda also appears. In Episode 225, the Turk janissary says: “Who gives anything to us voluntarily? It is lot like it used to be, when one was – willingly or unwillingly – brother with the Turks. Now people know us: ‘a Turk’ they say, and run away. They only leave the sick, the cripples and the traitors behind, whom we clear away” (Groşan 2012: 351). As a result of this, downtrodden peoples have become stronger and healthier. And, last but not least, the ironic imitation of the wooden language, the propagandistic style characteristic of the communist period should be mentioned: “our contemporary perspective on history, a perspective in which the concept of critical realization of the past’s heritage continuously gains new valences” (Groşan 2012: 20) or exhibiting communist slogans such as “the fight for peace” (Groşan 2012: 10) – “Beşiktaş Mehmet Hamza was fighting for the reduction of the number of battles, for launching them after having reached mutual agreement, for setting humane, reasonable tributes” (Groşan 2012: 56). Progress in the Ottoman Empire was reached through counterfeited products, the style being the parody 23

Procedure used in communist dictatorships for gaining legitimacy.

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of the CMEA reports on communist achievements: “A large number of handicraft workshops have been established, where Toledo swords were manufactured based on a Turkish procedure. Murano mirrors were produced in Plevna […] The average Turks’ longevity and the number of wives have increased” (Groşan 2012: 56). Cosette is made to write a declaration on why she wants to become a Turk, an allusion to the practices of the communist secret police to recruit informers. “I was sitting with a sheet of paper in front of me, where I was supposed to write why I wanted to become a Turk, and I didn’t know what to write. My mind didn’t want to, but I felt fear inside. That Turk, seeing that we weren’t writing anything at all, started to dictate why we wanted to become Turks” (Groşan 2012: 91).

Also, there is a large number of narrative, temporal, and special anachronisms. The narrator shifts his temporal position: “The 17th century is far away, the 21st century is near” (Groşan 2012: 353) and talks about tractors, blocks of flats, apartments.

The characters’ identity is referred to by resorting to a wide range of categories: social status, names, physical appearance, ethnical and religious belonging.

Postmodern constructions of identity tend to discard mononuclear and homogenous categories in favour of multiple versions of alternative ethnic, gender, spiritual, or sexual self-identification and affiliation. With the collapse of the nuclear family, the breakdown of master-narratives of nationhood, and the spread of a multiethnic and multicultural society, the “Other” has come to the fore as a subject of racial, ethnic, religious, and ideological tensions, while the “self” has become marginalized and fragmented. (Sicher– Weinhouse 2012: 183) However, on the first pages, one can already find a (contradictory) physical description of the characters, for example, that of Iovănuţ, the monk, in Episode 1: “The second silhouette seemed shorter, but at a closer inspection it looked as if it was an unusually tall young man” (Groşan 2012: 5). Physical traits are completed by names, which are telling names, such as Barzovie (stork, migratory bird), swordbearer Vulture (animal of prey), Sultan Beşiktaş (the name of a sports club in presentday Turkey). The characters’ features are captured not only through their names but also through a variety of epitheton ornans such as “the silent Broanteş”, who later turns out “to have undergone the trouble that is known among the people by the phrase ‘his tongue was cut out’” (Groşan 2012: 24). The harsh reality is attenuated by the comic and unexpected contrast because the expression usually refers to a talkative person, while Broanteş, the chronicler, is not silent because he does not want to talk but because his tongue has been brutally cut out. The heroes’ characters are revealed by a number of identity problems linked to the family, where a brother killed by the other brother reappears, the encounter being a happy one. Thus, the reader experiences anamnesis, the rediscovery of the known, in the Platonian sense,

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where the known entity reappearing in new conditions offers the receiver a feeling of satisfaction. Groşan reaches this through a game on the ballad Mioritza, one of the fundamental texts of Romanian national identity, complemented with some Caragiale, Sadoveanu, and Rebreanu. The same scene also illustrates that “in the 17th century you could not just simply pass the Moldavian border; after you proved you knew the watchword (some lines from the testament of the shepherd from the Mioritza), you had to declare your identity” (Cliveţ 2001: 90).

As far as the characters’ identity is concerned, the author deconstructs or distorts – mostly by means of (self-)irony – a number of stereotypes, for example, those linked to nationality: Metodiu finds a printing press in the Tatars’ harem used for multiplying psalters and homilies; a Turk says: “Overall, we are not clever, there are also proverbs on this, but while others were making proverbs about us, we made conquests with them” (Groşan 2012: 342). People belonging to different nationalities meet at the inn Topos – the name referring to Tales from Ancuţa’s Inn by Mihail Sadoveanu –, the gathering place of the representatives of different nations.

Distortion, which can be termed “stolen” identity, has also the role of making readers smile: at the border of the pashalik, the Turk is singing a Hungarian song, “Ozoseip, ozoseip”24 (Groşan 2012: 331), or the Romanian orthodox monk, Metodiu, having arrived at Buda, can hear “Ottoman merchants shouting ‘Kürtős kalács!’”25 (Groşan 2012: 356), and, instead of the traditional greeting, in the south of Moldavia, guests are welcome with the slogan “Welcome to the beautiful land of the Tatars!”

(Groşan 2012: 19).

The problem of identity is extended over cultural and literary aspects as well.

Groşan approaches with irony the didacticism of the 19th-century Romanian literature, the narrator urging the reader to complete, in his imagination, the unfinished episode, presenting a sketch in which the author mocks at the autochthony of this literature. In the plan of the ideas that the reader is supposed to follow, the following is included: “1. At the beginning, a Doric complex sentence containing three clichés of our cultural memory and the clearly expressed idea that in the 17th century there were just a few nations that had scholars of a stature comparable to Udrişte Năsturel’s” (Groşan 2012: 137).

And, finally, regarding language, one can identify several devices and techniques used by Groşan. We can encounter an unexpected mixture of languages. The title of Episode 71, “Iassy et se habitants26 va leato seven thousand and a bit more”, is a good example of hybridity: half of it is in French, recalling the French travel fiction written in the Century of Light, and the second part reminds the reader of Slavonic Church language and of an archaic chronology; or “‘What’s this?’, muttered Metodiu 24 25 26

Distorted transcription of the Hungarian folk song “az a szép, az a szép”.

A typical Hungarian sweet.

Iassy et ses habitants en 1840 [Iassy and Its Habitants in 1840] is the title of a 19th-century writing by Alecu Russo.

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pointing to the machine. ‘A printing press, monsher!’ explained the young khan” (Groşan 2012: 10). The humour stems from the fact that in the 17th century a Tatar speaks French, but there is also reference to the Romanian cultural situation in the 19th century, when the language used by the Romanian élite (and not only) was the French. This aspect was used as a device for humour by the 19th-century Romanian writers, too, in order to parody the ascending ranks of society that used broken French to imitate the members of high bourgeoisie and aristocracy.

The category of language also includes the mixture of different stylistic registers, of archaisms and neologisms in order to create anachronisms, for example: “Don’t shoot, comrades!”; “The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away – sighed the old man crossing his legs Turk-fashion. […] Let us give the body its due because without it soul isn’t more than nothing” (Groşan 2012: 5); in Episode 221, captain Georgios answers Metodiu with terms taken from Nietzsche’s aesthetics: “it’s a sight where you have to be all eyes. Beauty always hides danger, as the Dionysian stands crouched behind the Apollonian” (Groşan 2012: 344).

We can also find the elevated/sacred blended with the colloquial/profane; for example, a religious gesture presented with a phrase used when bargaining.

“Iovănuţ made two or three, let’s say four signs of the cross, and walked away hastily” (Groşan 2012: 34); or the idyllic with the brutal, as in “A light breeze was blowing, and there was a lovely smell you felt it blew your head” (Groşan 2012: 8); play on words, for example, when Cadâna asked the sultan what he wanted: “massage or vernissage” (Groşan 2012: 58), or the “scientific” explanations provided as footnotes by the author (Groşan 2012: 21): “Where are the bees, the beet*, the Cotnari wine, where’s my wine, in general? Ubi sunt?”. The elevated motif of the passage of time taken from mediaeval literature is used for indicating the lack of the banished ruler’s favourite foods. The footnote remarks the following: “In the text, there is an inconsistency with the truth. The beet was introduced in Moldavia after the 1848 Revolution” (Groşan 2012: 21).

5. Conclusions This novel is an illustrative example of a certain genre and period, namely postmodern historical metafiction, where history is just a (pre)text for the author to provide the audience and himself – through humour – a way of escape and defiance.

And the way he does it is marvellous because Groşan uses “capitalist” devices – in the sense that the postmodern techniques arrive from the West and, as we saw above, the West is also assimilated with capitalism – to escape communism, where, as the characters’ whisper in the final sentence of the novel reveals, “it is not good […] for us, either” (Groşan 2002: 359). As could be seen, the author uses humour both at the micro level – in order to escape by creating an alternative world – and

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at the macro level – producing cracks in the reality of the system, highlighting flows and follies of the system –, hoping that the audience will be able to recognize them. Although they cannot liberate themselves from the system, they can smile and mock at it, gaining a kind of evasion in the form of spiritual superiority.

The primary audience of the novel is the Romanian one, but we would like to reconnect with a more than 100-year-old thought of Witcombe: “there are a few great novels which do not show the influence of more than one nationality” and, consequently, “the history of fiction is largely a study of international relations” (qtd. in Amigoni 2000: 149). The internationalism of fiction is present in this novel, as we could see in the universe presented, by depicting a cross-, multi-, and international hybrid universe, in which Romanian culture mingles with the Hungarian, the Turk, and the Tatar one. Eclecticism also has blind spots, of course, by deleting borders and offering thus a general view. A global view sometimes stops one from the possibility of gaining a deeper knowledge of something or someone.

Finally, even if, due to its bookish, intertextual character, the target audience is quite narrow (the connoisseurs), humour saves the situation. Firstly, humour makes possible the publishing of the text in a totalitarian regime, giving it a greater chance to deceive censorship. Secondly, it is also able to engage the reader in a play mode, broadening thus the circle of readers (because the book can be enjoyed even without the identification of each reference).

References Amigoni, D. 2000. The English novel and prose narrative. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

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Caragiale, M. 2011. Gallants of the old court. Bucharest: Paideia.

Cărtărescu, M. 2010. Postmodernismul românesc [Romanian Postmodernism].

Bucharest: Humanitas.

Cliveţ, N. 2001. Ioan Groşan. Monograph. Braşov: Aula.

Comisia Prezidenţială pentru Analiza Dictaturii Comuniste din România [Presidential Commission for the Study of the Communist Dictatorship in Romania]. 2006. Raport Final [Final report]. Bucharest. http://old.presidency.ro/static/rapoarte/Raport_final_CPADCR.pdf (downloaded on: 18 April 2020).

Cornis-Pope, M. 2004a. From resistance to reformulation. In: Marcel Cornis-Pope– John Neubauer (eds.), History of the literary cultures of East-Central Europe: Junctures and disjunctures in the 19th and 20th centuries. Volume XIX (Volume I in the subseries on Literary Cultures). Amsterdam–Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. 39–51.

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2004b. Shifting perspectives and voices in the Romanian novel. In: Marcel CornisPope–John Neubauer (eds.), History of the literary cultures of East-Central Europe: Junctures and disjunctures in the 19th and 20th centuries. Volume XIX (Volume I in the subseries on Literary Cultures). Amsterdam–Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. 441–455.

2004c. The search for a modern, problematizing historical consciousness: Romanian historical fiction and family cycles. In: Marcel Cornis-Pope–John Neubauer (eds.), History of the literary cultures of East-Central Europe: Junctures and disjunctures in the 19th and 20th centuries. Volume XIX (Volume I in the subseries on Literary Cultures). Amsterdam–Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. 499–505.

Dekoven, M. 2009. History, the twentieth century, and a contemporary novel. A Forum on Fiction 42(2) (Summer): 332–336.

Djuvara, Neagu. 1995. Între Orient şi Occident. Ţările române la începutul epocii moderne [Between East and West. The Romanian Principalities in the first half of the 19th century]. Bucharest: Humanitas.

Farber, J. 2007. Toward a theoretical framework for the study of humor in literature and the other arts. The Journal of Aesthetic Education 41(4) (Winter): 67–86.

García Márquez, G. 2003. One hundred years of solitude. New York: Harper.

Groşan, I. 2009. The cinematography caravan. Plymouth: UPP. 2012. O sută de ani de zile la Porţile Orientului [One hundred years at the gates of the East]. Iaşi: Polirom.

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Hyman, L. S. 2019. JFK. The Kennedys and me. New York: Page Publishing, Inc. Jáuregui Narváez, E. 2014. El sentido del humor. Manual de instrucciones [The sense of humor. Manual of instructions]. Madrid: Espasa y Calpa.

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Morreall, J. 1983. Taking laughter seriously. Albany: State University of New York Press.

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Berlin–New York: Research Mouton de Gruyter. 211–242.

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Popa, C. 2017. Levantini, orientali, balcanici (ipostaze ale Celuilalt în literatura postmodernistă românească a anilor ’80-’90) [Levantines, Orientals, Balkans (hypostases of the Other in the Romanian postmodernist literature of the ’80s

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Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Philologica, 12, 3 (2020) 55–69 DOI: 10.2478/ausp-2020-0023

V. Voiculescu’s Novel: A Modern Depository of the Traditional Beliefs Sorin Gheorghe SUCIU

Department of Applied Linguistics Sapientia Hungarian University of Transylvania (Cluj-Napoca, Romania) Faculty of Technical and Human Sciences suciu.sorin@ms.sapientia.ro Abstract. Part of a larger research, initially thought and written as an essay, our paper is a transdisciplinary approach on Elmar Salmann’s idea of the novel as the modern depository of humanity’s religious and philosophical legacy, which would otherwise not find a way to express itself nowadays.

As a support, we are using the one and only novel of a profound religious Romanian writer – V. Voiculescu’s Zahei Orbul (Zahei the Blind) –, trying to reveal Jean-Luc Marion’s concept of “distance” but also Milan Kundera’s view regarding the matter as it is discussed in The Art of the Novel. As stated before, in our deductive approach, we are using Basarab Nicolesco’s “the hidden third”, the basic concept in transdisciplinary research. Our conclusion is that Voiculescu’s novel is constructed on the grounds of God’s “absence”, as He retreats in the “distance”. This “absence” is supported by a net of Christian symbols on which the modern world’s elements are being interwoven in Midrash style, as Constantin Jinga states.

Keywords: culture, novel, transdisciplinarity, philosophy, theology

1. Introduction and literature review Starting from Milan Kundera’s thought about “the novel’s wisdom” (2008), this paper tries to present Vasile Voiculescu’s narrative, Zahei Orbul (Zahei the Blind), through Elmar Salmann’s (2010) thought regarding the novel as a modern depository of the traditional culture, as it was seen by Nikolai Berdiaev.1 The attempt to answer the question, which is the starting-point of this endeavour, namely Voiculescu’s reason for 1

“The culture – says Nikolai Berdiaev – is related to the cult; it develops starting from the religious cult; it is the result of the cult’s extension and differentiation. The philosophical thinking, scientific knowledge, architecture, sculpture, music, and ethics are being organically and entirely contained by the Church’s cult, in an indistinct form. The culture is related to the tradition and the ancestor’s cult. It is filled with sacred symbolism; it bears within the signs and images of a spiritual reality” (Berdiaev apud Crainic 1929: 8). The translations of the citations from the works in Romanian in this paper are ours.

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writing a novel (with a possible “answer” offered by Kundera’s thought), represents the pretext for our effort in revealing the fact that Voiculescu’s novel intertwines on a canvas of Christian symbols which are trying to sustain a transcendental silence, an “absence” of God shouting from the picture of the singular novel of an author who was a true believer. If God is Love, then blocking Zahei’s access to it, being it eros – even if knowledge through eros is allowed up to a point – or agapé, is the way in which the author suggests the failure of a world torn apart from the simple and ultimate authenticity of the human soul. In order to achieve this goal, we are using Salmann’s2 view regarding the fact that the novel as a literary genre is the modern depositary of the religious belief which is absent from our modern secular society.

Actually, this idea of literature as a meaning to escape from the profane time into the sacred – an acute necessity for man throughout the centuries, which became chronic nowadays – is not new, being also underlined by Mircea Eliade in The Sacred and the Profane.3 Adding to that, even Voiculescu’s style of making literature, revealed, amongst others, by Constantin Jinga (2001), should support our attempt to present the net of Christian symbols emerging from his novel and supporting the frame of a theological and philosophical structure which is, in fact, the novel itself.

Therefore, here are Kundera’s words: The novelist is no one’s spokesman and I would like to push this statement to the limit, saying that he is not even the spokesman of his own ideas. When Tolstoi laid out Anna Karenina’s first version, Anna was a very unpleasant woman and her tragic end was perfectly just. The final version is entirely different but I do not think that Tolstoi changed his ethical grounds in the meantime, I would rather say that he was not listening to his own moral voice but to another one’s. He was listening to something I would like to name as the 2

3

“The novel (...) is the mirror and, probably, the most accurate reflection of the modern subject’s birth and decay, thus ours too. We could say that the novel is even more skilful than Kant because it abandons itself to the open game between destiny and freedom, between the observer and the observed world. Thus, in its complexity, it tends to playfully substitute the religion. The novel is the modernity’s small sacrament in which we are reflecting, understanding, losing, and finding ourselves again. It is an entire universe, from certain perspectives, even more brilliant than the philosophies. And, naturally, we should ask ourselves the question: what is the rapport between this immense archipelago of the modern novel and Christianity” (Salmann 2010: 180).

“But in comparison with the religious man, there is an essential difference. The latter experiences intervals of time that are «sacred», that have no part in the temporal duration that precedes and follows them, that have a wholly different structure and origin, for they are of a primordial time, sanctified by the gods and capable of being made present by the festival. His trans-human quality of liturgical time is inaccessible to a nonreligious man. This is as much as to say that, for him, time can present neither break nor mystery; for him, time constitutes man’s deepest existential dimension; it is linked to his own life, hence it has a beginning and an end, which is death, the annihilation of his life. However, the temporal rhythms that he experiences, however great their differences in intensity, nonreligious man knows that they always represent a human experience, in which there is no room for any divine presence” (Eliade 1961: 57).

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novel’s wisdom (...). But what is this wisdom, what is the novel? There is an admirable Jewish proverb: The man thinks, God laughs (...). I like to believe that the art of the novel came onto earth as an echo to God’s laughing. But why is God laughing looking at the man thinking? Because the man thinks and the truth is slipping away. Because one’s thinking is departing further and further from another’s as they are struggling to do even more thinking. And, finally, because the man is never what he thinks he is. (Kundera 2008: 194–195) Thinking, but not too hard because we do not want to provoke God’s death by laughing, after Nietzsche declared Him dead already, we are trying not to silence the dybuck’s4 voice in order to make our endeavour an authentic one and to avoid the danger of joining the ranks of the agelasts.5 Therefore, following the logic of the starting-point,6 it would be good if we could reject the rational thinking – actually the rationalistic thought –, making thus an attempt at the possibility of having a glimpse of what Grace working together with Voiculescu’s writing hand wanted to reveal through his novel. Or, even better, trying (as many others did it before us) to reconcile the learning through spirituality, through love, with the rational understanding, which would not be an attempt to provoke God’s death by laughing, hypothetically, of course, but would help us achieve a higher level, closer to His love; in other words, to descend our mind into our heart. This would be a flight into the light of agapè, a flight initiated by the rush of an eros cooled off by a healthy 4

5

6

Regarding the aforementioned proverb, we mention the fact that in Jewish folklore the dybuck represents the dislocated soul of a deceased person, a spirit evaded from Gehenna (the Hebrew equivalent of Christianity’s Hell, or Greek’s Hades). The word dybuck can be translated through the English meanings of locking and addition contained by the word attachment. According to Jewish traditional belief, the dybuck is the spirit of a person who did not fulfil his/her purpose in his/her lifetime. It gets the green light for fulfilling its duty under this form, as an attached spirit to a living person, getting, mostly, help from this living person. The term is being used here to define the Other (being it, from everyone’s perspective, the voice of Plato’s daimon guiding the artist’s creation, Jung’s collective unconscious, for example, or even God’s Grace).

The dybuck abandons the “host” when its mission is accomplished. “(...) the word comes from Greek and its meaning is: the one who does not laugh, who does not have any sense of humour. Rabelais hated the agelasts. He was afraid of them. He was complaining that the agelasts were «so badly against him» that at one point he even considered to quit writing. Peace is not possible between the novelist and the agelasts. Because they have never heard God’s laugh, the agelasts are sure that all humans should think the same way as they do and that they really are what they think they are” (Kundera 2008: 195–196). If it is to make a parallel, the agelast is the equivalent of Fondane’s schizophrenic human type, which is portrayed through the perceptions of an old man suffering from this mental illness, cited by Roger Caillois in the epigraph to his Le Procès Intellectuel de l’Art: “Look at those roses, my wife would have found them beautiful; to me they are nothing more than a bunch of leaves, petals, horns, and stems” (Caillois apud Fundoianu 1980: 609). The schizophrenic type of human “is that who hates and finds existence repulsive, relentlessly persecuting it in the name of a thinking named Esprit, a thinking emptied of any trace of sensible core – an intellectual type so widespread nowadays that one could think that it was created by our epoch itself” (Fundoianu 1980: 611).

That of God’s laughing seen as intentio operis.

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reason. At the same time, the cold reason’s excesses – born from Lucifer’s ego – would have been adjusted by our generous heart.7 Going forward and using the title of the introductory study to the last edition of Voiculescu’s novel (Sorescu in Voiculescu 2010: 10), we are recalling to Rudolf Steiner’s writings about the initiation in Greece’s antiquity mysteries, where the author reveals the fact that the commoner, living in some kind of blessed darkness, cannot and should not be taken away from a state of relative happiness which he/ she enjoys. If the mystic revealed his knowledge to those who are not initiated, as Steiner believes that it happened in Aeschylus’s case,8 they would only have some plain words to work with, words which could not affect their sensory lives.

Without these (a hard initiation, italics ours, SGS), the hearer would have been flung into emptiness, into nothingness. He would have been deprived of what gave him happiness without being able to receive anything in exchange. It might be said that one could not have taken anything from him. For certainly mere words could not change his life of experience. He could only have experienced reality through the objects of his senses. One could have given him nothing but a dreadful, life-destroying apprehension. This could be regarded as a crime. The above is no longer fully valid today for the acquisition of spiritual cognition.

The latter can be understood conceptually because modern man has a capacity to form concepts which the ancients lacked. Today, people can be found who have cognition of the spiritual world through their own experience; they can be confronted by others who comprehend these experiences conceptually. Such a capacity for forming concepts was lacking in the ancients. (Steiner 1961: 12) Steiner’s approach, more of a wishful thinking, in our opinion, tries to find a timid escape from the law of non-contradiction and proposes a dialogue to reconcile two antagonistic ways of thinking in order to re-create, in ourselves, the unity of being. Nietzsche did the same thing with his Übermensch, which was tainted by Nazi propaganda. The Greek ancient tragedy was, in Nietzsche’s view, the only form of art which succeeded in expressing the Dionysian through the Apollonian, making peace between the two opposite sides of the existence. The Dionysian element was to be found in the music performed by the ancient choir and the Apollonian in the dialogue following it, dialogue which presented a concrete symbolism as an equalizer for the Dionysian reverie. But both of them are outside the revealed Truth, as Marion (2007: 55–125) showed in Nietzsche’s case. Despite their efforts – or 7 8

A sin confessed by Voiculescu.

Steiner writes that, even if he was not a mystic, Aeschylus revealed in his works some of the existence’s secrets. His superior intellect was capable, in Steiner’s opinion, to reach and grasp the forbidden knowledge, thus being forced to find refuge in the temple of Dionysus just to avoid being murdered as a “traitor”.

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maybe just because of that –, both are still walking on the idolatry’s territory. Trying the theosophical way – which became anthroposophical later, after he gave up on Theosophical Society –, Steiner is still camped in the zone of conceptual idolatry.

On the other hand, Nietzsche himself was defeated by Ananké, as underlines Fondane, a triple alienated9 who, walking on Chestov’s footsteps, fights with the philosopher’s “unfertile” thought, proposing an existential thought where poetry would be the link between human’s antagonistic dimensions. A mystic himself, as Voiculescu was, Fondane tried to combine in his writings the mystical way of thinking with the dialectic and with poetry as well. And both had the “privilege” to experience the mystical bliss on the verge of extinction, one at Birkenau and the other at Jilava and Aiud. Fondane argues Plato as a representative of the rational thought in open conflict with the poetical thinking. Plato tried to correct his predecessors’ immoral excesses and saw the poet’s inspiration as the corybantic delirium of those who were incapable of dancing without getting out of their minds. To Plato, the poet was “driven by a divine power”, “out of his mind”, “irresponsible”, “possessed”, characteristics which are contained in Rimbaud’s expression: “I is another”.

Plato’s thought won, Poetry being banished from the City. But its charm survived, reminding us of another truth, a truth which: transcends the intellectual act and the moral purity, a truth to whom the existence exists, as the physical body exists and as the images are, to whom God Himself is image, vision, and not a pure act of thinking coming from an empty mind... This “charm” does not want to shrink more the “shortage of reality”, which is the dialectics’ heritage; it does not want to humiliate the reality of an absolute of the thought thinking itself but to find a way in which we could get rid of this reality’s imperfections and bring it, by broadening it up to its fulfilment, curing it from the wound and corruption suffered on the part of ethical and speculative thought. These remains of the thought filtered through the language and surviving in the poem even after the gods “abducted the poet’s intelligence”, precisely these remains are to be censored from the poem by the poet in order to allow inspiration paramount and to let in only the pure gods’ voice. “I is another”. The one who retouches the poem is also the Other; and what is eliminated from it is again and always the Ego. (Fundoianu 1980: 667) Voiculescu’s novel, as a work of art, represents the profane way through which the sacred truth, enclosed in symbols, struggles to emerge into the light in a world where the sacred tries to find new forms for itself. The author of the “intentio operis” concept seems to complete the previous sentence: 9

Benjamin Wexler/B. Fundoianu/B. Fondane: Jew amongst Romanians, Jewish poet amongst the Jewish (and on top of that “an anarchist in the synagogue”, as it was described by Radu Cernatescu) and Romanian poet of Jewish origin amongst the French.

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Sorin Gheorghe SUCIU The gods speak (today we would say: Being is speaking), through hieroglyphic and enigmatic messages. [...] Truth is something we have been living with from the beginning of time, except that we have forgotten it. If we have forgotten it, then someone must have saved it for us and it must be someone whose words we are no longer capable of understanding. So this knowledge must be exotic. Carl Jung has explained how it is that once any divine image has become too familiar to us and has lost its mystery, we then need to turn to images of other civilizations, because only exotic symbols are capable of maintaining an ‘aura’ of sacredness. (Eco 1992: 150)

One of the symbols used by Voiculescu in his novel’s core is that of the blind man guided by a cripple, a symbol which is supposed to be borrowed from the Hindu folklore.10

2. Research methodology As stated in the Abstract, this paper was initially thought and written in a form of an essay and adapted to better meet the requirements of an academic work.

Therefore, we are using, initially, the deductive method inferring from some concepts regarding the subject of the novel as being the modern depository of the religious and philosophical beliefs.

At the same time, we are trying to use Nicolesco’s “the included middle”, the basic concept of transdisciplinarity,11 a concept developed from the field of quantum physics and on the footsteps of three Romanian philosophers, Stephane Lupasco, Emil Cioran, and B. Fondane. This method can also be imagined through Marion’s view on the concept of distance: “[…] the distance opens the unifying departure only starting from a term which is revealing inside it, or, better said, which discovers in itself its own horizon: the distance reveals only as a road that is being cleared, starting from a place, and not as the itinerary is read on a map, from the elsewhere 10

11

“The image appears in Sāmkhya kārikā (attributed to Īshvarakrshna), and it is further developed in Gaudapāda’s (Gaudapādabhaāshya) mediaeval commentary, to explain through suggestion the union between the inactive and insulated Spirit (purusha), seen as a cripple (pangu; pangu is also the name of planet Saturn, «the cripple» from the alchemy’s illustrations) and primordial and un-manifested (avyakta) Nature (praktri) compared to a blind (andhā). These two make a unique and a whole creature: pangvandhavān, a «cripple and blind». I do not know if the image existed before the Hindu folklore or entered it as a consequence of this text” (Culianu 2000: 20).

Trying to draw a bridge between science and ontology and using Galilei’s axioms as a model, Nicolesco elaborates the axioms of transdisciplinarity: “i. The ontological axiom: There are, in Nature and in our knowledge of Nature, different levels of Reality and, correspondingly, different levels of perception. ii. The logical axiom: The passage from one level of Reality to another is insured by the logic of the included middle. iii. The complexity axiom: The structure of the totality of levels of Reality or perception is a complex structure: every level is what it is because all the levels exist at the same time” (Nicolesco 2006: 150).

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of a neutralized representation” (2007: 278). The “included middle” or “the hidden third” is the fundament of Nicolesco’s second axiom of transdisciplinarity, the logical axiom, as opposed to the classical principle of the excluded middle, the equivalent of the law of non-contradiction, the very base of scientism.

Another aspect of our paper is the fact that we are using long citations. This is not because of our lack of skills in rephrasing and discussing the topic but because we think that the ideas of the authors themselves should be highlighted. In our opinion, a larger context of an idea, as it was initially thought, should be made available for the readers. Therefore, our way of writing is somehow similar to Marion’s method, mentioned before, trying to clear a path through the thick woods from a “place” which is revealing itself in the “distance”, following the steps of the Son as He retreats onto the Father being replaced by God’s Grace, as the “hidden third”, which keeps all the things together in the world, on our level of Reality. In other words, our road is constructing itself under our feet, as we put one foot before the other walking towards our goal, which may never reveal itself completely, at least not objectively.

3. Discussion 3.1. Short interlude As an intermediary step, we mention Capul de zimbru (The Bison’s Head), Voiculescu’s testament-short story,12 the only text published by him after 1945. The clash of two symbols, two pieces of an extremely rare stamp – “bison head” –, with different meanings for each of the possessors, becomes an opportunity for the hero to make a symbolic exit from the world which begins to fade under the red shadow coming from the Eastern star. In the middle of the Ukrainian steppe – where a handful of Romanian soldiers (living in a “terror emerging from the inner cosmos”) have the occasion to defy any theoretical approach on existentialism made by the philosophers from their comfortable armchairs –, two ways of understanding the world are colliding. The one who loses the battle takes the road of fire, as it was tainted by the modern world’s mercantile spirit. ‘And now, please forgive me, general, for this disappointment and allow me to get out. I feel the need to make contact with the bleakness. It is noble, unlike us.’ “And, standing up in order to walk towards the door, captain Tomuţ slowly made a turn, reaching the stove where he threw the bison’s head into the burning ember shouting: ‘Tertium non datur’. No one was surprised” (Voiculescu 2003: 105).

12

An interesting analysis made by Roxana Sorescu compares Lucian Pintilie’s motion picture, Tertium non datur, with its source of inspiration, Voiculescu’s short story, to reveal one of the author’s options, that of plunging into the flame of “The Burning Bush” in order to save his identity (Sorescu 2006).

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And this is how the author – who would complete his life’s work by adding writings worth reaching universality – tried to disappear into the flames of “The Burning Bush”.13 The longest of them, Zahei Orbul, will become something more than the author initially wanted, in the spirit of that “wisdom of the novel” as an “echo to God’s laugh” theorized by Kundera and this paper’s point of origin. Not allowing the spark which could start love’s fire into the heart of the hero with a physique reminding of the ancient gods, but unaware of the dormant sacredness lying deep inside his being, Voiculescu reveals to us, through absence, the only way in which the modern world could be saved before The Judgment Day. Love, from which “by giving you will earn” (Steinhardt, 1994). Slim chances for our hero, a presumed tragic figure14 resembling Philoctetes and Job. And this is probably the reason why Sorescu writes that: “Zahei Orbul is the most hopeless symbolic narrative in the Romanian literature.

The counterpart cannot be other than the most optimistic one, the story of the woman who restores the order into the world by making her own justice. Vitoria Lipan, as well as an essence of an archaic symbolic civilization, represents the antonymous type to Zahei. She wins in immanence just as Zahei fails in transcendence” (Sorescu in Voiculescu 2010: 48). Commenting on Sorescu’s words, we could say that Vitoria wins in immanence because she knows what she wants and wants what is right, and thus the transcendence guides her into the right direction. Her access to the other world is not being cut by an author who was not a believer but wrote by inspiration.

On the other side, Zahei – being basically a good man even when he tumbles down on the vices’ slope – does not have the chance to know the laws of a traditional archaic society as Vitoria did. Vitoria’s itinerary can be traced through the traditions of a multimillenary world. She begins her quest with the entire nature alongside, as nature itself needs to restore its unbalanced order. Even more, the transcendent, through Saint Anna, watches the fiery woman’s way, protecting and guiding her in the key moments. Sadoveanu’s main character is not a Christian figure, her spirit being in tune with the Old Testament’s Law of the Talon. And, paramount argument, she is driven by love, the love for her husband given by God. On the other hand, Zahei’s itinerary begins with his “gift” of blindness as a means to salvation. But his innate good nature and righteousness are not enough to compensate the absence of a spiritual mentor.

Being denied even the chance of the healing power of a mother’s love, Voiculescu’s character reveals the failure of the author’s belief, as one could see it from his early 13

14

We are talking here about the group formed at the Antim monastery in Bucharest, a group which gave Voiculescu the opportunity to be initiated in the hesychast way of living, as it is pointed out by Valeriu Anania: “Through these meetings, he begins to learn and deepen his knowledge in the Philokalia and makes Hesychasm not just a study object but a universe of a spiritual endeavour with spectacular benefits for his poetry [...]. The poems which fully represent the great religious poet V. Voiculescu were written between 1949 and 1958. They were published, partially, in 1983, conventionally entitled Clepsidra (The Hourglass)” (Anania 1995: 165).

Presumed because there is no tragic for a true believer, as there is no fracture either. Job does not lose his faith in God even if he curses and yells his pain asking Him to explain his unjust suffering.

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poetry: “My own sack of clay to liven up (...)/ And, clashing to myself, forever/ I tried to be a strike of light”. The vision about the failure of the Luciferian attempt to reach the Light exclusively through one’s own efforts, without “qualified” guidance/ initiation, could have been ignited by the providential meeting with father John the Foreigner (Ivan Kulighin) and his teachings at the Antim monastery – a sanctuary for the spiritual effervescence emanated from the cooperation between a significant part of Romania’s élite, retreated from the path of the communist bulldozer, and monks living according to Christ’s law, theologians in the true meaning of the word.

3.2. A failed initiation Coming back to Steiner’s thought continued towards the initiation in the mysteries of the “Burning Bush” movement, we can point out the fact that the character of Voiculescu’s novel is being “blessed” with blindness (by demiurge author’s will) through a venal Greek innkeeper from the cosmopolitan port of Brăila. He has now all the “qualities” needed for finding the true Light. What is missing, however, is an authentic spiritual father who could guide his footsteps into the Light. In our opinion, this is the main reason why his initiation path is actually a dead end.

André Scrima reveals the source of this basic tradition of the Eastern Christian belief, which represents the Church’s “mystical pilgrimage” instituted on the place of the extinct Roman Empire. “Essential word (we would be tempted to say ‘sovereign’) of the orthodox spirituality, the notion of spiritual Father has all of the characteristics of a nodal value. No definition could contain it, not to mention about exhausting it” (Scrima 1996: 183). Underlining the emergence of “the new kind of hermits” (a collocation made by Saint John Cassian) into the world starting with the Desert Fathers from the 4th century B.C., Scrima writes that this tradition does not try to contest or double the Church but has the purpose to perpetuate inside it a: mutation with the spiritual Father as its archetype. A mutation which should be named «spiritual» (pneumatic), even with the risk of being tautological: The spiritual Father is, firstly, the man who became pneumatic himself, in the most realistic meaning of the term – that of the Holy Spirit emerging, at a unique height, from Christ’s body, dead and resurrected. We have here an ultimate «reference» on which no image or conceptual translation could be possible to infer as any of them being instantly burned by the proximity of this «advent».

It is a reference which signifies – in the Son’s ‘obliteration’ through kenosis (cf.

Philippians 2, 7) and in the Father’s «retreat» through distance (“... why have you forsaken me?”) – a new manifestation of Trinity, the manifestation of the Holy Spirit as ‘hidden’ of their relationship: the Holy Spirit himself is the one who touches, from now on, the man, as principle of a transfigured knowledge and as possibility of a new, “liberated” life. (ibid.: 184)

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Therefore, observing what kind of priests would have had the possibility to guide Zahei into finding the Light – even if our blind character seeks its physical side, the chance to see again with his clay eyes, not noticing that he is very close to the true sight –, one can feel that the contrast between their “qualities” and the indispensable grace needed for that endeavour becomes unbearable. Father Gioarsă,15 if it is to recall them chronologically, defiles his kin by being at the same time beggars’ master, trader of stolen goods, and, on top of that, old flirt trying to seduce young gipsy females. He tries to steal Panther’s “golden mine”,16 the only way in which the degenerate priest sees Zahei. The biggest “achievement” of the second “God’s servant”, father Ţurcă, nicknamed Burtă-Pustie (Empty-Belly) and killer of his own wife, is to untie Zahei’s vow on quitting to drink, feeding his trustful mind with shameless lies and putting him again on a sinful course. At some point, after the “wedding night” from the salt mine, Zahei says to this one: “‘Hey, you see, I am blind on the outside. But you are a darkness on the inside as well, you cannot enlighten me. Mind your own business.

Let me be in God’s hands...’ (ibid.: 186). The last one, closer to what he should be, does not have a clear past either. With his apparently unlimited energy sublimated by the treatment suffered in the prison, father Fulga becomes “another man. A serene saint with an elongated face, having a very long grey beard and crippled in both of his legs” (ibid.: 228). As a symbolic creature, he is completed by the blind giant who came to meet him because of the fame which travelled far away as a consequence of his miraculous healings. At some point, it seems like the path into the Light is being opened for both of them. The burning belief will carry them On the Threshold of Miracle.17 A mistake will end this path, though. On the other hand, father Fulga is not a good guide either, the blind man’s questions making him uneasy on many occasions.18 Questioned about the way in which he “sees” the daystar’s rays, Zahei 15

16

17 18

“And his nose was pointing out as a vulture’s pecker. Hence the nickname of father Gioarsă. He was good at selling the collected junk. He had his skilful flock of women who were selling the goods in other slums, covertly and safely. He used to go in the village empty-handed, crying out loud that he was being robbed and came back with his pockets full of good and needed merchandise. And until evening he had a gipsy girl in his bed” (Voiculescu 2010: 72).

One can find a disturbing image related to the way in which some people are taking advantage of the abandoned children in India, who are being blinded intentionally with molten lead and then used for begging, as is to be found in the motion picture named Slumdog Millionaire.

The “masters” are making a great profit due to the increased generosity of the common people who are making an analogy with Surdas, one of the greatest Hindi poets and musicians from the 16th century, who was also blind (Slumdog Millionaire. 2008. Directed by: Danny Boyle, Loveleen Tandan, written by: Simon Beaufoy, after a novel by: Vikas Swarup. Pathé Pictures International).

A play written in 1934, with a plot reused in a latter story, Sacul cu cartofi (The Sack of Potatoes). “‘Isn’t it possible, father, that we are the two-headed beast from the Apocalypse?’ And he was chilled to the bones ... ‘No’, father corrected him, ‘you are in confusion, Zahei. That beast has only one head and seven horns on it... We don’t have on these two stupid heads of ours more than four long ears and no thread of mind underneath them. So, from this part, don’t worry’.

Sometimes, though, the blind man’s thoughts make the priest hesitant. ‘Father, isn’t it possible’, said Zahei, after learning about blind Tobit’s story, ‘isn’t it possible that you are the angel who

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answers: «It is as beautiful as a cherub’s eye», used to say happily... ‘Do you see him?’

‘I can see him well enough...’ ‘And how do you know about the cherubim’s eyes?’

‘Well, they are showing themselves to me, sometimes’, mysteriously answered the blind, making father Fulga chill...” (ibid.: 229). It seems like the blind has access to visions even more powerful than the penitent father. Besides, the frightful scene of Irmilie’s seizure – the epileptic with ominous visions from the second chapter of Voiculescu’s novel – actually reveals what it is all about. “Being pushed until he was near the possessed man, Zahei leaned over to him... Irmilie recognized him.

‘Run away, God’s man’, he shouted. ‘Don’t touch me. What do you want from me?

You don’t know? My name is legion. It has been a long time since I came out of you...’” (ibid.: 190). As Jinga underlines it, “this scene is written according to the gospel regarding the healing of the possessed man from Gadarenes County – a theme which was used by Voiculescu in Midrash style in his short story Demoniacul din Gadara. File dintr-un apocrif” (The Demoniacal Man from Gadarenes. Pages from an Apocrypha) (Jinga, 2001: 57).

Actually, the way in which Voiculescu makes literature is being pointed out by Jinga, as we stated before.

[The text] must function as an icon: meaning that it has to stylize the significant forms of the century on a frame of biblical origin until the stage of a symbol and to offer them as a support, not for meditation but for contemplation.

And the forms of the century cannot be brought to the stage of a symbol in other way than through contact, by painting them onto a canvas discretely impregnated with elements already consecrated. (Mastan 2005: 126) According to the theologian, “Voiculescu believes in the edifying power of literature, not in the magic of the text though, and this is even if, to him, the letter’s sacred aura is the result of a deliberated act of ‘contamination’” (Jinga, 2001: 61).

It seems like, reaching maturity, Voiculescu abandons his almost Luciferian élan from the poem Prometheus, “the furious zeal” being melted and giving space to guides me into healing?’ (...) «Shut up», the priest reproved him harshly, ‘don’t tempt God. The angel would stay on your right and would guide you holding your hand, not like me, perching on your back, as only the devils are standing. And then, Raphael, the angel, guided Tobit’s son, who wasn’t blind. Do you have a child?’” (Voiculescu 2010: 238). A symbolical interpretation of the numbers which appear in this dialogue (from which one could infer and anticipate the failure of the two half man’s endeavour) is elaborated by Bianca Mastan. “Let us lean onto the meanings of the numbers from this fragment as they are seen in the Jewish culture. The number one (one head) represents the number of perfection, as well as the number seven (seven horns).

Number two (two heads) is considered to be an imperfect number, being situated between two perfect numbers (one and three), and four (four ears) is composed by adding two and two. Thus, the being which is formed symbiotically is a representation of imperfection by analogy with the numbers of the elements composing it, and the beast of the Apocalypse, in the priest’s vision, is the embodiment of perfection” (Mastan 2005: 126).

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resignation, the world’s salvation being transferred, again, to Christ’s shoulders, with His second arrival. The failure of the world’s symbolic rebirth from the end of Voiculescu’s novel, pictured through the death of the new priest’s child during the service of baptism performed by the old priest who was driven by conceit, reveals the level of decay reached by our humanity. The fact that his mentor cannot reach the height needed for accessing the state of enlightenment, as happened in the case of Seraphim of Sarov and his apprentice, Motovilov (Scrima 1996: 201–202), leads to the desolate image from the end of the novel, where the giant has fallen in a mute state of hopeless prostration, revealing the idea of man’s failure without the transcendence’s aid, which is Love.

Summarizing, as Constantin Mohanu – “borrowing” without any trace of art from Elena Zaharia-Filipaş’ work –19 underlines in the foreword of a recent edition of Voiculescu’s novel, the author designates to Zahei one “mentor” per chapter, our character being the only one who goes through each section until the end.

The only one who endlessly believed in the possibility of a miracle in order to regain his sight is Zahei. None of the blind man’s guides from each of the four chapters of the novel believes in his ideal – they are joining Zahei only for their hidden agendas. One can see that all of them are dying of unnatural causes. Panther, drown in the waters of Buzău River; Caliopi strangled; Boieru, the convict, smashed along with the huge block of salt used as a means to escape from the gaol; father Fulga, the priest, collapsed in front of the forgotten priory’s altar when he realized that the gift of priesthood abandoned him. In a world dominated by vice, uncleanness, and human vanity, the innocent Zahei is being guided, one after another, by a clown, a courtesan, a convict, and a priest (...) (Mohanu in Voiculescu 1996: VI) Thus, not being allowed to have a true guide, Voiculescu’s character fails in his initiation – an endeavour towards the Light – because he is not driven by the right motives.

19

Cf. “Let us point out the fact that not even one of Zahei’s guides did believe in his ideal of seeing again. Then, that all of them died of unnatural causes: Panteră drown in the waters of Buzău River, Caliopi strangled by the neck, Boeru fallen with the immense globe of salt, and, finally, the priest nullified by his own lack of vocation, as if their guilty intrusion in the innocent blind’s life would have asked for retribution. A clown, a courtesan, a convict, and a priest – there are the blind man’s guides into a world full of vices and human vanity” (Zaharia-Filipaş 1980: 210).

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4. Conclusions Arriving at the end of our short journey through the world of Voiculescu’s novel, seen as an expression of “God’s laugh” in the form of Eco’s intentio operis, as it was theorized by Kundera on the footsteps of an old Jewish proverb, one could see the fact that the only novel of the Romanian poet and narrator is, indeed – as the longest type of the epic genre – the modern form of keeping and presenting the traditional philosophical and religious beliefs, as it is seen by Salmann. The way in which the author writes on paper his narratives was pointed out by Jinga, the one who observed that Voiculescu’s text is being woven on a net of biblical symbols sustaining a pilgrimage in the Oriental style, and not picaresque, as inadequately describes it one of the main Romanian literature’s critics. This is because Voiculescu’s true theatrum mundi, with a carnivalesque touch, represents only the spot of colour which deceives, feeding only the hungry man’s eye of clay and shielding the sight of the one who cannot activate, from ignorance, the eye which sees the things that matter in life, the eye of the heart, according to the fox’s advice for the little prince from Saint-Exupery’s immortal story. Therefore, Zahei Orbul is a prayer in the true meaning of the word, as it was seen by Culianu, a mute prayer which expresses a scream of a man lost in Marion’s distance, which is not being perceived as God’s retreat in order to be inhabited by us, on the Son’s footsteps, but as immensity, as Maya’s veil, where the modern man is lost, being stunned by modernity’s sound and light company. The contrast between the carnivalesque world – along with all of its sound and colour inebriation – and the blind’s incapacity to perceive it through the sense of sight is a very good idea coming from a words craftsman. It conceals, though, in full sight, a higher level into the text’s depth, which bears meaning only when the reader is capable of perceiving the net of symbols mentioned before, symbols which bear witness to the necessity of activating the blind man’s “inner teacher” in order to find his path into the Light. Voiculescu’s character fails, even if he has all the cards for succeeding, because he is incapable of choosing the type of light he is seeking, the author not allowing him to have a proper spiritual guidance in this endeavour.

5. Limitations and further research Keeping in mind the fact that this paper represents the introductory part to a larger project,20 regarding the net of Christian symbols emerging from the core of Voiculescu’s novel as opposed to the apparent absence of Love from its surface, one could find our study hard to follow.

20

From which we have already published Şarpele, simbol creştin în romanul lui V. Voiculescu (The Serpent, a Christian Symbol in V. Voiculescu’s Novel).

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On top of that, the emphasis on the meaning of beyond from the prefix trans- in transdisciplinarity, used as a method in order to grasp some of the “visible” effects of the “hidden third”, could also be an impediment for those who are looking for objective results only. As mentioned before, our method is the road revealing itself under our feet, as we put one step before the other, starting from a “place“ in the “distance” (Marion), on the threshold of an icon emerging from Voiculescu’s novel, seeking the presence of God, who invites the reader to inhabit it, on the footsteps of Christ.

Another aspect which could make this study difficult to read is the fact that it was thought and written as an essay, initially, and adapted to better fit the requirements of an academic paper. Therefore, it might not be easy to clearly see the objective of the research in this paper, many aspects of the discussed subjects being implied.

Nonetheless, in the larger picture of our research, they are visible enough.

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Steinhardt, Nicolae. 1994. Dăruind vei dobândi [Giving is gaining]. Cluj-Napoca: Dacia.

Suciu, Sorin-Gheorghe. 2013. Şarpele, simbol creştin în romanul lui V. Voiculescu [The serpent, a Christian symbol in V. Voiculescu’s novel]. In: Iulian Boldea (ed.), Studies on literature, discourse and multicultural dialogue. Tg.-Mureş: Arhipelag XXI. 1251–1262.

Voiculescu, Vasile. 1996. Zahei Orbul [Zahei the blind]. Bucharest: 100+1 Gramar.

2003. Opera literară. Proza [Literary oeuvre. Prose]. Bucharest: Cartex 2000.

2010. Zahei Orbul [Zahei the blind]. Bucharest: Art. Zaharia-Filipaş, Elena. 1980. Introducere în opera lui Vasile Voiculescu [An introduction to Vasile Voiculescu’s oeuvre]. Bucharest: Minerva.

Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Philologica, 12, 3 (2020) 70–87 DOI: 10.2478/ausp-2020-0024

Rendering Science Fiction, Culture, and Language While Translating Ready Player One Attila IMRE

Department of Applied Linguistics, Târgu-Mureş Sapientia Hungarian University of Transylvania (Cluj-Napoca, Romania) Faculty of Technical and Human Sciences attilaimre@ms.sapientia.ro Abstract. The amazing science fiction setting and plot depicted by Ernest Cline in his Ready Player One may constitute a real challenge to translators and subtitlers alike as his book was also turned into a movie by Steven Spielberg. We have collected hundreds of terms from the original book (2011), its Hungarian translation (2012), the Hungarian dubbed version (March 2018), the most popular Hungarian fansub (2018), and the professional subtitle (July 2018, from the same person who translated the script for the dubbing). Having classified the collected terms into various categories, we have managed to identify successful Hungarian renditions of cultural allusions from the 1980s (movies, books, videogames, shows, songs, characters, objects, vehicles, etc.).

Keywords: science fiction, translation, subtitling, Hungarian, titles

1. Introduction The revolution and evolution of technology resulted in the evolution and constant rise of translation, which diversified and reached industrial scales. More than that, some of its latest branches, such as videogame localization and audiovisual translation, have become so popular due to their links to the entertainment industry that this symbiosis already threatens the independent existence of translation.

While professional associations keep trying to raise the status of translators by creating and reshaping ethical codes, they also face the challenge of defining basic terms within the industry, such as professional, certified, expert versus amateur, non-professional, fansubber, etc. As the growing popularity of globally available audiovisual products (movies, TV series, documentaries) has led to substantially reduced production time of dubbed versions and subtitles, in the majority of cases viewers hardly care about the source if good-quality dubbings and subtitles

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accompany their favourite shows the moment they are available online via specific service providers (such as HBO Go or Netflix) or can be downloaded from various sites.

In our view, Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One (2011) managed to become one of the most popular books of the 2010s, which was taken further by turning it into a movie (2018), involving the author as one of the screenplay writers and Steven Spielberg as director.1 The immense popularity is also due to the topic as it is about videogames set in a science fiction environment stemming from the present-day reality and near-future tendencies.

Our aim is to discuss possible challenges while translating either the book version or the subtitle; the main objective is to discuss various terms (e.g. technical, military, acronyms) collected from the book and its movie version (dubbing, subtitle, and fansub), exemplifying both correct and poor cases.

Being labelled a science fiction book, we should offer a few definitions of science fiction first. Science fiction (SF) may have many definitions, ranging from interpreting “science” and “fiction” in this respect to others differentiating it from fantasy. The list below contains definitions from famous SF authors: – “that branch of literature which deals with the reaction of human beings to changes in science and technology” (Isaac Asimov 1975/1981, qtd. in Blackford 2017: 8); – “realistic speculation about possible future events, based solidly on adequate knowledge of the real world, past and present, and on a thorough understanding of the nature and significance of the scientific method” (Robert Heinlein 1959);2 – “We have a fictitious world; that is the first step: it is a society that does not in fact exist, but is predicated on our known society; … our world transformed into that which it is not or not yet. … this is the essence of science fiction, the conceptual dislocation within the society so that as a result a new society is generated in the author’s mind” (Philip K. Dick 1981, qtd. in Tolley 2010: 42); – “the fiction of revolutions. Revolutions in time, space, medicine, travel, and thought... Above all, science fiction is the fiction of warm-blooded human men and women sometimes elevated and sometimes crushed by their machines” (Ray Bradbury 1974, qtd. in Davin 2005: 271); – “a charming romance intermingled with scientific fact and prophetic vision” (Hugo Gernsback 1926 in Gernsback et al. 1926: 3); – “science fiction is something that could happen – but usually you wouldn’t want it to. Fantasy is something that couldn’t happen – though often you only wish that it could” (Clarke 2001, Foreword).

Scholars researching SF also label it with terms like “science”, “technology” or “simply fiction” and “speculation” (James–Mendlesohn 2003: 186), “other worlds”, 1 2

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1677720/ (downloaded on: 01.28.2020). http://sciencefiction.loa.org/biographies/heinlein_science.php (downloaded on: 01.28.2020).

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“the literature of ‘what if’” (Evans 1988: 9), or the “exploration of possible worlds” (Haraway 1992: 300), which all seem to be key terms associated with SF. In fact, Stableford observes that the combination of science and fiction is a “seemingly oxymoronic phrase” (Stableford 2006, Introduction: xxi), being certain that “the vast majority” of the texts labelled as SF had no respect for “the scientific method.” The possible reason is offered by Robert J. Sawyer, who accepts that SF is “first and foremost, an entertainment medium, so we have to allow some latitude to tell the stories” (qtd.in Grazier–Cass 2017: 18), being supported by Wood as well: “science fiction is a story about contact with other worlds and imaginary science and technology” (Wood 2017: 114). Finally, SF is a “literature of ideas” (James– Mendlesohn 2003: 149), “the literature of progress”, and hence it is politically “essentially liberal” (James–Mendlesohn 2003: 231).

While the definitions presented above are all justified, we may easily find problems with all definitions: 1. Asimov’s definition is too vague, not even mentioning the (near)future.

2. Heinlein oversees the fact that a solid foundation of the real world is often neglected, which is why some may combine science fiction with fantasy.

3. Philip K. Dick does not reflect on the fact that the fictitious world is often rooted in the present, and there may be no new society whatsoever.

4. Bradbury highlights that revolutions may trigger sci-fi scenarios, yet they remain fiction as machines may destroy humans.

5. Gernsback is rather optimistic as he mixes romance, science, and prophecy, while rather few science fiction masterpieces contain all these ingredients.

6. Macleod’s remarks are rather politically oriented, while it is questionable whether authors of SF create for political reasons.

7. Clarke offers a rather simple, yet important difference between science fiction and fantasy, enabling us to take SF as describing possible scenarios (in the near or distant future, often bleak ones), while fantasy offers a completely impossible but not always a desired world; it is also important to add that high fantasy presents alternative worlds, where we typically witness a good versus evil clash, making it closer to science fiction.

A possible conclusion why all these definitions are troublesome is that the authors had in mind particular examples of works labelled as science fiction.

While they all contain true facts about science fiction, a more general definition may be necessary: science fiction primarily presents possible or predictable future events, mostly from the perspective of human beings, who face important changes in their lives. A further description may include that these changes are predominantly technological, social, or political and may derive from technological (e.g. robots) or biological revolutions (e.g. “freaks” with special skills) as well as encounters/clashes with other civilizations (with either dire or promising consequences for humans).

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Once started as a genre of fiction, literature relying on imagination combined with science and technology offers entertainment for millions of readers. Although SF as a genre stemmed from literature, today it is a huge part of the movie and videogame industry as well: many SF books or videogames have been turned into movies.

It is also true that while SF works are often set in the future, some of them may return to the past, discussing a different scenario compared to the one that actually happened, or time travels to a different past, commonly referred to as “alternate worlds” deriving from the previously mentioned “what-if” scenarios. Besides, earlier SF works imagined as future are already past or present, such as Orwell’s 1984, correctly observed by Orson Scott Card.3 Travelling to other planets (worlds) may not necessarily have a future storyline, but they still contradict some “known or supposed law of nature” (time travels).4 For a long time, readers or viewers of SF have been prepared to learn about the following major “themes”: resurrecting extinct species, artificial intelligence, living on other worlds, travelling through time (faster than light speed), searching for aliens (Wood 2017: 5), which directly contribute to a “setting [that] differs from our own world”, which is supposed to be explained “in scientific or rational, as opposed to supernatural, terms” (Prucher 2007: 171).

The fact that in many cases SF foreshadows a possible future is clearly exemplified

by SF masterpieces. An illustrious example is Huxley’s Brave New World mentioning cloning in 1932, and then the cloned Dolly comes into being in 1996. Another example getting us closer to the topic is Arthur C. Clarke’s The City and the Stars written in 1958, in which “completely immersive, life-like videogames are played” (Wood 2017), knowing that virtual reality headsets have been available since 2015, which is also present in Cline’s Ready Player One (2011), where videogame players use visors and haptic gloves to sense virtual reality as real.

The popularity of SF may be easily explained if we approach it as primarily part of the entertainment industry. Home entertainment is getting more and more homogeneous, due to globalization, which may be perceived as a “product” of the technical revolution: “A complex web of social processes that intensify and expand worldwide economic, cultural, political and technological exchanges and connections” (Campbell et al. 2010: 4). The constantly shrinking costs of SF-related products (books, videogames, movies, TV series) have led to the mass-consumption of SF,5 with millions of fans worldwide. There is no denying that the large number of fans access their favourite SF products via localized versions (videogames), dubbing

3 4 5

https://www.writersdigest.com/writing-articles/by-writing-goal/get-published-sell-my-work/ defining-science-fiction-and-fantasy (downloaded on: 01.28.2020).

Ibid.

The 20th-century SF was much less popular but also characterized by “obsessive followers … forming a community” (Stableford 2006: 465).

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or subtitling, expecting high-quality work as many of them can – to a certain extent – compare the localized version with the original, predominantly English one.

The strengthening and diversification of SF works resulted in various schools, such as cyberpunk (Clute–Nicholls 1993: 288) with a dystopian future, globally controlled information networks, biological engineering and virtual reality, hallmarked by William Gibson’s Neuromancer (1984), portraying “young, streetwise, aggressive, alienated and offensive” people (hence “punk”). Later on, growing anxiety is visible with the spread of information technology, climate change, deadly viruses, and harmful artificial intelligence, all based on the fear that the “human component” is eternal: in many cases, the real cause of trouble is human greed and lust for power, even if alien intervention may be suspected (e.g. 2001: A Space Odyssey, cf. Booker 2006: 75).

The development of visual media enabled famous directors to adapt ambitious SF books to screen, creating a cult and exploiting the financial possibilities, best exemplified with Star Wars (cf. Stableford 2006: 468). Today, SF is a well-established and “respectable area of scholarship” (James Gunn), knowing that the top ten bestgrossing films of all time are predominantly SF or fantasy, and approximately two thousand books of SF and fantasy are published each year (James–Mendlesohn 2003, Foreword: XVIII). At such a large scale, both authors and directors of SF works may become celebrated stars, resulting in bestsellers and highest rankings on dedicated sites (e.g. imdb.com), and Ernest Cline stands for this type of author, successfully embedding the virtual reality of videogames into a dystopian near-future.

Our research focuses on the Hungarian version of Ready Player One, including the book, the dubbed version, and the subtitle as well, compared to the original works, discussing possible challenges and consequences of the translations. Thus, the next section deals with the evolution of the translation industry.

2. The translation industry Due to constraints of space and the purpose of our research, we only mention that translation per se has grown into an industry triggered by the evolution of technology, enabling large crowds to handle technological challenges of modern translations, namely audiovisual translations (AVT), successfully.

In Gouadec’s terms, the age of “PRAT, or Pencil and Rubber-Assisted Translator” is “on the way out” and the “Computer-Assisted Translator has taken over” (Gouadec 2007: 109), which has made it possible for virtually all translators to use term bases (TB) and translation memories (TM). However, the most dynamic and developing branches of translation industry seem to be subservient to the entertainment industry, and the reduced time to produce dubbed versions and subtitles may easily be to the detriment of quality translations seeking ever higher profits in the target countries.

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Dubbing and subtitling are the two most popular types of AVT (Díaz Cintas 2008: 1); dubbing needs a crew of specialists (technicians, voice actors, etc.), while subtitling may be pursued as a single-person hobby, giving rise to millions of fansubbers worldwide. Subtitling has torn many concepts and traditions associated with translation, such as “professional”, “skilled”, “experienced”, or “financial reward”, and created new ones such as fansubbing, crowdsourcing, volunteering, to mention but a few. Although the consequences are widely discussed, including changes in professional ethics and status of translators (Imre 2019a), we only focus on the possible impact translators may have on the target language and culture with their work.

The issue is worth discussing as a prospective translator of a SF book or movie may not know its possible impact at the time of translation, but it is sure that a bestseller or blockbuster will create resounding waves, which is why all translators should have in mind quality assurance, whatever it takes. From this perspective, we cannot consider “professional” translators only those ones who have obtained a certificate or formal education in translation studies as the number of “untrained” or “uneducated” translators largely exceeds the certified ones.

In fact, we witness the rise of non-professional interpreters and translators (NPIT) worldwide, starting from a 2012 conference,6 and there are studies proving that fansubs do not automatically refer to poor quality as they are highly motivated and have direct access to the audiovisual material. It is also known that they may be only appreciated if their viewers enjoy their work, and thus they are forced to know the needs of the public, which is why they are more target-driven, resulting in disrespecting the “traditions of translation”.

As such, we tend to believe that cultural references and linguistic examples of the “official” and “non-official” Hungarian versions will display certain differences (e.g. political correctness, SF terminology, slang, and taboo). Although NPIT research studies support the idea that “translating is a quasi-universal human capability and activity” taking forms of crowdsourcing, church/military/court/ medical interpreting, they also accept that literary and scientific translations need expert translators (Harris 2017: 29–43). What we found innovative is the definition of “expert translator”, which label may be attained either “by formal training” or “by mentorship” (Harris 2017: 34). In the following, we will present some findings about the level of expertise of Hungarian versions for Ready Player One.

3. Translating Ready Player One Ready Player One (2011) is a highly popular SF book written by Ernest Cline, and all plot descriptions mention that it celebrates geek/nerd status, where everybody 6

https://www.npit5.com/ (downloaded on: 01.29.2020).

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plays videogames in virtual reality, relying on countless pop culture references of the 1980s. During the ultimate game,7 which is the primary concern of all people, virtual reality offers hope and, anyway, “[g]oing outside is highly overrated” (Ernest Cline).

The Hungarian translation (HT) by Gábor Roboz was published in 2012 (Cline 2012).

The success of the original book has led to a movie adaptation as well, directed by Steven Spielberg, being released in 2018, enabling us to compare the Hungarian dubbed version (D), produced by Mafilm Audio Kft. (translated by Tamás Tóth, 09.03.2018),8 with two Hungarian subtitles: the fan subtitle (fansub) translated by Csaba Szász (F) shortly after the release of the movie and the professional subtitle created by Tamás Tóth (S), whose version appeared later than the dubbing and the fansub.9 The storyline offers certain categories for those looking for the quality of translations, such as scientific terms, videogame terms, taboo and swear words, acronyms, and the cultural adaptations of the impressive number of names (characters) and titles of various books, movies, videogames, TV shows, and songs referred to in the book and movie versions. When creating the database for these entries, we could not help not remembering the very first words of the editors of The Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction: “Science fiction is at the intersection of numerous fields. It is a literature which draws on popular culture, and which engages in speculation about science, history and all types of social relations” (James–Mendlesohn 2003).

The quote warns the potential translators that linguistic skills are not enough to delve into translating SF as general “world knowledge” is vital (similarly to other translations as well), completed with the knowledge of famous previous SF works as well, including the terminology (especially neologisms created by former authors) of various areas connected to major SF themes mentioned previously. For instance, it is worth checking a collection of canonized SF books.10 Even if experts in the field, translators may face various challenges, admits James Womack, as translating SF and fantasy is “particularly difficult in general… it is a genre that is constantly wrong-footing the reader, and so your work as a translator is initially affected by your being wrong-footed as a reader … a lot of the handholds that you have with straight-down-the-line realist fiction just don’t exist”.11 Thus, the following expectations seem to be sensible regarding SF: a considerable number of scientific/technical or scientific-looking terms (a number of which abbreviated or acronyms) some of which having nothing to do with reality, and the setting is typically in the future, but reference is made to the past as well.

7 8 9 10 11

https://carturesti.ro/carte/ready-player-one-9454008 – a book presentation by Andreea Manaila (downloaded on: 02.15.2020). http://iszdb.hu/index.php?szinkron=25204 (downloaded on: 02.15.2020). https://www.feliratok.info/index.php?fid=584642 (downloaded on: 01.28.2020). https://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/sci-fi-canon (downloaded on: 02.16.2020). http://weirdfictionreview.com/2016/08/translating-strange-science-fiction/ (downloaded on: 02.16.2020).

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The linguistic approach to translated SF works is expected to reveal that expert translators (trained ones) will follow written and unwritten norms more than fansubbers, who wish to be “trendy” enough to obtain high rates for their subtitles (e.g. when using BS Player subtitling).

We have created a term base of close to 500 entries, selected from the books (B and HT), Hungarian dubbing (D), the professional subtitle (S), and the fansub (F), which were classified into various categories, detailed in the following sections.

3.1. Videogames and technical terms Specific terminology helps creating the proper setting for the storyline, and translators must choose carefully the terms to render the original atmosphere. However, this might be really challenging, as confessed by Marian Womack: “one can only hope to be as faithful as possible. And feeling that you are finally ‘embodying’ an author’s voice is rewarding.”12 Almost half of the collected terms may be labelled as technical or belonging to the videogames mentioned or played as part of the plot. A few relevant examples are listed below: (1) omnidirectional treadmill (B, M) Hu. mindenirányú futógép (HT), mindenirányú futópad (HS, D, F) (2) avatar (B, M, S) Hu. avatár (HT, HS, D, F) (3) Shaptic Bootsuit, full-body haptic feedback suit (B) X1 haptic bootsuit, bootsuit (M) haptic chair/suit, haptics (B, M), (S) Hu. Shaptic Bootsuit, haptikus feedback ruha (HT) X1-es haptikus bootruha, bootruha (HS, D, F) haptikus szék (HT), haptikus cucc (HS, D, F) (4) visor (B), full visor (M) Hu. vizor, látómező (HT), szemüveg (HS), VR-szemüveg (D, F) (5) artifact (B, M) Hu. mágikus tárgy (HT), varázstárgy (HS, D, F) (6) (to) hack (B, M) Hu. feltör, meghekkel (HT), betör az egységébe, hackel (HS) betör a cuccba (D), feltöri az egységet (F) (7) immersion rig13 12 13

Ibid.

A rig is a comfortable armchair fitted with a visor and haptic gloves; accessing the simulation “with a new state-of-the-art immersion rig, it was almost impossible to tell the OASIS from reality” (Cline 2011: 27).

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Hu. egység (HS, D, F) (8) drone (B, M) Hu. drón (HS, D, F) (9) force field (B, M) Hu. energiamező (HT), energiapajzs (HS, D, F) (10) visual field (M) Hu. látómező (HT), látótér (HS, D, F) (11) live feed (B, M) Hu. élő felvétel, közvetítés, videoadás, adás (HT), élő adás (HS, D, F) (12) being broadcast (B, M) Hu. élőben rögzít (HT), élőben közvetít (HS, D, F) The examples show that certain terms are standardized in translation (avatár, feltör), while others are neologisms enough to have different variants (e.g. futópad, futógép), waiting for a commonly established equivalent term. Some English terms may have two Hungarian variants, one reflecting the phonetic transcript, while the other being borrowed and suffixed (to hack ‘hekkel’ and ‘hackel’).14 Interestingly, drone does not appear in the HT, while we could not trace visual field in the original book.

However, we found a whole batch of technical terms not present in the original work (thus missing from the HT as well), while the movie and Hungarian versions contain many of them: (13) tapeworm program Hu. féregprogram (HS, D, F) (14) quadraphonic Hu. kvadrofon (HS, D), kvadrofónikus (F) (15) microfiber crotch inlay Hu. mikrószálas betét (HS, D, F) (16) pressure-sensitive underlay Hu. nyomásérzékelő (HS, D, F) (17) emotion-suppressing software Hu. érzelemtompító szoftver (HS, D, F) (18) Snowcat Hu. hójáró (HS, D, F) (19) pod Hu. kabin (HS, D, F) (20) loyalty pod Hu. behajtózárka (D, F) 14

Strange as it may seem, there are many Hungarian fansubs using the verb hackle, e.g. in Bones.

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A possible reason for more technical terms in the movie may be the visual support for various gadgets enhancing the SF setting. While some of these terms may be considered as neologisms (Shaptic Bootsuit), the most important and interesting term (187 book occurrences) in this respect is gunter, referring to a Halliday’s Easter Egg hunter. As this is a completely new term in this respect,15 we would have expected either the full borrowing of the term in Hungarian or the creation of a new word reflecting the roots. The Hungarian translation for egg hunter is tojásvadász, so – by analogy – it could have been sadász.

Instead, the Hungarian translation is nyest ‘marten’ (used 191 times during the translation), which is a rodent hunting for eggs as well. Although close, it is not the best option, and the dubbed version and subtitles use the same term, which diminishes the specific SF atmosphere created by Cline.

We know how powerful such terms may become, such as cyberspace (William Gibson Neuromancer), robotics (Karel Čapek–Isaac Asimov 1941), or Big Brother (George Orwell 1984). We tend to think that gunter is a term with a possibly similar impact. Although it is challenging to coin a new term while translating, expert translators should think about the impact in case the original work or translation goes global and becomes an instant worldwide success. In these cases, a single term may be the one through which an entire story, book, or movie is identified.

However, there are two more terms strictly connected to gunters, having the same root: (21) Oology Division, oologist (B, M) Hu. tojástan, oológia (HT), oológus (HS, D, F) It is visible that explicitation is only used in the translation, while the other versions rely on the context although the term is rather scientific, known from real life, referring to the study of bird eggs. Cline “endows” the term with a new meaning as Halliday’s Easter Egg hunters are gunters (mostly freelancers) and oologists (corporate researchers or players).

Military terms As SF is often about various conflicts, military terms are expected to appear. In our case, for instance, the battle scene in the end offers a few military terms: (22) Squadron (B, M) Hu. szakasz (D), raj (F) (23) Railgun (B, M) Hu. mágnespuska (HT), sínágyú (S, D, F), mágnesfegyver (Eraser, 1996)

15

Although one might find Gunter’s line or Gunter’s scale after Edmund Gunter (1581–1628) online, this has little to do with the future time setting of the storyline.

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(24) Anti-personnel ordinance cannon! (M) Hu. Személy elleni tüzérségi löveg! (S, D, F) (25) If you reach up with your left hand at 11 o’clock. (M) Hu. Ha bal kézzel felnyúlsz 11 óra irányába. (S, D, F) (26) Nine o’clock and three o’clock. (M) Hu. Kilenc és három óránál. (S, D, F) Before discussing the terms, we would like to offer a relevant quote in this respect: “In the military we have our own language that isn’t understood by most civilians.

Terminology, acronyms, processes for waging war... these all seem to be alien if not translated into civilian English.”16 We created a possible mind map of the US Army, including branches of service, equipment, ranks, commands, evaluation of commands and military tactics (Imre 2018: 170), and the examples listed belong to either equipment (weapons) or military tactics (cf. army time, Imre 2019b: 125).

A squadron may refer to either cavalry, tanks or similar, subdivided into troops, but it may refer to aviation or naval unit as well.17 The book is more explicit, mentioning a squadron of Sixer gunships (aviation), and the HT offers osztag ‘squad(ron)’. In Example 22, the Hungarian subtitle omits the phrase, while the dubbing and fan subtitle offers two variants, both of them acceptable (referring to a small group of soldiers).

Example 23 is visibly more challenging, as the HT uses adaptation (‘magnet’ + ‘rifle’, which is similar to the term in the Hungarian subtitle of the original movie, Eraser, 1996: ‘magnet’ + ‘gun’); the common S, D, and F variant makes no sense as it is the calque version of the original. There are Hungarian sources discussing how nonsense the Hungarian term is,18 suggesting to preserve the original or simply refer to it as ágyú ‘cannon’.

Example 24 is most probably an invented movie term, not present in the book. As such, the Hungarian versions created a term that is the combination of a calque and an established equivalent, which sounds a little exaggerated.

The last two examples (25 and 26) are specifically used in military contexts, and, while these references are not present in the books, the visual support enables the viewers to understand them. However, they are not used in a Hungarian context, so they seem artificial, offering a word-for-word sense; it would have been much more natural to use balra ‘to your left’ and jobbra ‘to your right’.

16 17 18

A Master Sergeant (US Army); https://www.rallypoint.com/answers/what-is-military-culture (downloaded on: 09.09.2018). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squadron (downloaded on: 01.29.2020).

E.g. https://www.facebook.com/leiterjakab/posts/10155470607677439/ (downloaded on: 01.29.2020).

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3.2. Measurements Another typical challenge might be the adaptation or conversion of various measurements (length, weight, money value, etc.). Expert translators know that the translation, subtitle, or dubbing is for the target readers and viewers, thus converting them and “rounding” them up or down should be automatic: (27) 50-foot (M) Hu. húszméteres (S, D), 15 méteres (F) (28) every six feet Hu. kétméterenként (S, D, F) (29) 10 feet Hu. közelében (S), mellett (D), három méterre (F) (30) trillionaire (M, on the magazine cover), multibillionaire (B) Hu. milliárdos (S, D), trilliomos (F) (31) half a trillion Hu. félbillió (S, D), fél trillió (F) (32) twenty-thou (M) Hu. 20 rugó (S, D), 20 kiló (F) The conversion in these cases is justified as translators would like to offer senseful variants. We can see that Example 27 refers to length: technically speaking, 50 feet is 15.24 m, and thus the fansub is much closer as the dubbing and the subtitle mention 20 m, which indicates that they used the “round-up” technique (knowing that so-called “round” numbers are easier to remember). Example 28 is identical in all three translations (technically 1.8288 m), and Example 29 offers three variants: the first two mean that ‘close by’ or ‘next to’, while the fansub means ‘at 3m’, which is correct.

The issue in examples 30 and 31 is manifold. First, trillion means 1018, but English-speaking countries use this term for 1012. The former term is not used in a Hungarian context, so the dubbing/subtitle is correct, while the fan subtitle offers a word-for-word translation, which is rather bombastic.

Example 32 is a slang term for 22,000, which is nicely adapted by using two different Hungarian slang terms for thousand: rugó and kiló.

3.3. Acronyms It is known that abbreviations and acronyms constitute a real challenge in various areas (scientific, technical, legal, medicine, military, etc.) although in this case they are kept to the minimum:

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(33) OASIS (34) IOI (35) Aech, H (36) USPS (M) Hu. postai furgon (S, D, F) The first acronym is used the most times in the book (350 times in the original and 349 times in the translation), while the movie used it 44 times (subtitle: 40, fan subtitle: 43). While the book deciphers it twice (Ontologically Anthropocentric Sensory Immersive Simulation), the Hungarian translation does it only once (Ontológiailag Antropometrikus Szenzorikus Immerzív Szimuláció), and then the acronym is used systematically. Interestingly, there is no explanation in the dubbing or subtitles what the acronym stands for, which is anyway 61 characters with spaces, and it is irrelevant for the plot; all we need to know that it is the platform for the online multiplayer game.

The second example is used 137 times in the book and the Hungarian translation as well, referring to the Innovative Online Industries (major Internet service provider), which is mentioned in the movie (25 times), dubbing, and subtitles as well (more than 20 times), without translation.

Example 35, H, is the first letter of the character’s name, which appears in its phonetic version in the book (Aech), but only as H in the translations.

The last example is not present in the book, but it appears in the movie, and all three Hungarian versions are identical, which may be explained if the fansub was inspired by the previously appeared dubbing.

3.4. Titles and names The greatest challenge of Cline’s work is arguably the impressive number of titles and names, most of them referring to the pop culture of the end of the 20th century: movies, videogames, shows, songs, artist, protagonists, books, etc.

There are countless dedicated sites offering so-called full lists of all cultural references in the book and the movie,19 but this is near impossible, having in mind even gestures from famous movies (e.g. Terminator 2, “thumbs up” scene).20 Nevertheless, these references offer a good cultural quiz for fans reading or watching the movie, to the general amusement of the older generation.21

19 20 21

https://www.scifi.hu/2018/04/05/giga-lista-a-ready-player-one-pop-kulturalis-utalasairol/ (downloaded on: 01.16.2020). www.comingsoon.net (downloaded on: 01.16.2020). https://readyplayerone.fandom.com/wiki/Ready_Player_One_(film) (downloaded on: 01.16.2020).

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The translators and subtitlers are faced with a real challenge in this chapter as they should create a similarly recognizable atmosphere with words and hints for the target public, to which the only option is to offer those names and titles that were once used for the original works released in Hungary. After all, the public should gain a feeling of connoisseur by recognizing many hints, knowing that Cline and Spielberg have built in many previous successes from various works of entertainment, including Spielberg’s own. We managed to collect around 340 references for anime, comic books, movies, songs, musicians, bands, TV shows, videogames, and contemporary items (e.g. food, drink).

The first challenge is the title itself. It is the message the player reads when logging into OASIS (Ready Player One), which is so important that neither the book translator nor the dubbers and subtitlers dared to change, even if it is translated in the book once (Egyes játékos, készülj!) (Cline 2012: 38). However, titles, similarly to names, are often preserved to offer an air of foreignness, loyal to Venuti’s foreignizing approach (Venuti 2004). But this is a rather complex special case, when the title is turned into an icon for the plot, as the letters are formed into a maze,22 leading to an Easter egg:23

Figure 1. Logo and maze Movie and game titles or famous characters, vehicles should be preserved; unless when released in Hungary they were translated, turning to established equivalents: – Robotron, Aliens, Mayhem Mansion, Nancy Drew, Adventure, Mario Kart, GoldenEye, Oddjob, Ptifall, Swordquest, and Thriller are not translated, being movies or videogames marketed under the same name.

– Animal House (Party zóna), The Shining (Ragyogás),24 The Breakfast Club (Nulladik óra), The Dark Crystal (A sötét kristály), and The Fly (A légy) are translated, being famous in Hungary with dubbed versions, while the fansub knows that Ferris Bueller’s Day Off was marketed in Hungary as Meglógtam a Ferrarival, the subtitle uses the original English title.

22 23 24

https://www.funkopopnews.com/2018/03/09/walmart-exclusive-antique-parzival-funko-pop (downloaded on: 01.16.2020). h t t p s : / / i o 9 . g i z m o d o . c o m / t h e r e s - a n - e a s t e r- e g g - h i d d e n - i n - t h e - r e a d y - p l a y e r- o n e mov-1797395680 (downloaded on: 01.16.2020).

Even if the subtitles and the dubbing use an extra definite article: A ragyogás.

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– The name of a restaurant is preserved in the subtitle and dubbing, while the fansub contains an error: instead of Chuck E Cheese we have Chucky’s Cheese, which is a serious misinterpretation, given that a rather scary Chucky also appears in the movie (Child’s Play 1988, notorious serial killer).

– The Distracted Globe is both in the book and movie; thus, the subtitle, dubbed version, and fansub use the same Hungarian term: a Dilis Glóbusz.

– Famous characters, such as Bruce Banner (Hulk), Peter Parker (Spider-Man), or Clark Kent (Superman), are preserved, relying on the general culture of the readers and viewers, similarly to famous vehicles (Millennium Falcon, Star Wars).

– Star Wars offers another key term, namely padawan25 (borrowed as padavan in Hungarian), which is preserved in the fansub, while padavan is used in the subtitle.

In the case of names, the predominant procedure is the use of loan words, reflecting Venuti’s foreignizing strategy, knowing that there is no chance to mention that Arrakis is the famous planet from Frank Herbert’s Dune, similarly to the Harkonnen Drop-Ship (with three different Hungarian versions, and only the subtitle version appears in the original book),26 or Planet Doom (Doom-bolygó) is a videogame.

To sum up this section, the translator and subtitlers managed to render the titles and names faithfully, even if they had to look for the established Hungarian equivalent, with a few exceptions.

4. Conclusions Although the selected examples are varied, including the original book, the Hungarian translation, the original movie, and its Hungarian dubbing, subtitle, and a fansub, too, general conclusions are impossible to draw. However, the samples suggest that the fansub relied on the dubbed version here and there, exemplified below: (37) It’s a licensed skin over a standard frame. (M) Hu. Fizetős skin, standard vázon. (D, S, F) (38) The Sixer Fixer? (M) Hu. Hatos-irtó? (D, S), Hatosírtó? (F) (39) Wade Watts, if I catch you touching my stuff again, not joking... Out. Hu. Wade Watts, ha még egyszer hozzányúlsz a holmimhoz... Nem viccelek, eltűnsz! (D, S) Hu. Wade Watts, ha még egyszer hozzáérsz a cuccaimhoz... Nem viccelek, eltűnsz! (F) 25 26

A Jedi apprentice, cf. https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Padawan (downloaded on: 01.28.2020).

The variants in the dubbing and fansub are zealous renditions: Harkonnen szállítóhajó, Harkonnen beszerző hajója (‘cargo ship, freighter’).

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(40) Maintenance, report to loyalty pod 31-B. (M) Hu. Karbantartót kérünk a 31-B kabinhoz. (D, S) Hu. Karbantartót kérünk a 31-P kabinhoz. (F) All four examples were selected from the movie, not appearing in the book.

Example 37 is extremely unlikely to be translated similarly, Example 38 is a unique term, which first appeared in the dubbing, nowhere else, and the fansub even contains a spelling mistake (irtó and not írtó). Example 39 may possibly contain a pun, including the meaning of Wade Watts (to wade ‘to wade through something with some effort’),27 while the last example may stem from the difficulty to overhear the sentence (the sonant /b/ is close to the aphonic /p/).

An overall strategy during translation is to loan as many English words as possible, for obvious reasons: globalization – more readers and viewers understand English, who might have already come into contact with these English words in previous books, movies, or videogames. Thus, preserving the English names, titles, or technical terms adds to the “feeling” of SF with top-notch gadgets mixed with English terms from an age when rules in the former East-European blocks were not so strict regarding the translation of various products and leaflets into the target language. Hence, there were many established equivalents detected (especially for movie titles and videogames), as the success of a movie starts from the title and its poster.

There were obvious differences between the book and the movie, partially due to copyright issues, but, interestingly, more technical terms were found in the movie version, which were successfully rendered into Hungarian. The translators and subtitlers of Ready Player One are faced with the immense crowds of fans worldwide, who can instantly spot whether or not the translators are experts in the field of books, movies, videogames, songs, or shows belonging to different genres and ages. Our conclusion is that, given the ever-shrinking time for producing high-quality translations and subtitles, the Hungarian version terms and phrases investigated are of good quality, with minor exceptions.

Although we have collected a large number of slang and taboo terms worth analysing, a further article is needed to properly discuss them.

References Blackford, Russell. 2017. Science fiction and the moral imagination: Visions, minds, ethics. Springer.

Booker, M. Keith. 2006. Alternate Americas: Science fiction film and American culture. Westport, Conn: Praeger.

27

Cf. https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/wade (downloaded on: 01.29.2020).

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Campbell, Patricia J.–MacKinnon, Aran–Stevens, Christy R. 2010. An introduction to global studies. s. l.: Wiley-Blackwell.

Clarke, Arthur C. 2001. The collected stories of Arthur C. Clarke. New York: Tor Books.

Cline, Ernest. 2011. Ready Player One. New York: Crown Publishers.

2012. Ready Player One. (Transl. Gábor Roboz). Budapest: Agave Könyvek.

Clute, John–Nicholls, Peter. 1993. The encyclopedia of science fiction. New York: St Martin’s Press.

Davin, Eric Leif. 2005. Partners in wonder: Women and the birth of science fiction, 1926–1965. Lexington Books.

Díaz Cintas, Jorge. 2008. Introduction. In: Díaz Cintas, J. (ed.), The didactics of audiovisual translation. John Benjamins Publishing Company. 1–18.

Evans, Christopher. 1988. Writing science fiction. London: A & C Black.

Gernsback, Hugo et al. 1926. Amazing stories. Vol. 01/01. New York: Experimenter Publishing Co. Gouadec, Daniel. 2007. Translation as a profession. John Benjamins Publishing.

Grazier, Kevin R. R.–Cass, Stephen. 2017. Hollyweird science: The next generation: From spaceships to microchips. New York: Springer.

Haraway, Donna. 1992. The promises of monsters: A regenerative politics for inappropriate/d others. In: Cultural studies. New York: Routledge. 295–337.

Harris, Brian. 2017. Unprofessional translation: A blog-based overview. In: Antonini, R.–Cirillo, L.–Rossato, L.–Torresi, I. (eds.), Non-professional interpreting and translation. John Benjamins Publishing Company. 29–43.

Imre, Attila. 2018. Military terminology in the subtitles of Band of Brothers. Acta Universitatis Sapientiae Philologica 10(3): 167–178.

2019a. A fordítók szakmai etikájának kihívásai [The ethical challenges of being a translator]. Tanulmányok [Studies] 2019/1: 147–160.

2019b. Amikor a feliratozó elalszik [When the subtitler falls asleep]. In: Nyomárkay, I.–Nagy, S. I. (eds.), A fordítás elméleti és gyakorlati kérdései.

Budapest: Modern Filológiai Társaság. 115–32.

James, Edward–Mendlesohn, Farah (eds.), 2003. The Cambridge companion to science fiction. Cambridge–New York: Cambridge University Press.

Prucher, Jeff (ed.). 2007. Brave new words. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Stableford, Brian. 2006. Science fact and science fiction. An encyclopedia. New York–London: Routledge.

Tolley, Michael J. 2010. The collected stories of Philip K. Dick. In: Broderick, D. (ed.), Skiffy and mimesis. More best of ASFR, Australian SF review. The Borgo Press. 41–83.

Venuti, Lawrence. 2004. The translator’s invisibility: A history of translation.

Routledge.

Wood, Matthew Brenden. 2017. The science of science fiction. Hartford: Nomad Press.

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Web Sources http://iszdb.hu/index.php?szinkron=25204 (downloaded on: 02.15.2020). http://sciencefiction.loa.org/biographies/heinlein_science.php (downloaded on: 01.28.2020). https://carturesti.ro/carte/ready-player-one-9454008 (downloaded on: 02.15.2020). https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/wade (downloaded on: 01.29.2020). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squadron (downloaded on: 01.29.2020). https://esfs.info/2019/08/24/esfs-awards-2019/ (downloaded on: 02.15.2020). https://io9.gizmodo.com/theres-an-easter-egg-hidden-in-the-ready-player-onemov-1797395680 (downloaded on: 01.16.2020). https://readyplayerone.fandom.com/wiki/Ready_Player_One_(film) (downloaded on: 01.16.2020). https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Padawan (downloaded on: 01.28.2020). https://www.facebook.com/leiterjakab/posts/10155470607677439/ (downloaded on: 01.29.2020). https://www.feliratok.info/index.php?fid=584642 (downloaded on: 01.28.2020). https://www.funkopopnews.com/2018/03/09/walmart-exclusive-antique-parzivalfunko-pop/ (downloaded on: 01.16.2020). https://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/sci-fi-canon (downloaded on: 02.16.2020). https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1677720/ (downloaded on: 01.28.2020). https://www.npit5.com/ (downloaded on: 01.29.2020). https://www.rallypoint.com/answers/what-is-military-culture (downloaded on: 09.09.2018). https://www.scifi.hu/2018/04/05/giga-lista-a-ready-player-one-pop-kulturalisutalasairol/ (downloaded on: 01.16.2020). https://www.writersdigest.com/writing-articles/by-writing-goal/get-published-sellmy-work/defining-science-fiction-and-fantasy (downloaded on: 01.28.2020). www.comingsoon.net (downloaded on: 01.16.2020).

Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Philologica, 12, 3 (2020) 88–104 DOI: 10.2478/ausp-2020-0025

Social Meanings of the Hungarian Politeness Marker Tetszik in Doctor-Patient Communication1 Ágnes KUNA

Department of Applied Linguistics and Phonetics Eötvös Loránd University kuna.agnes@btk.elte.hu

Ágnes DOMONKOSI

Department of Hungarian Linguistics Eszterházy Károly University domonkosi.agnes@uni-eszterhazy.hu Abstract. The paper explores how the politeness marker tetszik is used in Hungarian and how its functions are evaluated by the participants of doctorpatient communication. The possible functions of tetszik are investigated on the basis of questionnaires filled in by 50 patients and 50 GPs. Data about the social meanings of tetszik are presented with regard to the following: proportions of the use of tetszik in doctor-patient communication; metapragmatic evaluations and attitudes to the use of tetszik by doctors and patients; probable strategies underlying its use. Based on the data, we conclude that the use of the politeness marker tetszik is prototypically respectful while conveying familiarity and friendliness, with the age, gender, and relative status of the interlocutors also taken into consideration.

Keywords: doctor-patient interaction, politeness marker, V-forms of address, social meaning, speaker’s strategies

1. Introduction A peculiar structure among Hungarian address conventions involves the use of the auxiliary tetszik ‘to please’ followed by an infinitive. In Hungarian, the dichotomy 1

This research was supported by the János Bolyai Research Scholarship of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (Á. D., Á. K.), by the ÚNKP-20-5-ELTE-484 (Á. K.) and ÚNKP-19-4-EKE-1 (Á. D.) New National Excellence Program of the National Research, and also by the grant of NKFIH K Nr. 129040 (Á. D., Á. K.).

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between the T- and V-forms2 of address (Brown–Gilman 1960) is complicated by the fact that there are several ways to express V. The construction involving tetszik can complement various V-forms indicating politeness, while if it is used in order to avoid V-pronouns, it can occur independently as a form of V-address as well (Domonkosi 2002, 2010, 2018; Domonkosi–Kuna 2015a, 2015b).

The aim of this paper is to discuss the use of tetszik and the evaluation of its social meanings by participants in doctor-patient communication. The empirical data of the research was collected via questionnaires filled in by 50 patients and 50 GPs. Our research was motivated by the assumption that doctor-patient communication, with its basically hierarchical and asymmetric character, was a proper testbed for revealing various functions of tetszik through gender and age relations and the diversity of communicative situations.

After the present introductory section (1), the paper introduces the theoretical background of the analysis (2). This is followed by a discussion of data collecting methods (3). Section 4 gives an overview of the results of previous investigations reported in the literature and introduces our research questions about the use of tetszik as a politeness marker in doctor-patient interaction. The social meanings of tetszik are presented with regard to the following aspects: proportions of the use of tetszik in doctor-patient communication, metapragmatic evaluations of its social meanings by doctors and patients, and the strategies that may motivate its use (5).

Finally, the paper concludes with a summary of our research findings (6).

2. Theoretical background In sociolinguistic interpretations of the social meanings of address forms, traditional accounts focused on the dimensions of power and solidarity (Brown–Gilman 1960, Brown–Ford 1964, Ervin-Tripp 1972, Braun 1988). However, more recent analyses have foregrounded new criteria as well. Exploring the functioning of forms of address, Clyne, Norrby, and Warren (2009: 29–30) also rely on Svennevig’s model of the dimensions of social distance. The latter approach interprets social distance as a multi-dimensional phenomenon shaped jointly by the dimensions of solidarity, familiarity, and affect (Svennevig 1999: 33–35). The utility of this model for interpreting forms of address derives primarily from the fact that while all three factors have a scalar structure, their relevance in construing particular situations may vary (Clyne–Norrby–Warren 2009: 28). Therefore, in our interpretations of the varied functions and socio-cultural roles of Hungarian forms of address, we take into account the multi-dimensional character of social distance.

2

Following Brown and Gilman’s (1960: 256–276) dichotomous view of address introduced in their classic paper, T stands for informal while V for formal, official, more distanced address.

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Regarding sociolinguistic approaches to style, our work is informed primarily by those in which style is interpreted as part of self-representation (Eckert–Rickford 2001, Schilling-Estes 2004). However, we do not regard style as simply a matter of speaker design (Schilling-Estes 2004: 388) but rather as the construal of social meanings in context, which consequently involves the construal and “design” of the entire situation, including the identities and roles of both speaker and listener (Coupland 2007: 80). In line with interactional stylistics, we also investigate the reasons behind choices in construals of social meaning; in other words, we describe choices of forms of address as aspects of strategies aimed at the dynamic construal of the speech situation. Our perspective highlights the functioning of language as socio-cultural praxis geared towards meaning making and interprets address practices as instruments of construing social reality (Norrby–Wide 2015, Norrby et al. 2015, Wide et al. 2019). Under the assumptions of social constructivism, social relations are linguistically negotiable (cf. Bartha–Hámori 2010), and the practice of using address forms may crucially contribute to the construal of various types of interpersonal relations.

A variety of linguistic patterns represent ways of construing the speaker’s relation to the listener. The contribution of address forms to this process is both critically important and encoded in cultural tradition. Basically, the division between T- and V-forms is derived from the dichotomy of formality vs. informality. However, the variety and use of Hungarian address forms suggest that further aspects should also be considered if the aim is to specify the social meaning of tetszik in sufficient detail.

Mapping the usage and roles of tetszik thus requires, and informs, the inclusion of a number of relevant subdomains of the speech situation in the model.

If the situation is studied on the axis of formal vs. informal, then medical communication is one of the most formal situations. Previous studies on T- and V-distributions also arrived at similar conclusions (Domonkosi 2002: 147). Doctorpatient consultations are situations in which T-forms are the least likely to occur, even less than in official administrative situations. However, the types of V-forms used in this situation suggest that in and by itself the formal vs. informal axis is not sufficient for describing the relationship between discourse participants (Csiszárik– Domonkosi 2018).

Besides the concept of formality vs. informality, the relationship between speakers and the construal of a situation has also been studied from the viewpoint of familiarity, distance, deference, camaraderie, and involvement (Clyne–Norrby– Warren 2009). Bartha and Hámori (2010), for example, conduct their analysis along the axes of involvement vs. distance, solidarity vs. power, convergence vs. divergence, and directness vs. indirectness. In the present paper, we attempt to integrate these insights into our interpretation of the strategies that motivate the use of tetszik.

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3. Data and methodology The research reported in the paper forms part of a comprehensive, methodologically complex study of doctor-patient communication, which started in 2012 and is still in progress (Kuna–Hámori 2019, Kuna 2020). The present analysis is based on data elicited by way of a questionnaire study between 2013 and 2015 (see Appendix). Notably, the compilation of questions was informed by previous data derived from participant observation at four male GP surgeries in the autumn of 2012 (for details, see Kuna–Kaló 2014, Kuna 2016). The data comprising more than 400 doctor-patient encounters was analysed for characteristic linguistic patterns. One striking feature was the high frequency of tetszik in doctors’ speech, even in cases where both the doctor and the patient were young. In fact, the choice of this form appeared to be dominant in the communicative behaviour of certain GPs. In view of the controversial attitudes of Hungarian speakers to tetszik, we decided to carry out a questionnaire study to learn more about this trend. While compiling questions for the questionnaire, we made use of real-life dialogues that had been recorded during consulting hours. The questionnaire was prepared in two versions, with parallel questions tailored to the different roles of doctors and patients. The questionnaires were filled in by 50 doctors and 50 patients in the autumn of 2013. Due to its limited size, the material thus gathered fails to support a comprehensive quantitative account of the distribution of tetszik along social parameters (e.g. gender, age, place of residence). However, it does give a clear indication of the proportions and underlying strategies of using tetszik in doctorpatient communication.

Questionnaire study as a method has been standardly adopted in investigations into forms of address ever since the emergence of this field of research (Brown– Gilman, 1960, Braun 1988, Clyne–Norrby–Warren 2009, Norrby–Wide 2015). At the same time, when it comes to interpreting the results, we are mindful of the fact that this method does not produce an accurate picture of language use per se. Rather, the results reflect speakers’ perceptions about it and the stereotypical social indexical values associated with particular forms (Ervin-Tripp 1972: 219, Agha 2007: 282).

On the one hand, we compiled the questionnaire in an attempt to accommodate tetszik structures into the Hungarian address system. Accordingly, we aimed to find out about this construction’s frequency of use and basic differences between how doctors and patients adopt it. On the other hand, we attached importance to asking open questions about the speakers’ spontaneous metapragmatic evaluations as well. We consistently asked for reasons and explanations for individual address choices. This enabled the study participants to elaborate on their assumptions, which in turn can shed light on what address strategies and stylistic, sociocultural considerations motivate linguistic choices made by doctors and patients. A subset of the questions is targeted at the prototypical

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social value of address forms, while another subset makes inquiries about the context-dependent evaluation of diverse situations.3 Explorations of informants’ beliefs, their metapragmatic reflections about style and social meanings rest on the assumption that speakers are able to exhibit a reflexive attitude to various linguistic constructions and the socio-cultural expectations, processes of style attribution that are inherent in the use of these constructions (cf. Tátrai–Ballagó 2020). In addition, we also assume that such reflections can be elicited by questionnaires inquiring about opinions in the form of open-ended questions (Bednarek 2011). Accordingly, we took speakers’ beliefs and folk categories as a point of departure for studying social meanings and stylistic qualities associated with tetszik. In the present paper, informants’ reflections about usage, social meanings, and style are referred to as evaluations.

The data collected in this way do not offer a comprehensive, representative picture of how frequently tetszik is used in doctor-patient communication and how its functions are evaluated by discourse participants. However, the arguments and evaluations supplied by informants do create an opportunity for discerning the main strategies associated with the social meaning of tetszik.

4. The sociolinguistic attributes of using tetszik In Hungarian, not only is there a distinction between T- and V-forms but rather there are several different ways to express V. The construction involving tetszik often complements some of these V-forms to heighten a sense of politeness. However, if it is used in order to avoid V-pronouns, it can also occur independently as a form of V-address. V-forms are highly varied in informal communication, but none of the variants have a general enough scope or neutral social and stylistic value.

According to previous sociolinguistic and pragmatic results (Hollós 1975; Domonkosi 2002, 2010, 2017; Koutny 2004; Dömötör 2005), the use of the tetszik + infinitive structure characterizes various social relationships as a basic expression of politeness. First, it is the most important means of address by children towards adults. Second, it appears as a typical form of address in close but non-equal relationships with a considerable age gap between the interlocutors.

Lastly, it expresses politeness in requests (including requests for information) and expressions of interest. The most important variable that governs its usage is the age of the addressee. Which individual functions are at play varies greatly with the agegroups of the speakers (Domonkosi 2002, Domonkosi–Kuna 2015b).

3

For the questions under study here which we used to elicit answers from doctors, see the Appendix of the present paper. Doctors and patients were asked to respond to the same questions in modified versions, which had been adjusted to the situation.

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The construction with tetszik is more salient than other V-forms due to its lengthy and elaborate nature. Moreover, apart from child-adult relations and situations with a large age gap between speakers, it is also more marked in most scenarios.

5. The role of tetszik in doctor–patient communication The relation between doctor and patient is basically asymmetric and hierarchical due to the doctor’s wealth of knowledge and the social status attached to this profession. Therefore, a meeting between doctor and patient is predominantly a formal occasion. Yet, more and more psychological, linguistic, and medical studies suggest that trust, empathy, and cooperation are crucial components at the core of the healing relationship. This requires a sort of affinity, which originates mostly in the doctor’s social and linguistic behaviour, i.e. it works in a “top-down” manner.

There is a change taking place in healthcare: while previously an authoritarian (doctor- and illness-centred) behaviour used to be prevalent, today both doctors and patients tend to prefer partner-like (patient-centred and relationship-centred) care (cf. Stewart–Brown et al. 2003, Heritage–Maynard 2006, Warren et. al. 2006, Beach 2013, Bigi 2016, Kuna 2016). One goal of our presentation here is to show how tetszik participates in the construal of doctor–patient relationships.

In what follows, we present the results of the questionnaire study with a focus on social meaning. Our analysis follows qualitative principles rather than statistical ones, so we focus on the main areas and tendencies. The findings are presented in the following order: 1) results on the usage of tetszik, 2) doctors’ and patients’ opinions on social meaning and stylistic value, and 3) strategies underlying the use of tetszik.

5.1. The use of tetszik in doctor–patient communication From the answers to questions 4, 6, 7, and 8 (see the Appendix), it can be observed that doctors tend to identify more situations in which they would choose or prefer to use tetszik. Figure 1, showing answers given to Question 4, makes this preference clear: 90% of the doctors would use tetszik and only 10% would not, while only 30% of the patients would prefer tetszik and 70% would not.

Informants’ replies to this question suggest that an important variable defining preference for tetszik is clearly age, more specifically the addressee’s old age and/or a large age gap between the interlocutors. The other (and less important) one is the addressee’s gender. This is supported by the answers and explanations received in response to Question 7. 83% of the doctors prefer tetszik, especially in the case of elderly and female patients. By contrast, the answers of patient participants suggest that there is no situation in which they would have a preference for tetszik in their

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communication with a doctor: 63% says that there is no situation in which they would prefer tetszik, and 80% tries to avoid it expressly.

Figure 1. The use of tetszik according to the doctors’ and the patients’ selfreflection

5.2. Social and stylistic values of tetszik Our participants shared a variety of opinions about social meanings at work in the use of tetszik. These opinions reflect spontaneous style attributions and evaluations of the use of this politeness marker. Questions 12 and 17 were open-ended (see the Appendix); hence, they reflect the participants’ spontaneous evaluations. The most common evaluations included közvetlen ‘direct’, kedves ‘kind’, tiszteletteljes ‘respectful’, and barátságos ‘friendly’ or their combinations. A typical answer to Question 12 involves two or three adjectives circumscribing the style and mood associated with this form; additionally, special values/usages/circumstances may be specified. For example: (1) tisztelettudó, barátságos, közvetlen, de sokszor lehet udvariaskodó, hízelgő, akár nevetséges is ‘respectful, friendly, direct; but it can be a mannerism, flattering or even ridiculous’; (2) szívélyes megszólítás idősek számára ‘a cordial way of addressing the elderly;’ (3) közelséget enged, ami az orvos-beteg kapcsolatban fontos ‘it allows for closeness [between interlocutors], which is important in doctor-patient relationships’.

With certain participants, typical combinations of evaluative phrases emerged, referring to respect, directness, and kindness. These co-occurrences highlight the fact that speech situations cannot be modelled along a linear axis; instead, their construal is best categorized from various perspectives.

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One of these perspectives can be identified as the positioning of the discourse partner in the foreground or in the background, which is manifested in the evaluations respectful/disrespectful and polite/impolite. Another aspect evidenced in the descriptions is the issue of hierarchy between discourse partners, manifested in such evaluations as alárendelődő ‘self-subordinating’, önlekicsinylő ‘selfdeprecating’, or megalázkodó/lekezelő ‘self-degrading/patronizing’. Some participants elaborated on the same theme: Azt sugallja, hogy nem egyenrangú a két fél. ‘It suggests that the two parties are not equal.’ The notion of subordination in the interpretation of addressing forms also suggests that the traditionally relevant subdomains of solidarity vs. power, status-oriented vs. solidarity-oriented are at play here. The third aspect is the expression of social distance between the interlocutors, manifested in the evaluations direct vs. remote. This may be closely connected to the second aspect; however, its scope is broader since social distance is shaped not only by differences in hierarchical status but also by other differences and similarities (cf. Svennevig 1999: 34–35). The above aspects are complemented by a fourth one: that of the expression of an emotional relation to the discourse partner, as revealed by evaluations such as kedves/rideg ‘kind vs. cold’ and barátságos/ barátságtalan ‘friendly vs. unfriendly’. When social distance and an emotional relation are both referred to, this can either increase or decrease perceived distance; however, the two functions (and their evaluations by informants) are still different.

The expression of emotional relations might also be interpreted as an indicator of involvement. As a marker of attention and empathy towards the patient, it can be separated from the marking of social distance.

These aspects do not have a parallel distribution in the usage of address forms; so, for example, a polite address will not necessarily be kind and informal. In our view, attribute clusters can account for the complex social indexical values of various Hungarian V-forms efficiently. Using tetszik is prototypically respectful yet informal and kind. In certain cases, it can contribute to the construal of the speech situation, and it can highlight the interlocutors’ social status.

5.3. Strategies with tetszik Based on observations and the data gained from questionnaires, we can conclude that tetszik is used predominantly by doctors in their communication with patients.

This contradicts the assumption that it is a generic, especially a polite and softening form in this situation (cf. Domonkosi 2002: 205). Based on data about proportions of use as well as explanations offered by informants, various strategies can be identified, which depend on the participants’ roles as doctors or patients and on the relationship between discourse partners.

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5.3.1. Doctors’ strategies of using tetszik According to the doctors’ self-reflection, a majority of them tend to use tetszik. There are diverse strategies regarding the use or avoidance of tetszik. One of the most typical strategies is that by opting for tetszik forms doctors attempt to create a more informal situation. According to their self-reflections, they mostly use tetszik while addressing elderly patients. This usage corresponds to a generic sociolinguistic role of tetszik mentioned above – namely that it is used in unequal but rather intimate relations when there is a huge age gap between the speakers (Domonkosi 2002, 2010; Domonkosi–Kuna 2015a, 2015b; Koutny 2004).

As the perceived social value of tetszik is more informal and kinder than that of other V-forms, it indicates the speaker’s intention to express an emotional attitude to the discourse partner. Consequently, since this linguistic form is perceived as more informal, it implies a strategy of empathy, involvement, and decreasing social distance: (4) Az idősebbek esetében közvetlenebbnek, személyesebbnek, mégis tisztelettudóbbnak tartom. ‘In the case of addressing the elderly, I consider it more direct, more personal, and still more respectful.’

(5) Személyesebbnek gondolom egy idősebb beteg esetén, talán a bizalom megszerzése miatt. ‘When addressing an elderly patient, I consider it more personal, maybe because it conveys the building of trust.’

(6) Idősebbekhez szólva; kedvesebb, közvetlenebb, nem olyan merev. ‘For addressing the elderly; it is kinder, more direct, less rigid.’

In self-reflections about this use of tetszik, the role of age and gender is usually, and characteristically, emphatic. However, personal observations suggest that in addressing younger patients tetszik is also quite frequent, which is one reason why we embarked on a questionnaire study.

Using tetszik also activates the notion of hierarchy in the way the situation is construed. Previous research (Domonkosi 2002, 2010; Koutny 2004) and the self-reflections of speakers associated the use of tetszik prototypically with selfsubordination. In this case, however, it emerges in the utterances of doctors, who are hierarchically of higher status than the other party. By using a self-subordinating structure from a clearly superordinate position, they attempt to bridge the social gap between partners. Therefore, using tetszik can decrease social distance; yet it should not be treated as if it exhibited solidarity. Situations involving solidarity are characterized by mutually used forms (Brown–Gilman 1960, Agha 2007), while in this scenario the forms remain asymmetric, being used only by one party.

Use of this strategy can also imply that the speaker is aware of the addressee’s subordinate status.

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(7) Nagyon, nagyon ritkán [használom] és csak nehezen mozgó időseknél. ‘[I use it] very, very rarely, and only when addressing elderly people who can hardly move.’

(8) Esetleg a nagyon idős, leépült nőbetegeknél, de senki másnál. ‘Possibly with very old, broken-down female patients, but with no one else.’

Despite its prototypically self-subordinating role, the use of tetszik is considered patronizing by doctors, who attach to it the function of forcing the addressee into a subordinate position. This may be due to the aforementioned asymmetrical nature of the expression’s usage. The right to initiate the decreasing of social distance lies with the person of superior status.

(9) Kerülendőnek [tartom], mert hangsúlyozza a beteg alárendeltségét ‘[I think it is] to be avoided because it highlights the patient’s subordinate status.’

(10) (…) mintha nem tekintené az orvos egyenrangú félnek a beteget. ‘as if the doctor didn’t regard the patient as an equal partner.’

Another possible reason for the avoidance of tetszik may lie in the patient’s behaviour. The process of construing the situation is continuous and dynamic; it depends on both speakers and their negotiations simultaneously. Accordingly, the avoidance of using tetszik may be a reactive strategy prompted by the patient’s often insulting behaviour or their attempts to reduce distance.

(11) támadó, lekezelő magatartású személynél, mert határozottabb, távolságtartóbb így ‘to an aggressive or condescending person because it is more authoritative and distant’; (12) öntelt, bizalmaskodó betegek, magas műveltségű betegek; előbbinél a távolságtartást jelzem, utóbbinál nem akarok „anyáskodni” ‘to self-important, excessively friendly or highly educated patients – to the former, I want to indicate our distance, for the latter, I do not want to appear overbearing’.

In explanations offered by a few doctors, there is a less flexible strategy taking shape.

In particular, they try to use the form generally, attributing undifferentiated politeness to it. Similar generalizing tendencies can be found in the deliberate avoidance of tetszik, which usually owes most to the personal preferences of the doctor.

Using tetszik can be incorporated in a peculiar strategy, mostly directed at young patients; in these situations, it becomes ironic. Due to a shift in perspective, the linguistic construal of the situation is no longer adequate in this context. Since the most crucial variable in the use of tetszik is age, its employment with young patients is not adequate, which enables the speaker to use it ironically. Ironic usage is a prerogative of the superordinate partner, which explains why it can be offensive through its emphasis on hierarchy, and why it is often conjoined with lecturing.

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(13) [a tetszik stílusa] (…) gyakran kioktató ‘[the style of using tetszik] is often condescending’.

(14) Van amikor a tetszikelés mögött egy nyomatékosító, pedagógiai jellegű tartalom van. ‘Sometimes, there is an affirmative and pedagogical motivation behind the use of tetszik.’

According to our data and observations, diverse functions and strategies in the use of tetszik can result in a considerable mismatch between intended and perceived effects. For instance, a form that is intended to be polite may be interpreted as offensive. These differences in negotiations can be traced back to the fact that using tetszik accentuates the age of the addressee, whereas in other cases it simply expresses heightened politeness. By using tetszik, the speaker puts the addressee in a position in which the latter’s age becomes prominent at a conscious level.

The often perceived offensive effect of the form can also be a consequence of the same phenomenon. According to our data from the questionnaires, the most often mentioned condition of using tetszik is age. However, our observations in real-life situations suggest that there need not be any age gap between speakers.

5.3.2. Patients’ strategies of using tetszik Our data indicate that there is a much larger number of speakers among patients who avoid using tetszik altogether. This tendency is most often attributed to a sense of childishness, unnaturalness, and awkwardness associated with its use.

(15) Kerülöm, mert nagyon tanár-diák-os viszonyra emlékeztet. (…) 38 évesen nem beszél így az ember. ‘I avoid it because it reminds me of a teacher-student relationship. [...] At the age of 38, you don’t talk like this.’

(16) [kerülöm]. Gyermeteg. ‘[I avoid it.] It is childish.’

Avoidance, according to a few participants, is bound up with doctor-patient communication and their rejection of construing certain roles therein. These patients usually do not create a subordinate position for themselves and avoid being socially exposed or being spoken to in a mock informal tone: (17) Az orvossal egyenrangú felek vagyunk – ezt a tetszik/tessék nem tükrözi. ‘We are equal partners with the doctor – this is not reflected by tetszik/tessék.’

(18) A túlságosan „udvariaskodó” forma hierarchiára utal. ‘By being excessively polite, this form indicates hierarchy.’

Even though avoidance seems to be a very strong tendency among patients, typical and conventional usage can override this intention and fear of hierarchy.

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Two very typical sociolinguistic functions of tetszik can be seen even in these situations (Domonkosi 2002: 205). One such function is that a large age gap between speakers or the age and gender of the addressee can motivate the use of tetszik (Domonkosi–Kuna 2015b).

(19) Csak a háziorvosomnál [használom], mert idősebb, nő orvos és engem tegez, illetve 20 éve hozzá járok. ‘[I use it] only with my GP, and the reason is that she is older, she is a female doctor, she uses T-forms to address me, and she has been my GP for 20 years.’

(20) Csak rendkívül idős orvossal szemben érezném helyénvalónak. ‘I would only consider it appropriate when talking to a very old doctor.’

The other, less frequent sociolinguistic function of using tetszik is explained by specific speech acts that require elevated attention; for example, requests or asking for favours.

(21) Szívességkérés vagy az általánostól eltérő szolgáltatás igénylése esetén.

Udvariasabbnak érzem ezt a formát. ‘When asking for favours or something uncustomary. I think this form is more polite.’

(22) A kérés nyomatékosítása miatt [használom]. ‘[I use it] for adding weight to a request.’

6. Conclusions According to the data, the most frequent social values associated with tetszik are as follows: közvetlen ‘informal’, kedves ‘kind’, barátságos ‘friendly’, udvarias ‘polite’, and tiszteletteljes ‘respectful’. There are frequent references to age, gender, and social status in the participants’ explanations. Using tetszik can thus be described as prototypically respectful but informal and kind; a form whose use takes into account the discourse partners’ age, gender, and social status. It is more informal and kinder than other V-forms; yet it is also less conventional. As one of our participants stated, “it is polite; and it’s complicated”. Accordingly, social values vary greatly and can be downright contradictory.

As we have demonstrated, the stereotypical social meaning of tetszik can be described only in the context of a speaker’s strategy. These strategies differ greatly between doctors and patients. On the part of doctors, the most typical function of using tetszik is to reduce social distance. This is in line with the trend that in the communicative behaviour of doctors an increasing number of linguistic devices appear that serve to decrease distance even as doctor-patient relations are necessarily hierarchical in character (Heritage–Maynard 2006, Domonkosi–Kuna

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2015a, Bigi 2016, Heritage 2019). By contrast, among patients, avoiding the form for the sake of avoiding self-subordination is widespread. It is noteworthy in doctors’ strategies that from a superordinate position this self-subordinating form becomes a device of reducing social distance.

In our study, it also became apparent that using tetszik can play various roles in the construal of the speech situation and not only along the formal vs. informal axis. Prominent factors include the positioning of the addressee in the foreground or background, hierarchy (power vs. solidarity), social distance, and emotional attitude.

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Web sources Koutny, Ilona 2004. A 3. út: a tetszikelés [The 3rd way: Using tetszik]. VII. Nemzetközi Magyar Nyelvészeti Kongresszus [Presentation at the 7th International Hungarian Linguistics Congress]. Budapest. http://www.nytud.hu/NMNyK/eloadas/koutnyho.rtf (downloaded on: 01.22.2019).

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Appendix Questions Nr. 4, 6, 7, 8, 12, 17 – questions related to tetszik in the doctors’ questionnaire. For the entire questionnaire, see Domonkosi & Kuna 2015a: 54–62.

4. Do you use the structures tetszik/tessék in your practice when talking to patients? (E.g. Mióta tetszik szedni ezt a vérnyomáscsökkentőt? ‘Since when have you been taking these blood pressure pills?’ Please underline your answer. a) Yes, I do. b) No, I don’t.

Why? 6. For whom do you think “tetszik” is an appropriate address during your consulting hours or in a hospital (patients, colleagues, relatives of patients, etc.)?

Why? 7. Are there any situations when you prefer saying “tetszik/tessék” in your communication with patients? Please underline your answer. a) Yes, there are.

In which situations and talking to what kind of people?

Why? b) No, there are not.

Why? 8. Are there any situations when you consciously avoid using the structures tetszik/tessék in your communication with patients? Please underline your answer. a) Yes, there are.

In what situations and talking to what kind of people?

Why? b) No, there are not.

Why? 12. How would you evaluate the tetszik structures?

17. What do you think about the situations below, concerning the linguistic behaviour of the doctor, and the appropriateness and style of the used expression?

– A 35-year-old male doctor is talking to a 25-year-old female patient during consulting hours.

Nagyon csúnyán tetszik köhögni. ‘You are coughing really badly.’

– A 40-year-old female doctor is talking to a 30-year-old male patient.

Miért nem urológushoz tetszett ezzel a problémával fordulni? ‘Why haven’t you turned to a urologist with this problem?’

– A 45-year-old male doctor is talking to a 20-year-old female patient.

Miért nem tetszett hamarabb jönni, ha egy hónapja fel van fázva? ‘Why haven’t you come earlier if you have already been sick for a month?’

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– A 32-year old female doctor is talking to a 52-year-old female patient.

Köhög, és rögtön el is tetszett kezdeni kezelni magát antibiotikummal?! ‘You have a cough, and you immediately started treating yourself with antibiotics?’

– A 58-year-old male doctor is talking to a 25-year-old female patient.

Nagyon le tetszett fogyni, mi történt? ‘You’ve lost a lot of weight, what happened?’

Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Philologica, 12, 3 (2020) 105–119 DOI: 10.2478/ausp-2020-0026

Mitigating Devices within the Context of TwoWay Mediated Shop Conversations Igor IVANOVIĆ

Faculty of Philology University of Montenegro iggybosnia@ucg.ac.me Abstract. In this paper, we will present our three-month-long study aimed at investigating the concept of relational language and mitigating devices and how such mitigating devices are used within the context of two-way mediated shop conversations. We will also see how relational language and mitigating devices help speakers establish and maintain good relationship.

Our study results show that this relationship is maintained by the avoidance or reduction of unwelcome effects a speech act may have on others within a communication context. The communication context of this paper and the pertaining study are related to the recordings of agent-customer communications in English language. We will show some of the most representative examples found in our corpus and, through those examples, we will be able to see how agents of one telecommunication company in Montenegro1 use different mitigating devices in order to sell a product or a service, entice a customer, or resolve a potentially face-threatening, problematic or volatile situation.

Keywords: power relations, discourse rights, perlocution, deixis, hedging

1. Introduction In this paper, we will present our study, conducted over the period of three months.

The main aim of the study was to collect the data about and analyse two-way communications. In this case, these communications took place between agents2 and customers. We wanted to analyse how agents and/or customers use perlocutionary acts in order to make each other more lenient in terms of each other’s judgements and reactions. Those perlocutionary acts are very important in making it more acceptable for the hearer to face criticism, bad news and obey a command, albeit those commands are always expressed as polite requests. The main inspiration 1 2

The name is removed due to legal requirements.

Generic name for this company’s employees working with customers.

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behind this study is the fact that our everyday communication may contain more or less mitigating devices. What is also interesting is that those mitigating devices are not always used consciously because they have become entrenched in our personalities due to different culture- and society-driven processes. Within the context of the study design, our main hypothesis is that shop conversations will mostly rely on indirectness, hedging, approximation, vagueness, and tentativeness in terms of the utilized mitigating devices. The use of mitigating devices means speakers will have to decode each other’s messages through the inferential process, which will, almost invariably, facilitate both addressee-oriented and speakeroriented distancing and reservations. By using the above-mentioned devices, all speakers can preserve face if they perceive the decoded message as threatening.

In order to test our hypothesis, we have collected a corpus of agent-customer conversations in English, but before we delve into a brief explanation of the corpus collection and transcription process, we will turn our attention to what scientific works served as the theoretical foundation of this paper.

2. Theoretical background and scholarly literature The theoretical framework of this paper is broadly based on Erving Goffman’s concept of “face” (Goffman 1959) and the Penelope Brown and Stephen Levinson’s Politeness Theory (Brown–Levinson 1987). In short, the first theory describes face as the manner in how people interact in daily life since everybody is, to some degree, concerned with what other people think of him or her. This is the reason why the majority of social interactions aim at preserving one’s face. The second theory revolves around the way speakers use different communication strategies in order to achieve a desirable communication outcome and use the concept of face to explain the foundations of politeness. Additionally, authors make distinction between positive politeness, where participants show prosocial concern for the other’s face, and negative politeness, which is primarily used to acknowledge that the other’s face is threatened. All of these concepts will be further explored in our paper with the addition of some other communication parameters, which will be described in Section 4.

The majority of authors (Agar 1983, Drew–Heritage 1992, Drew–Sorjonen 1997, Maynard–Schaeffer–Freese 2011, Lamerichs–te Molder 2011) dealing with institutional discourse tried to pinpoint the particularities of this kind of institutional talk. Almost invariably, they came to the conclusion that almost every institutional talk has to have more or less clearly defined communication goal(s) or outcome(s). Additionally, this form of communication represents an asymmetrical communication in terms of “differences in the distribution of institutional power or expert knowledge between the participants” (Koester 2010). And the third major point

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presented in other authors’ papers is that the concept of politeness is the cornerstone of this type of communication serving as “social glue”. Our paper will confirm all of the above-named conclusions. The main difference between our results and the conclusions presented in the papers mentioned above is the fact that agents were, in the majority of cases, immediately ready to relinquish their institutional power if they deemed it to be beneficial for the communication, i.e. if they understood that this was the only way of retaining an existing or obtaining a new customer.

3. Corpus collection and transcription In order to be able to properly analyse the above-mentioned hypothesis, we needed to record a spoken corpus, which had to be transcribed later on. After obtaining all the permissions from the telecommunication company and the competent state agencies, we were able to record the pertaining data. We needed a microphone that would be able to pick up sound from the front and back, while rejecting sounds from its sides. This is why we opted for a bidirectional microphone which has a figure-8 polar/pick up pattern. In this manner, we were able to reduce any background noise to the minimum, without additional post-processing. Relatively speaking, the front side of the microphone was turned towards the agent, while the back side was facing the customer(s). The speech of each participant was recorded at a sampling rate of 44100 Hz (16 bit) using the Creative E-MU 0404 USB Audio/ MIDI Interface and Adobe Audition™ for editing audio content. The agent had been notified they would be recorded and had been instructed to explain a customer s/he would be recorded and ask for the customer’s written consent. Once those formalities were over, the agent would press the record button, and this procedure would be repeated with each English-speaking customer. Since the target language for our study was English, an additional condition was that all communication needed to be in English, so domestic customers were practically excluded. All the digital recordings were transferred on a laptop and saved as MP3 files. As we have already mentioned, we used Adobe Audition™ to edit the transferred audio files.

The files were edited in terms of the removal of excessively long hesitation markers, non-speech sounds, and background noise. This editing phase was followed by a transcription phase. Those audio files were transcribed into written English using Soundscriber3 software. All the transcribed files were saved as ASCII text files in the same folder as the original sound files. Four transcribers transcribed the whole recorded material independently, and then their transcriptions were compared and corrected for errors and discrepancies. The transcribed corpus was annotated for certain paralinguistic elements, and different metadata were input in 3

https://www.softpedia.com/get/Multimedia/Audio/Audio-Players/SoundScriber.shtml (downloaded on: 07.15.2020).

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order to facilitate further analysis. This was done since the process of transcription inevitably removes certain paralinguistic elements such as tone and pitch of voice.

And it has long been established that different tone and pitch of voice can convey completely different meanings and connotations. Furthermore, two transcribers inserted comments and remarks to signal that some utterances were simultaneous, overlapping or closer to latching. The other two transcribers commented on pauses and gaps between utterances, truncations, changes in pitch, rhythm, and tempo. In the end, we collected slightly more than 16 hours of “clean” recordings over the period of three months.

4. Pertinent communication model In order to properly analyse our empirical data, we have to define the pertinent communication model. This model is mainly based on the amended dyadic speaker-hearer model of communication which unfolds within the context of agent-customer encounters. In this particular context, the agent usually encodes a message and the customer decodes it, and the whole communication typically stays within the boundaries of an institutionalized form of talk. In terms of our paper, the communicative parameters are as follows: – Agents traditionally have more discourse rights in terms of turn-taking and opening and closing topics.

– Participants typically do not know each other, and there are usually two people involved in the communication. Other people, if present, are often passivized.

– This passive audience reacts from time to time in order to show their support or dissatisfaction (long waiting times, etc.), but such interruptions usually have no impact on the outcome of the communication between the agent and the customer.

In our particular case, we have to take into account the following additional parameters: – Within this environment, there may be a relatively high number of dissatisfied customers, which makes this audience potentially volatile.

– Agents are aware of this situation and must always be ready to reduce the intensity of a potentially unpleasant or even violent situation through face preservation, hedging, reassurance, or indirectness of speech acts.

– Even though they can exercise more discourse rights, agents waive those rights very often in order to appease the customer if the situation necessitates such behaviour. Even if there is no necessity per se, agents may decide not to exercise their discourse rights to their fullest extent in order to attract a potential (new) customer.

– Even though this is formally an institutionalized form of talk since agents speak and act on behalf of their company, whenever possible they will try to present

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themselves as “warm”, “customer-friendly”, “family-friendly” persons, rather than persons who simply serve as representatives of such companies. This is because, in this particular context, almost all relational transactions must have at least some amount of transactional elements since the end goal of both the company and the customer is to have an agreement about the provision of certain services or purchase of some devices. Therefore, within this communication environment, it is almost impossible to talk about pure relational interpersonal transactions.

– All agents are from Montenegro, but the customers are usually foreigners or at least they were not born in Montenegro. This makes any communication more challenging since there is a high chance the speakers will have different perceptions of what constitutes, for instance, a face-threatening act and varied levels of directness tolerance. Given the fact that for the majority of customers English is not their native tongue, coupled with the previous statement of having speakers from heterogeneous backgrounds, it is more probable to have communication breakdowns.4 Therefore, agents need to exercise an additional level of caution in order to avoid any miscommunication or inappropriate situation.

– This paper deals with face-to-face communication, so our corpus analysis and interpretation needed to take into account paralinguistic or non-verbal cues, which add a personal touch to face-to-face communication, making it an inextricable part of our corpus analysis.

5. Mitigating devices found in the corpus The analysis of the abovementioned transcribed conversations between agents and customers showed us very quickly that the main concept around which everything revolves is the concept of politeness, which is not surprising. Even though agents and customers come from different countries, which by itself entails a whole set of other differences, both sides are usually able to negotiate very quickly and find a common ground, which is used to facilitate further communication and achieve a mutually acceptable outcome. This common linguistic ground is occupied by relational language and its main pragmatic categories such as: expression of politeness, indirectness of speech act, parenthetical verbs, non-specific reference to the speaker/hearer, and hedges (Cheepen 2000). Let us take a look into some of the most prominent (in terms of their frequency and communication impact) mitigating devices we have found in our corpus.

Indirectness was a very prominent mitigating force found in our corpus since it is almost inextricably related (but not identical) to politeness. For the purposes of our paper, indirectness of speech act is defined as the divergence between literal 4

This is why our examples in the text below contain some grammar mistakes, which were not corrected by the author’s team in order to preserve dialogue authenticity as much as possible.

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and intended meaning. The more interpretive decoding needs to be done by the hearer, the more a speech act is indirect and the more it diverges from its literal meaning (Grainger–Mills 2016). Indirectness is usually linguistically expressed as indirect directives containing a hedged performative. This hedged performative almost invariable calls the hearer to perform a desired activity in a more discrete manner. Direct requests are face-threatening, and any agent wants to avoid a face-threatening situation because of an undesirable outcome such as loss of a customer, declined contract terms and conditions, filing a formal complaint, etc.

Additionally, agents need to use indirectness not only because of their personal politeness but because they speak on behalf of the company, and any company wants to be perceived as having polite employees. On the other side, customers want to be polite since they also need to complete a business transaction, but we must not forget that the majority of customers are polite by themselves, regardless of the aforementioned business transaction. Moreover, in terms of the discourse rights, even though agents more often than not relinquish some of their discourse rights, customers are usually willing to “return” those rights to agents in order to acknowledge that agents have more knowledge about this topic and that agents’ input or advice is more than welcome: (1) C:5 I would like to have this data plan, but if you know for a better option, I am listening.

A:6 If you want to listen to me, I would recommend you to take… (proceeds with the explanation of different data plans) This customer’s willingness to return some of the discourse rights shows her readiness to establish and maintain satisfactory relations between her and the agent. Such satisfactory relations usually lead to a change in one’s attitude, which facilitates both relational and transactional communication.

One part of the recorded customers came to the agents in order to file a formal complaint in terms of the company’s services (bills were higher than expected, no service or broken down service, etc.). In almost all instances, agents quickly reacted to the complaint of a disgruntled customer and employed different mitigating devices in order to de-escalate a potentially unpleasant situation.

(2) C: I want to complain about your TV service. My picture constantly freezes and I cannot watch any HD content.

A: Right, let me take a look at your account, and then we may be able to find the source of the problem together.

5 6

Customer.

Agent.

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In this particular situation, the customer was very direct because he wanted to clearly show his dissatisfaction and to elicit a direct response from the agent. The agent opens her turn by using a discourse marker right in order to acknowledge she received the information and now would try to act accordingly. Additionally, by using a modal verb, may, she wanted to imply potentiality or limited authority to do something. Expressing potentiality is very important for agents since they cannot immediately know the root cause of customers’ problems, and when they get to know the reason, it may turn out that the implementation of the solution to the problems may be completely outside of their control due to some technical reasons (for instance, the IT Department needs to solve the problem or a field technician needs to react, etc.). Last but not least, by using an adverb, together, the agent wanted to establish a common ground and to show the customer they are together in this problem.

Apart from indirectness, face preservation, avoidance of face-threatening situations, and politeness, our corpus also contains vagueness and approximation.

Agents are almost always walking a thin line between having to be precise and resorting to vagueness and approximations. Being precise is one of the main prerequisites of being an agent. Customers need precise information, for instance, before they want to sign a contract, choose their data plan, etc. On the other side, as we have stated in the text above, agents cannot always know all the information off-hand, and certain kinds of solutions are simply outside of their control since, for instance, a field engineer has to go to a specific location and resolve the issue. In this particular case, agents do not know precisely when that issue will be solved, so vagueness and approximation become acceptable mitigating devices in this context.

The most frequent examples of vagueness in our corpus were: – linguistic units of the collocation of the node phrase sort of and an exponent of vagueness, which is usually expressed as a noun or an adjective; – various expressions of modality (could, might, perhaps, probably, etc.).

(3) C: What is the difference between my data plan and this new data plan you are offering me now?

A: Well, it is sort of an improvement, but let me give you more specific details.

(4) C: Can I get this phone? (pointing to the phone) A: That is just a sample we display in our shop, but I might be able to procure one for you.

In terms of vagueness and approximation, the following two situations were the most prevalent in our corpus. Agents use vagueness in order to give themselves more time to acquire more precise information (by searching the database, calling their colleagues, etc.) or to give a vague promise which is, for the time being, sufficiently good to keep the new customer happy or to retain an existing one. In this context, the

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meaning is jointly interpreted by both the agent and the customer without coming to a concrete conclusion. This is obviously only a temporarily valid situation since, sooner or later, there has to be some sort of solution, but more often than not both agents and customers are satisfied with this kind of temporary solution until a permanent solution is finally negotiated. In 28 instances in our corpus, customers returned to the same shop to check if the permanent solution was available, and in almost all situations agents drastically reduced their vagueness because of two reasons: – The issue had been successfully resolved or cannot be resolved. Either way, there is some definitive information available.

– During the first encounter, vagueness was an acceptable option, but for the second encounter vagueness can aggravate the customer to the point s/he wants to terminate the contract, file a formal complaint, or perform some other facethreatening act.

(5) C: I have already contacted you about my problem in (name of the village and address). My Internet is very slow.

A: Can I get your ID card. Let me check the status of the ticket (checking the database). Yes, the engineers are in the field and the problem is with a high-voltage cable that runs very close to our installations. This causes interference… (proceeds with a more detailed explanation) … we should be able to fix it in one or two days…

In the second example, we can see the instance of partially vague explanation.

The situation is slightly clearer since they know the cause of the problem, but they cannot guarantee what is a precise timeframe for the completion of the work and the restoration of the degraded service.

In terms of other categories of vague and proximate language, Figure 1 shows their numbers in our corpus.

Figure 1. Other categories of vague and approximate language

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In Figure 1, we can see that shields (I hope/think/believe), boosters (very, really, honestly), and vague nouns and pronouns (things, stuff, someone) are almost equally present in our corpus. The main pragmatic function of these vague categories is to be used as an interactional strategy, to be deliberately vague, and protect the face of all participants (Hyland 2017). Example: (6) A: I believe this is the best plan for you because it combines all services in one bill.

C: That is, maybe, the best option, and what about…

However, as the conversation between the agent and the customer progressed, vagueness made room for more specific and concrete expressions in almost all instances, which gives the precise amount of information suitable to a given context: (7) A: This plan is a bit more expensive than the previous one, and you will have to sign a contract extension.

C: How much more expensive?

A: €1.9 with VAT and (interrupted) C: What’s the length of contract extension?

A: 24 months C: Hmm, I don’t know…

Other types of mitigating devices were much less frequent, but we will mention one more relational language feature which we find very interesting, and that is endearment. For the purposes of this paper, endearment is to be understood as an expression used in a dyadic and interactive context which speakers employ in order to remove almost all social distance and to emphasize one’s willingness to have a more intimate, shared communication ground. Even though participants do not need to use endearment in order to complete the transactional goals of language, some participants used this form of mitigation in order to employ this kind of situated politeness (Jucker–Smith–Ludge 2003, O’Keeffe 2006). How effective this and other mitigating strategies combined together can be in terms of getting the participants closer can be seen from the following examples: (8) C: Hello darling, I want to buy a new phone, but I don’t know which one.

A: I will be more than happy to assist you. Do you want to buy it for you or somebody else?

C: Lovely, that’s very kind of you. I want a new phone for myself.

A: We have this really nice model, and it is not expensive. … (explaining the features and other details) …

A: Would you please sign here. Thanks. (gives her the contract)

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A: Right, that is one hundred sixty-nine euros.

C: There you go. (gives him her credit card) A: Thanks! …

C: Thank you, darling!

A: (Gives her the phone) Have a lovely day!

C: Likewise, bye.

If we remove all mitigating devices (in bold) from this short conversation: (9) C: I want to buy a new phone, but I don’t know which one.

A: Do you want to buy it for you or somebody else?

C: I want a new phone for myself.

A: We have this model, and it is not expensive. … (explaining the features and other details) …

A: …sign here. (giving her the contract) A: That is one hundred sixty-nine euros.

C: (Gives him her credit card) A: (Gives her the phone) Thus, we get an exceptionally awkward or even rude conversation reduced to a bare minimum and devoid of any closeness and exceptionally self-distancing. This kind of conversation does nothing in terms of establishing and maintaining good relations with the other interlocutor, and that is the reason this manner of speaking is non-existent in our corpus, as almost invariably it would not accomplish anything.

The third very prominent mitigating device in our corpus is hedging. With this device, we will come full circle in terms of all mitigating devices since hedging can serve the purpose of introducing indirectness, politeness, vagueness, and approximation into one’s conversation. The term was coined by Lakoff in 1972 in order to describe a semantically-driven process whereby words, phrases, chunks, and expressions become vaguer than they would usually be. Ironically, hedging does not readily lend itself to any definition, and it encompasses a wide variety of different forms.

Table 1. List of examples of hedges in English found in our corpus Form Adverbs/Adjectives Agentless passive Concessive conjunctions Conditional subordinators Epistemic verbs Hedged performative

Example approximately, occasionally, generally Many customers were affected. though, while, whereas, even though assuming that, such as, given that to suggest, to seem, to appear use of modal as a hedged performative

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Form Example Impersonal pronouns one, it Indirect speech acts Could you check the PSTN, please?

Introductory phrases believe, it is our view that Modal adjectives likely, possible, probable Modal adverbs probably, practically, presumably Modal noun claim, assumption, suggestion Modal verbs can, could may, might Negative question with positive hedged Didn’t he already finished that? assertion Reversal tag isn’t she?

These structures usually operate as face-saving devices (Channell 1990); they indicate the degree of the interlocutor’s commitment to the truth value of his/her proposition (Markkanen–Schroder 1997) and serve as frequently used pragmatic markers. In our corpus, hedging was primarily used to exercise caution and prudence and as a rhetorical strategy. As in the text above, agents may be committed to truth-telling, but the current and/or objective circumstance may prevent them from fulfilling this commitment. This rhetoric strategy is usually employed when the issue a customer is complaining about is beyond the agent’s immediate control: (10) C: When can you fix the problem?

A: I presume we can close the ticket7 in less than two to three hours, but I will have to check that with our back office.

C: Can you, please, do that because…

Without hedging, the customer would get the impression that the agent is certain the matter would be resolved in two to three hours. If this was not resolved within this timeframe, the agent would be running the risk of having another dissatisfied customer. However, with the sentence above, the agent hedged his statement with a modal verb, which belongs to the most common category of hedges found in our corpus. The most common forms of hedges which we encountered while analysing our corpus were: modal verbs and verbs with modal meanings (52.3%), evaluative relative clauses (22.1%), restrictive adverbs (20.6%), syntactic choices pertaining to question forms (2%), stance adverbs (1%), false starts (1%), and others (1%). Thus, modal and modal-related structures were the most dominant forms of expressing a hedged context. These structures are usually expressed as these forms (examples from our corpus):

7

Agent’s jargon meaning “solve the problem”.

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Modalized questions: Could you, please, look at the rear side of your STB and locate an on-off switch?

Modalized statements: We should be able to transfer our number through a new service called Number Portability.

Modalized offers and volitional modality: Would you like me to find a personalized offer for you?

Weak illocutionary forces: I suspect the problem lies with interference, but let me check.

Hedging a speech act verb: What I can tell you is that the courier service will deliver the item during this week.

Tokens of politeness to the other participant: I hope we can agree this phone is better for you.

Questioning the completeness of the knowledge of weakening a statement: As far as I can see in our database, you are not eligible for a new phone until…

It is no surprise that modal verbs are the dominant force for carrying a more or less hedged meaning since, “even when modal forms convey speaker-external meanings, these are often given interpersonal significance by the particular context in which they appear, usually as part of a tentativeness strategy” (Preisler 1986).

This tentativeness strategy is very important for the agents, and this is why, during the new agent training process, particular emphasis is placed on two elements: how to sell a service or a device and how to be pragmatically competent. This means agents need to be ready to convey a message with all of its nuances to the customers of different socio-cultural backgrounds. This is where hedging becomes a convenient mitigating device which can be used to attenuate the full illocutionary force and the full semantic value of a particular word, phrase, or structure (Strauss–Parastou 2014, Paul Gee 2017). On the other side, customers have more liberty in terms of being more or less direct and polite, while agents usually do not have that freedom.

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6. Conclusions Through the abovementioned examples and analysis, we may safely conclude that agent-customer discourse is a very dynamic one. Agents need to deal with customers from different social backgrounds. Even the politest customer can become aggravated if they cannot get the service or device they desire. This is why agents need to know how to de-escalate potentially problematic situations by using different mitigating devices such as hedging, approximation, indirectness, vagueness, etc. Additional degree of unpredictability is brought about by an unusual situation in terms of discourse rights. Even though agents should be the prototypical power-role holders because they have the power to resolve the issue, procure a new device or service, a lot of customers are aware they can reverse these roles and take over some discourse rights. This is because if a customer is not satisfied, this may translate into less money for the company, which is an undesirable outcome.

This is why within the context of our corpus discourse rights were relatively equal in distribution, and ritual brackets (openings, leaving, greeting, small talk, leavetaking, and closings) were usually jointly negotiated. The main purpose of this kind of discourse collaboration and creation of shared ground was to establish and maintain a good relationship and to avoid any face-threatening situation. In the majority of cases, both agents and customers showed pragmatic, contextual, and situational awareness. Concepts of indirectness, vagueness, politeness, and hedging were challenged only when an already disgruntled customer would be additionally aggravated by the lack of service or some similar situation. The abovementioned examples come from a small and specialized corpus of communication taking place within a specific environment. This form of communication has its own set of rules, which would probably be lost if this collection of transcribed texts was a sub-corpus of a much larger corpus, which should be understood as a compelling case for using small specialized corpora.

Two-way mediated shop conversations are ultimately a form of negotiation. In this form of conversation, conciliatory behaviour is not a weakness but a strategy to find a mutually acceptable outcome. In order to achieve that, both customers and agents use different types of mitigating strategies which enable them to communicate effectively in a language. However, it is an exceptionally thin line between proper and improper decoding of mitigating devices or even a failure to understand them, which may lead to communication failure or miscommunication.

This is why the proper and contextually conscious use of mitigating devices can be considered a linguistic art. In our corpus, turns were not pre-allocated but tended to be short and often overlapping, where such overlapping literally supported the idea of the necessity to establish a common ground in order to have a more successful communication. Roles and goals were somewhat institutionalized and transactional in their nature, i.e. the main idea of the communication was to find

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more information about a specific problem or something similar, with an addition of other more affective elements which facilitate the communication process.

References Agar, M., 1983. Institutional discourse. Text 5(3): 147–168.

Brown, P.–Levinson, S. 1987. Politeness: Some universals in language use.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Channell, J. 1990. Precise and vague quantities in writings on economics. In: The writing scholar. Newbury Park: Sage. 95–117.

Cheepen, C. 2000. Small talk in service dialogs: The conversational aspects of transactional telephone talk. In: Small talk. London: Longman. 288–311.

Drew, P.–Heritage, J. 1992. Analyzing talk at work: An introduction. In: Drew, P.– Heritage, J. (eds.), Talk at work. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 3–65.

Drew, P.–Sorjonen, M.-L. 1997. Institutional dialogue. In: van Dijk, T. (ed.), Discourse studies. A multidisciplinary introduction. London: Sage. 92–118.

Goffman, E. 1959. The presentation of self in everyday life. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday.

Grainger, K.–Mills, S. 2016. Theoretical perspectives on indirectness. In: Directness and indirectness across cultures. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Hyland, K. 2017. Metadiscourse: What is it and where is it going? Journal of Pragmatics 113: 16–29.

Jucker, A. H.–Smith, S. W.–Ludge, T. 2003. Interactive aspects of vagueness in conversation. Journal of Pragmatics 35: 1737–1769.

Koester, A. 2010. Workplace discourse. London–New York: Continuum.

Lakoff, G. 1972. Hedges, a study in meaning criteria and the logic of fuzzy concepts.

Papers from the Eighth Regional Meeting, Chicago Linguistic Society. 183–228.

Lamerichs, J.–te Molder, H. 2011. Reflecting on your own talk: The discursive action method at work. Applied conversation analysis. Palgrave advances in linguistics.

London: Palgrave Macmillan. 184–206.

Markkanen, R.–Schroder, H. 1997. Hedging: A challenge for pragmatics and discourse analysis. In: Markkanen, R.–Schroder, H. (eds.), Hedging and discourse: Approaches to the analysis of a pragmatic phenomenon in academic texts.

Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. 3–20.

Maynard, D.–Schaeffer, N.–Freese, J. 2011. Improving response rates in telephone interviews. Applied conversation analysis. Palgrave advances in linguistics.

London: Palgrave Macmillan. 54–74.

O’Keeffe, A. 2006. Investigating media discourse. London: Routledge.

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Paul Gee, J. 2017. Introducing discourse analysis – From grammar to society.

Abingdon: Routledge.

Preisler, B. 1986. Linguistic sex roles in conversation: Social variation in the expression of tentativeness in English. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Strauss, S.–Parastou, F. 2014. Discourse analysis – Putting our worlds into words.

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Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Philologica, 12, 3 (2020) 120–137 DOI: 10.2478/ausp-2020-0027

The Treatment of Final Coda Consonants in the Acquisition of Romanian Phonology Elena BUJA

Department of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics Transilvania University of Braşov elena_buja@yahoo.com Abstract. Final consonant deletion has been attested in the acquisition of English (Johnson–Reimers 2010), Chinese (Hua 2002), Dutch (Fikkert 1994), Hebrew (Adi-Bensaid 2015), Spanish (Goldstein–Citron 2001), and Indonesian (Ulaimah et al. 2016). Previous studies on the acquisition of Romanian phonology (Buja 2015a, b) indicated an extremely low incidence of this phenomenon among the Romanian-speaking children. A possible explanation for it could be the inconsistency in collecting the data (child diaries and longitudinal corpora). By means of an experimental study, i.e. a picture-naming task, this paper aims to prove whether Romanian children do drop final coda consonants. The words describing the pictures presented to the children have a C1(-2)VC1 structure (e.g. drum ‘road, way’, cap ‘head’, nas ‘nose’). The subjects in this small-scale research study were nine monolingual Romanian children aged between 2 and 4 years, who were recorded by their parents. Their spontaneous or imitated productions of the target words were transcribed by using IPA. The results of the analysis confirm the predictions made in my previous study (Buja 2015b) – namely that final consonant deletion, a very frequent phonological process in the acquisition of various other languages, is not characteristic of the acquisition of Romanian phonology.

Keywords: phonological acquisition, phonological processes, final coda deletion, Romanian language

1. Introduction In order to be able to produce their first words and, later on, their first sentences, children need to be in command of the sounds in their mother tongues. But before they acquire the adult phonology, children go through a number of stages, in which the production of particular sounds is affected by various errors that may turn into patterns. By comparing these speech sound patterns in a number of languages, scholars realized that they are common to children exposed to different ambient

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languages and that they occur quite regularly to be considered as natural processes (Stampe 1973) or phonological processes (Ingram 1974). According to Ingram, these processes affect both the segmental level (assimilation and substitution) and the suprasegmental level of language (consonant cluster reduction, deletion of initial/ final consonants). “Phonological processes perpetuate tendencies present in the babbling that precedes the onset of meaningful speech, such as the tendency to use stops, nasals, and glides rather than other consonants, and the tendency to use CV syllables in preference to more complex syllables� (Bosma Smit 1993: 533).

Previous studies on the acquisition of Romanian phonology (Buja 2015a, b) have shown that Romanian-speaking children pattern in many respects with their peers acquiring English and Spanish in terms of the segmental processes, but that they very seldom delete the final consonants in words. A possible explanation for this finding could be the fact that the data employed in those studies were not very consistent in the sense that some data were excerpts from child diaries kept by parents (friends and colleagues of mine, who agreed to share information about the linguistic development of their children with me), while some others were taken from four longitudinal corpora which contained naturally occurring exchanges between the toddlers and their adult caretakers. In these exchanges/pieces of discourse, lexical items do not appear in their dictionary form but undergo various changes imposed by the grammar of Romanian (use of the definite article, which is enclitic in this language, use of suffixes indicating case, number, and gender of the nouns or adjectives, inflections indicating person, number, and tense of verbs, etc.). To counter this possible bias, the current study focuses only on the acquisition of final consonants in simple, monosyllabic words, which Romanianacquiring children aged between 2 and 4 years have to produce in a picture-naming task. I assume that having no linguistic context provided, my young subjects would produce the dictionary form of the words, enabling me to identify if they delete or preserve the final consonants in the target lexical items and if they indeed preserve the final consonantal sounds, whether these are uttered appropriately or are affected by individual simplification strategies.

The paper is structured as follows: the next section offers a brief overview of the studies on this phenomenon in other languages. Section 3 presents the research methodology (selection of the subjects, devising the picture-naming task, data collection, and transcription) as well as the research questions; the findings of the analysis are discussed in Section 4, while the last part of the paper presents some tentative conclusions.

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2. Literature review Studies on the acquisition of phonology have initially focused on English-speaking children (Moskowitz 1970, Smith 1973, Olmested 1971). Recently, a surge of interest in other languages has been noticed, scholars taking a look at the way in which children of other language backgrounds (Spanish – Goldstein 1995, Barlow 2005, Lléo 2009; Arabic – Owaida 2015; Tamil – Perumal 2019; Indonesian – Ulaimah– Wijayadi–Hamsia 2016; Malay – Phoon–Abdullah–Lee–Murugaiah 2014; Hindi – Kaur–Anand–Subbarao 2017, to mention just a few) acquire the phonology of their mother tongue. Many of these studies aimed at establishing the time of emergence of certain sounds and of mastery of the whole inventory by young children (Templin 1957), others focused on the order in which sounds were acquired (Olmsted 1971, Prather et al. 1975, Vihman et al. 1986), while many others considered the error patterns encountered in children’s production of sounds (Grunwell 1981, Bosma Smit 1993). One frequent error reported for children acquiring various languages is final coda deletion.

A study conducted on a group of 50 English-speaking children aged between 3 and 5 years by Haelsig and Madison (1986) showed that final consonant deletion is more frequent among the youngest children in the study and decreases by 50 percent in children aged 4 years. A somewhat different finding concerning the deletion of final consonants emerged from the research carried out by Stoel-Gammon and Dunn (1985), who reviewed a number of studies on phonological processes affecting the speech production of English-speaking children. Thus, the two scholars state that the deletion of final consonants comes to an end by age 3. Bosma Smit (1993) studied the consonant errors produced by 1,049 English-acquiring children with ages between 2 and 9 years as one-word responses in a picture-naming task. The results of the investigation showed that the younger subjects in the study frequently deleted wordfinal plosives and fricatives, this deletion applying 5–15% of the time. Apart from considering the consonant production of an extremely large number of children, this study has got additional merits in that the errors produced by children are typical of certain consonants and of a certain word position (initial, mid, or final). Moreover, Bosma Smit also classified the error types encountered in the data into typical and atypical depending on the frequency of their occurrence (atypical errors are the ones with a frequency between 1 and 4% in the total number of productions).

Kaur, Anand, and Subbarao (2017) investigated the phonological processes that 30 Hindi-speaking children made recourse to. The subjects’ age ranged between 3 and 4 years, and they were divided into two groups depending on whether they came from an urban or a rural area in New Delhi. Among the 25 identified phonological processes, the authors mention final consonant deletion.

A number of studies have been carried out on the acquisition of Tamil, the results indicating contradictory findings. Final consonant deletion has been reported by

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Venkatesh et al. (2010) for both monolingual Tamil-speaking children and for TamilTelugu bilinguals aged between 4 and 6;6 years, this process being less frequent in the monolingual subjects and eliminated by the age of 5. Other studies (Perumal et al. 2017) do not report on the occurrence of this phonological process, a reason being the fact that in the spoken form of Tamil “words always end with a neutral vowel, and never with a consonant” (Perumal et al. 2017: 318).

The process of globalization has brought along large waves of migrants and international marriages that resulted quite often in bilingual children. Thus, scholars in the field of child language acquisition took an interest in the phonological acquisition in bilingual children, trying to see if final coda deletion does occur and the extent to which this phonological process differs from that encountered in monolingual speakers. A number of studies compared the phonological skills of English-Spanish bilinguals to those of monolingual English speakers and monolingual Spanish speakers (Gildersleeve–Davis–Stubbe 1996, Goldstein–Washington 2001). In investigating the occurrence of phonological processes in 12 typically developing Spanish-English bilingual children aged 4, Goldstein and Washington (2001) identified that among the syllable structure processes the ones that occurred both in English and Spanish were final consonant deletion, cluster reduction, and deletion of unstressed syllables, final consonant deletion being the most common process in English, whereas in Spanish cluster reduction was predominant. Others compared the phonological system of Spanish-German bilinguals to those of monolingual Spanish and German speakers (Lléo–Kuchenbrandt–Kehoe–Trujillo 2003) or simply presented the phonological development of an Arabic-Englishacquiring bilingual child (Daana 2017). The latter study focused on the one-word production period (7 to 20 months) of the subject (the researcher’s own son) and revealed that the words produced by the child in an early stage had exclusively a CV syllable structure though in many cases the target word had a CVC form ([ba] < /bʌs/, [kæ] < /kæt/ (English) and [na:] < /na:m/ (‘slept’ – 3rd pers. sg.) or [ko:] </ko:l/ ‘eat’ (Arabic). A little later (though the author does not mention the exact age), the child starts producing closed monosyllabic words – more such words in English than in Arabic –, whose singleton codas were pronounced appropriately in most of the cases in both languages ([fav] < /faiv/, [pu:n] < /spu:n/, [hed] < /hed/ (English) and [na:m] < /nam/ ‘sleep’, [ba:b] < /ba:b/ ‘door’, [bat] < /kta:b/ ‘book’ (Arabic).

In investigating the phonological development of an English-Romanian bilingual child, Avram (2016) focused mainly on the processes that affect the consonants in onset position in both languages. Even if the article did not consider the phenomenon of final coda deletion, the examples provided by the Romanian scholar indicated that in an early stage (age 1;3) the subject deleted the final consonants in the English words ([pa:] for ‘park’), but a month later (1;4) he started producing the consonants in coda position appropriately, except for the lateral liquid: ([hʌn] ‘sun’, [pam] ‘come’, [thɔp] ‘stop’, [jed] ‘red’, or [kwi:n] ‘clean’).

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A general picture that emerges from the literature review is that children acquiring different languages show a tendency to delete final coda consonants, but there are differences related to the age when this process seems to come to an end. This and the results of a previous study of mine motivated me to find out how Romanianspeaking children handle final coda consonants, in an attempt to contribute with Romanian data to the growing database on the phonological development of children with various language backgrounds.

3. Research methodology 3.1. Material development In order to collect the data necessary for my study, a first step was to create a list of monosyllabic words with consonant codas, whose meanings should match the level of understanding of the youngest subjects in the study. To this aim, the website http:// speech-therapy.ca/index.php/ro/free-stuff-ro-menu/carte-1 proved extremely useful in that it provided words ending both in singletons and consonant clusters that can occur in Romanian. The list I have compiled comprises 38 words, whose codas cover 15 consonants. The number of lexical items containing a certain final consonant differed for two reasons: on the one hand, some consonants are very rare in coda position in Romanian. This is the case for /j/, which occurs in words of French origin (bej ‘beige’, ruj ‘lipstick’), or /h/ (duh ‘Holy Ghost’, şah ‘chess’). On the other hand, there are other consonants, which are licensed in coda position in Romanian, only that they do not appear in words that the majority of the toddlers are familiar with.

The second step was to search the Internet for coloured pictures corresponding to the words in the list. The photos were inserted in a table (four pictures on an A4 sheet), each with the word/words1 below them as in all cases the data were recorded by the children’s caretakers/parents, and they needed to have clues regarding the words they were to elicit from the children. The words were arranged in the table in such a way that no two lexical items ending in the same consonant should appear close to each other in order to ensure a high level of accuracy in the production of the final consonants. The pictures were presented to the children who were expected to produce the target words spontaneously, without any adult model. Nevertheless, in some situations, when the children were not familiar with the word, they were helped by their parents (and sometimes by their older siblings) to name them. The caretaker would utter a short sentence containing the target word, after which s/he would ask the child what the image represented or simply to repeat the word, an illustration of the elicitation task being given below.

1

In some situations, the pictures assessed two or more consonants (e.g. moş ‘old man’, sac ‘sack’ or tren ‘train’, fum ‘smoke’, coş ‘chimney/smokestack’).

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(1) Mo: Ce-i ăsta? ‘What’s this?’

Mara: Nu (ş)tiu. ‘I don’t know.’

Mo: Nu ştii ce e ăsta? Nu prea te lasă mama să umbli cu aşa ceva. Este un ac.

‘You don’t know what this is? Mommy does not let you handle something like this.

It is a needle.’

Mara: Este un ac? ‘It’s a needle?’

Mo: Da, cu care coasem. Coasem cu acul. ‘Yes, we sew with it. We sew with the needle.’

3.2. Participants The major problem I was confronted with was that of finding the subjects for the study. I have contacted the headmistress of one kindergarten in Braşov, whom I knew personally and to whom I explained the aim of my study and the reason why I needed access to the children in the institution she was running, but, much to my disappointment, she was not helpful at all, invoking the parents’ lack of consent in having their offspring used as subjects in a research. A second option was suggested to me by a former student of mine, the mother of a trilingual 2-year old son, namely a forum for mothers of young children – Mămici de pitici. As this is a closed group, she offered to place a message on the forum, explaining what I was looking for, but to no avail: not even one mother offered to help me. My last resort was to appeal to my former students and to relatives who I knew had young children. Thus, I contacted each and every one of them via e-mail, phone, or Facebook, explaining in great detail what I was after. From among 20 such persons who initially showed willingness to contribute with data from their children or grandchildren, only 8 proved to finally accomplish the picture-naming task with the toddlers, one of the adults recording both her own child and also the child of a friend, the total number of subjects in the study being 9. I take this opportunity to express my deepest gratitude for their help.2 Though my initial intention was to collect data from children under 2 years of age, I realized that at the age of 1;6, children have a restricted vocabulary and may not have the patience or willingness to complete the picture-naming task. Thus, I opted for 2 years as the lowest and 4 years as the highest limit of the age range for my subjects, the latter being the age when children of different linguistic backgrounds are reported to be over consonant error patterns.

The table below contains information about the children in the study. For ethical reasons, only the children’s given names are mentioned. All children come from a similar socio-economic background (middle-class families), their parents holding a BA or a master’s degree in various fields (humanities and economic sciences).

2

I am greatly indebted to the following persons, who jumped in to help me with data from their children: Paula Leonte, Anca Buja, Aurelia Lalău, Cătălina Urdea, Simona Luca, Delia Macaveiu, and Marius Neculai.

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Table 1. Data concerning the subjects in the study No 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Child’s name Mara Ciprian Ioana Maya Ana Vlad David Mihai Elena

Child’s age 2;1 3;0 3;3 3;5 3;10 3;10 3;11 3;11 4;0

Child’s gender F M F F F M M M F

Length of the recording 21 min 54 sec 5 min 46 sec 4 min 08 sec 7 min 41 sec 4 min 58 sec 4 min 34 sec 7 min 36 sec 11min 56 sec 9 min 55 sec

3.3. Data collection: Recording and transcription The speech samples were audio or video recorded in a single session for each child, the time span varying between 4:34 and 21:54 minutes. I received the recordings via WhatsApp and transcribed them phonetically. In order to increase the reliability of transcriptions, they were double-checked. As sometimes the subjects were not able to respond appropriately, they were provided with prompts and cues or were asked to repeat the word. Thus, an issue that needed to be clarified was what to consider a target coda. If the child pronounced spontaneously and correctly the final consonants, s/he would be assigned a score of 1; if the final singletons were omitted altogether, the score was 0, whereas if the coda was produced, but suffered ‘repair strategies’ (Jordão–Frota 2010: 2) or if the child produced the final consonants by repeating/imitating the adult model, a score of 0.5 was given. The first and the last categories were considered ‘produced codas’.

3.4. Data analysis Each of the final consonants was analysed using as many items as possible (see Table 2 below). The target words in the picture-naming task contained 15 coda singleton consonants, of which 11 obstruents (5 voiced: /b/, /d/, /g/, /v/, and /z/ and 6 voiceless: /p/, /t/, /k/, /s/, /ʃ/, and /ks/) and 4 sonorants (2 nasals: /m/ and /n/ and 2 liquids:/r/ and /l/).

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Table 2. Singleton codas: types and tokens

sonorants

obstruents

Classes of consonants

TOTAL

Consonants (types) p b t d k g v s z ş x /ks/ m n r l 15

No. if items tested (tokens) 3 1 3 1 7 1 1 4 1 3 1 3 4 2 3 38

3.5. Research questions Due to the fact that in comparison with the onset the coda position is weak, and thus not so prominent for the children to perceive and produce it properly, I assume that the subjects in my study will show a tendency of deleting the final consonants, just like their peers speaking other languages (English – Vihman 1996, Fikkert 1994; Spanish – Borràs-Comes–Prieto 2013). Derived from this hypothesis, the following research questions will be addressed: a) Do Romanian children delete final singleton codas and, if so, what type of final consonants are predominantly deleted by the subjects in the study? b) What repair strategies do Romanian-speaking children use for the coda consonants? c) To what extent do Romanian-speaking children pattern in the development of word codas with children acquiring other languages as their mother tongues? d) What are the factors that might explain the possible differences between the Romanian children and those acquiring other L1s?

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4. Findings and discussion The children in the present study showed both similarities and differences with respect to the production of the word-final consonants. The similarity consists in the fact that when they uttered the words corresponding to the pictures in the picturenaming task, either spontaneously or by repeating/imitating the adult model, all of them produced the final consonants (none of them deleted them).

Table 3. Overall picture of coda production by Romanian children Total of target words 38 Total of words produced spontaneously 236 (69%)

Total of children 9 Total of words repeating adult targets 85 (24.8%)

Total of words expected 342 Total of words that were not produced at all 21 (6.1%)

As the data in Table 3 show, apart from those instances in which the children failed to produce the elicited word either spontaneously or by repeating the adult model (6.1% of the total final coda productions in the corpus), final coda consonants are present in the speech of the Romanian-speaking children in the study, a finding which is in stark contradiction with the results obtained by scholars investigating other languages. There are a number of reasons that may explain why the Romanian children, unlike the subjects in studies on the acquisition of word-final codas in other languages, did not delete the consonants. a) One possible explanation would be that the subjects in this study are in a later phase of phonological development, when codas consisting of singletons are already in place. As shown in the study carried out on normally developing Hebrew-speaking children by Shaked (1990), final consonant deletion was encountered in children aged between 1;7 and 2;2 years, whereas the youngest subject in my study was already 2;1 years of age. Thus, a possible limitation of the current study resides in the fact that it may have missed an earlier period when Romanian children dropped the final codas. b) Since all the words in the picture-naming task were monosyllabic content words (35 nouns and 3 adjectives), which in conversation carry stress, I assume that this could be another reason why Romanian-speaking children preserve the final coda. This supports the findings of other scholars investigating the acquisition of languages such as Spanish (LlĂŠo 2003), Portuguese (Freitas et al. 2001), or English (Zamunerâ&#x20AC;&#x201C;Gerken 1998), who identified that children aged 2 tend to preserve final codas in the case of stressed syllables and delete them in unstressed syllables due to the fact that the former are more prominent acoustically in that they have a higher pitch, a longer duration, and a higher amplitude than the latter (Ladefoged 2011).

Thus, children perceive such syllables much better and also produced them more appropriately than the unstressed ones.

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c) A third factor that explains final coda preservation by Romanian children could be the adult input: parents often address young toddlers by using diminutives, and thus the latter tend to produce these forms of the nouns. Five of my subjects (Mara – 2;1, Ciprian – 3;0, Mihai – 3;11, David – 3;11, and Elena – 4;0) produced the diminutive forms of three nouns in the word list, namely pom – pomişor [promisor] ‘tree > little.tree’, ban – bănuţ ‘coin – little.coin’ and pat – pătuţ ‘bed – beddy’. The diminutive suffix -uţ (derived from the Latin -­ uceus, Iordan 1965: 311) will create a second syllable when attached to masculine or neuter target nouns, such that the final coda in the simple word will turn into the onset of the syllable containing the suffix: ban > bă.nuţ ‘coin’, pat > pă.tuţ ‘cot/bed’. The other diminutive suffix, -şor, requires the epenthesis of the vowel i to the root; this vocalic sound will constitute the nucleus of the second syllable of the derived word, whose onset will be the coda consonant of the simple form of the noun: pom + epenthetic i + - şor > po.mi.şor [pomiʃor] ‘little.tree’. d) One other explanation for the lack of final coda deletion in Romanian could be related to the articulated forms of the nouns. In Romanian, nouns appear with either a definite or an indefinite article. The indefinite article is employed when introducing an entity in the discourse, after which reference to it will be made by means of a noun accompanied by the definite article or by a pronominal form.

Four of the nine children who participated in the study produced the articulated forms of the nouns corresponding to the pictures in the elicitation task. Altogether, there were 12 cases of nouns accompanied by the definite article: focu(l) [fo.ku] ‘the.fire’ (Ciprian – 3;0 and Elena – 4;0), valu(l) [vʌ.lu] ‘the.wave’ (Ciprian – 3;0), trenu(l) [tre.nu] ‘the.train’(Ioana – 3;3 and Mihai – 3;11), ceru(l) [ʧe.ru] ‘the.sky’ (Elena – 4;0), calu(l) [kʌ.lu] ‘the.horse, renu(l) [re.nu] ‘the.reindeer’, and moşu(l) [mo.ʃu] ‘the.old.man’ (Ciprian – 3;0). In the case of one child (Elena – 4;0), I came across the plural form of val, i.e. valuri [vʌ.luri] ‘waves’. Both the enclitic definite article and the plural suffix create an additional syllable, the final consonant of the targeted monosyllabic word turning again into the onset of the syllable containing the definite article of the plural suffix: val > va.lul ‘the.wave’/ val > va.luri ‘waves’.

Mara (2;1), without being asked by her mother what the picture in front of her eyes represented, uttered: Uau, lacu(l)’! ‘Wow, the lake!’

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Table 4. Romanian children’s articulated noun forms3 Target word → Child↓ Mara 2;1 Ciprian 3;0 Elena 4;0 Ioana 3;3 Mihai 3;11

Val ‘wave’

Foc ‘fire’

Tren ‘train’

Cal Moş Cer ‘horse’ ‘old man’ ‘sky’

Ren Lac ‘reindeer’ ‘lake’ [la.ku]

[t∫e.ru] [va.lu] [fo.ku] [va.luri] [fo.ku]

[ka.lu] [mo.∫u]

[le.nu] [t∫e.ru]

[te.nu]1 [te.re.nu]

None of the children who employed the articulated nouns produced the final ‘l’ of the masculine/neuter article. An explanation for this could be the fact that the article is frequently dropped in adult speech, and the subjects may have imitated the adult input.

The parents of the children in the study were instructed that if the offspring did not produce the targeted word spontaneously, they should either provide them with a clue (Caretaker: Ce mănâncă câinele? ‘What does the dog eat?’ Un os ‘A bone’ = targeted word) or employ a forced-choice question (Caretaker: E căţelul slab sau gras? ‘Is the dog slim of fat?’ gras ‘fat’ = targeted word). When the child did not produce any response, the word was given a score of 0 and was not considered in the statistics. But there were also many situations in which the children did imitate, moreover correctly, the adult form. An important question that arises in connection with the elicitation by means of imitation is whether it yields similar results with the elicitation by means of pictures. Scholars seem to have different opinions concerning the two data collection procedures. Kay, Lesser, and Coltheart (1992) argued that the two methods of data collection would provide different results due to the fact that the imitation task involves more mental processing on behalf of the children to recognize the adult model. Other scholars found no differences between imitation and spontaneous picture naming (DuBois–Bernthal 1978), whereas still others (Johnson–Somers 1978) recommend that the imitation task should be avoided on the grounds that it does not provide an accurate picture of the child’s phonological skills as the two scholars have discovered that in imitated production the subjects in their study produced consonants more accurately than in spontaneous speech. Thus, the large number of final coda consonants in my corpus could also be due to the fact that oftentimes my subjects imitated the adult model.

3

The onset clusters will not be discussed in this paper, though it is interesting to see that while Ioana (3;3) dropped the rhotic liquid in trenul ‘the train’ > [ʹte.nu], Mihai (3;11) broke the onset cluster by inserting an epenthetic vowel that copies the vowel in the root, i.e. /e/: [te.ʹre.nu], his pronunciation of the target word being a homophone of the noun terenul ‘the land/ the ground’.

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4.1. Coda simplification/repair strategies Though the children in the study produced the final coda, this was not always adultlike. Each of the two groups of consonants (obstruents and sonorants) underwent different simplification/repair strategies.

A. Obstruents From among the obstruents, the plosives were the consonants that presented the highest number of allophones. Some of the children in the study aspirated the voiceless plosives, but not consistently so as to identify an individual pattern. Thus, the /p/ sound emerged under nine aspirated allophones in a total of 27 productions (3 words x 9 children) – approximately 30%; among the 27 cases of final /t/, 3 aspirated forms were encountered, representing 11%, while in the case of the final /k/ the aspirated allophones represented 5.5% of the total number of words (54) containing it. The aspiration of the voiceless plosives in coda position is considered

by Goad and Brannen (2003) to bring further evidence in favour of the idea that children first treat final consonants more as onsets than codas due to the fact that the release properties of these consonants are more similar to onset than to coda position in the syllable.

Another process encountered in the production of plosives is devoicing, which affected the voiced consonants. Thus, the word cuib ‘bird’s nest’ emerged as [kuip] five times, one of the productions being also accompanied by aspiration (Mara 2;1 > [kuiph]). Devoicing plus aspiration was also encountered in the case of Ciprian’s (3;3) production of the word steag ‘flag’ > [steakh].

In a number of cases, final voiceless consonants showed an even lower degree of sonority, the sounds having no audible release, as in Ciprian’s pronunciation of the word lac [lʌk˺] ‘lake’. In other situations, the Romanian-speaking children produced the voiceless velar plosive /k/ with a much higher degree of sonority, in the case of one subject (David – 3;11) this turning into an individual pattern.

In what concerns the fricative coda consonants, their production was clearer than that of the plosives. Of the 8 instances of the word mov ‘mauve’ (6 spontaneous and 2 imitated productions), only one showed devoicing (Ana – 3;10 [mof]). The dental fricatives /s/ and /z/ were fronted by two of the subjects, whose production of the words containing these sounds indicated a lisp (Ciprian – 3;0 and Mihai – 3;11), which was confirmed by their mothers. Thus, they produced ceas ‘watch’, os ‘bone’, and gras ‘fat’ with an interdental, voiceless fricative [θ]. Another child in the study produced only two of the four words ending in /s/ with the same interdental fricative (David – 3;11), the other two having the correct final coda. In a similar vein, two children (Vlad – 3;10 and Mihai – 3;11) replaced the voiced alveolar fricative /z/ with the voiced interdental fricative in the pronunciation of the adjective roz

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‘pink’: /roz/ > [roð]. The other fricative which was tested in coda position, i.e. /ʃ/, was affected by an opposite process, namely backing, the phonological process which involves the substitution of sounds produced in the front part of the oral cavity with the ones generated towards the back of the mouth. Three children in the study alternated between an anterior-palatal /ʃ/ and a retroflex articulation: Ioana 3;3 and David 3;11 – duş ‘shower’ /duʃ/ > [duʂ], Maya 3;5 – coş [koʃ] > [koʂ].

Fronting also affects the production of the coda affricate /ks/, rendered graphically as the letter x in pix ‘ball pen’. The second element of the affricate turns into an interdental voiceless fricative both in the children with a lisp and in the production of another subject, Vlad 3;10 – /piks/ > [pikθ]. The spontaneous production of the same word by Maya 3;5 was [pik], with the affricate [ks] being deaffricated to the voiceless stop [k]. After her mother provided her with the adult model, the girl uttered [pisk], her output being affected by metathesis, a process that makes two consonants within the same syllable switch place with each other.

B. Sonorants From among the sonorants that appeared in coda position, /m/ and /n/ showed a 100% correct production both in spontaneous and in imitated production. As for the final coda liquids, the lateral liquid was pronounced correctly by all the children, while the rhotic one was twice substituted by ‘l’ (cer ‘sky’ /ʧer/ > [θel], Ciprian 3;0 and măr ‘apple’ /mər/ >[məl], Ana 3;10), whereas in other two situations it underwent backing, i.e. its alveolar place of articulation was replaced by a velar one: măr ‘apple’ /mər/ >[məɣ] (ɣ = velar fricative).

5. Conclusions The analysis of the data obtained by means of the picture-naming task showed that the Romanian-acquiring children in the study do not avail themselves of the final coda deletion (RQ-a), as is the case of most of their peers speaking various other languages (English or Spanish, for example). Strong support for the lack of this particular phonological process in the corpus is the type of input provided by adults in child-directed speech. On the one hand, caretakers use nouns with the definite article more often than with (or without) the indefinite article when they refer to various referents in the child’s environment. Thus, when the definite article for the masculine and neuter gender -l is attached at the end of a root with a C1-(2)VC1 structure, it triggers the epenthesis of the vowel sound ­u, which creates a second syllable whose onset is the coda singleton in the simple root:

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C1-(2)VC1 + u (epenthetic vowel) + l (definite masc. article) > C1-(2)V.C1ul The same phenomenon occurs when diminutive suffixes, very frequently employed in motherese, are attached to the nouns (RQ-d).

Nevertheless, we cannot state that Romanian-speaking children show mastery in producing final coda consonants as these are sometimes affected by other processes such as fronting, backing, or devoicing (RQ-b).

Thus, the results of the present study do not seem to support the common tendency of final consonant deletion reported for a large number of languages. In terms of final coda deletion, Romanian seems to pattern with Arabic (Owaida 2015), where the phonological process was identified to apply 5–15% of the time, the word-final consonants being produced correctly more often than those in initial or medial position (RQ-c).

6. Limitations of the study and avenues for further research As mentioned previously, one possible reason for the lack of final consonant deletion in the corpus under investigation could be that the lowest age of my subjects (2;10) exceeds the age when English- and Hebrew-speaking children were reported to omit coda singletons (Adi-Bensaid 2015, Ingram 1974).

Another limitation of the study could be the fact that the word list I produced for the elicitation task was not tested in order to see the extent to which the youngest children were familiar with them. As the results showed, some of the children did not produce the expected response, not even after their caretakers had provided them with the adult model which the subjects were asked to imitate (altogether, there were 21 such cases out of a total of 342 expected productions). At the same time, the study was not genuinely cross-sectional as there were more children above the age of 3 than below this age. Consequently, in order to confirm or contradict the findings of the present study, it would be good to investigate a higher number of children, who should be equally distributed in age sub-groups that should contain, as much as possible, an equal number of girls and boys. Additionally, it would be advisable to pre-test the word list for the picture identification task and to select as stimuli only those items that children are familiar with in order to avoid including in the analysis the imitated productions as, according to Templin (1957), there might be a difference in the children’s articulatory ability when the word is produced spontaneously and when it is repeated after the examiner or caretaker.

Along the same line of reasoning, some scholars (Faircloth–Faircloth 1970, qtd. in Owaida 2015: 38–39) opine that “the correct production of a sound in a singleword elicitation task may not provide solid evidence in favour of a child’s ability

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to also produce the sound in natural speech conditions”. Others contradict this idea by stating that studies based on the production of single words in picturenaming tasks may provide more accurate information concerning the phonological acquisition. Thus, it would probably be useful to combine these two methods of speech elicitation.

Finally, for a higher reliability of transcription, a second specialist in phonetics should check whether the main investigator has misheard or mistranscribed certain pronunciations as children were recorded in various environments (in the park, in the churchyard, and mainly at home) where the background noise sometimes interfered with the child’s production of the target words.

References Adi-Bensaid, Limor. 2015. The role of prominence and position in the acquisition of codas in the speech of hearing-impaired children. In: Bat-El, Outi (ed.), The acquisition of Hebrew phonology and morphology. Leiden–Boston: Brill. 102– 117.

Avram, Andrei A. 2016. Issues on the acquisition of phonology by an EnglishRomanian bilingual child. Bucharest Working Papers in Linguistics XVIII/1.

Bucharest: Editura Universităţii din Bucureşti.

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Buja, Elena. 2015a. Phonological development in Romanian monolingual children.

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2015b. Syllable structure processes in child Romanian. East European and Balkan Studies 39(6): 1–29.

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Syllable final consonants in Spanish and German monolingual and bilingual acquisition. In: Muller, Natascha (ed.), (In)vulnerable domains in multilingualism.

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Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Philologica, 12, 3 (2020) 138â&#x20AC;&#x201C;154 DOI: 10.2478/ausp-2020-0028

Hungarian Dialectology. From the Beginnings until the Division of Hungary (1920) Csaba Attila BOTH

Doctoral School of Hungarology Studies BabeĹ&#x;â&#x20AC;&#x201C;Bolyai University, Faculty of Letters bothcsabaattila@gmail.com Abstract. Dialect islands in Hungarian dialectology have been a marginalized segment of research. Although the very first observations on different Hungarian dialects appeared in the 17th century, a systematic and detailed monographic description of Hungarian dialect islands in the Carpathian Basin has not been published yet. As we can conclude, several important historical events happened, institutions and researchers emerged. All of them had a significant impact on this research area, and based on their emergence the research history of Hungarian dialect islands can be divided into different periods. With regard to the research history of Hungarian dialect islands in Romania, a research was conducted in 2019. The results showed that the research history of these islands cannot be understood without an adequate global image of the history of the Hungarian dialectology. Thus, the present article gives a general historical overview of the research on Hungarian dialects from the beginnings up until 1920, when, following the Treaty of Trianon, the Hungarian nation was divided into five different parts.

Keywords: Hungarian dialectology, dialect island, research history, Transylvanian dialectology

1. Introduction The activities (fieldwork, research, publishing) belonging to the field of dialectology fall into two major groups. One group consists of works and studies that focus on the linguistic material and thus on the use of the language itself as well as on the linguistic system. Dialectology (mainly before the appearance of the geolinguistic method but following its appearance as well) comprises such research: registers of linguistic data of the folk language, shorter publications about interesting dialectological features, and possibly small monographs on dialects. The common point of the works of the second group is the fact that the linguistic data themselves become tools in order to achieve the goal of the research. Here we refer to situations

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where the linguistic material is a tool which helps to answer basic questions of the research – for example, research on dialect typology, isoglosses, or, more recently, dialectometric methods, which also pertain to this group, and so does research on dialect islands as it is, in fact, typological research. It is precisely the character of the dialect island that differs to a greater extent in one or more typological features from the dialect of the larger area in which it is embedded.

The research behind the present article had its focus only on the Hungarian dialect islands in Romania, but we cannot pretend that they have only been investigated since they became “Romanian”. The Trianon Treaty put an end to the First World War a hundred years ago, and, as a result, the Hungarian language area and nation (with all of its institutional systems) was divided. Nevertheless, on the one hand, the roots of scientific research are common since the beginnings date back to earlier than the 1920s, and, on the other hand, the main directions of research in this field have still been determined by science schools in Hungary, both theoretically and methodologically, allowing appropriate freedom and openness to research centres and universities that are now reaching across.

Therefore, in the light of the above-stated facts, I do consider it relevant for the topic to look at the history of dialect research concerning the Hungarian beginnings.

The more elaborated methodological roots of such research in Hungarian linguistics are likely to be looked for in German linguistics,1 but the influence of the French language atlas was also extremely significant. In the age of Humanism and Reformation, questions of origin came to the fore. It was in this era that Transylvanian Saxons also became the focus of German intellectuals.

It is also important to note that there was a geopolitical reason for the increased interest in dialects (especially in geolinguistic atlases). By the beginning of the 20th century, the ideology of nationalism had slowly ripened only to culminate in conflict (World War I). And the nation is the people, the people who use a certain language. It is no wonder then that the contemporary powers considered it worthwhile supporting the works of geolinguistics; thus, they could also provide tools for the argumentation of their own ideology (i.e. the forerunner of the nation, its geographical extent).

2. Periods of research on the Hungarian eastern dialects As far as Hungarian dialectology is concerned, no work has yet been published that provides a detailed and systematic overview of the history of this discipline. However, several articles2 were published in the past that referred to the necessity of research 1 2

See Nagy 1984.

See Erdélyi 1904, 1905a, 1905b; Bárczi 1955; Márton 1973; Imre 1971, 1978; Szabó J. 1990: 13–25; Szabó Z. 1993; Bakó 1994; Cs. Nagy 2007.

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on Hungarian dialects. Therefore, it is but natural that the starting point of these texts is an overview of the major dialectological works that had been completed by that time, usually ending in highlighting deficiencies. Moreover, the authors pointed out the urgent need to fill in these deficiencies and outlined new directions for research. In Hungarian dialectological literature, there is no publication dealing with the historical aspects of the discipline without highlighting the facts that Hungarian dialect research is generally lagging behind European trends and that Hungarian researchers are still struggling to answer those questions for Hungarian dialects for which German, French, English, American, etc. dialectology has long responded.

I do not intend to carry out this kind of systematic review of the history of research in my article. However, in order to be able to have an appropriate overview of the history of research on Hungarian dialect islands in Romania – which is part of the dialect research, not a separate discipline –, it is necessary to embed it in the history of dialectological research. As it does not refer to Hungarian dialects comprehensively but only to the ones spoken on politically and administratively marked areas on the current territory of Romania, which at the same time are largely distinct geographically, historical references are essential.

At this point, there may be a concern regarding division in periods, and it refers to the aspects of the period that is the basis on which the researcher decides where to draw the boundary between two periods. Depending on the nature of their subject, the various periods can be very accurate but also arbitrary. For example, in the history of the Hungarian language, Jenő Kiss describes the period limited to historical events with the most important consequences for linguistic changes (Kiss 2018: 43–44). The periodization in this research is based on the divisions marked by predecessors and may coincide with them at some points. The basis of this periodization relies mainly on important micro-historical events, important personalities, and significant paradigm or methodological changes.

2.1. The beginnings of popular language research (1645–1872) We can name the first major period of Hungarian dialect research the beginnings of popular language research. In our interpretation, this period dates from the year 1645, when István Geleji Katona published his Magyar Gramatikatska towards the end of the age of language reform, when the Magyar Nyelvőr journal appeared in 1872.

Samu Imre affirmed: “what happened in our country was almost a literal recurrence of what had happened abroad”.3 We can agree with him since the beginnings of Hungarian dialect research covering almost 230 years are very similar to those of German collections of dialectological peculiarities. It were the authors 3

„Ami nálunk történt, az szinte szó szerinti ismétlődése volt a külföldön történteknek” (Imre 1971: 7). All Hungarian citations were translated by the author. The original Hungarian texts are presented in their original orthographic rules.

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of the texts describing the Hungarian nation and language that first dealt with the linguistic features of certain Hungarian ethnic groups (especially the Székelys,4 who had already been perceptualized as some kind of linguistic island and whose dialect was different to a greater extent from the other Hungarian dialects). Works from a later period might be considered to be dialectological as they comprise collections of idioms and later on the description of dialects as well.

This period can be divided into two smaller periods: we can name the first one as observations regarding folk language before the language reform whereas the second one as research of folk language during the language reform. I consider that the Marczibányi reward issue5 organized by the Magyar Nemzeti Múzeum6 in 1818 marked the boundary line between them. The importance of this event lies in the fact that it made possible for the thinkers of the period to confer and have regular discussions about the existence and nature of Hungarian dialects and their typological description.

2.1.1. Observations regarding popular language before the language reform (1645–1818) According to Lajos Erdélyi, it should not be surprising that our scholars were interested in our dialects in the past even though they showed real interest in dialects only when they turned towards the popular culture, that is, at the beginning of the 19th century.7 István Geleji Katona was one of the earliest of these scholars. In his Magyar Grammatikatska (1645), he commented on the different ways of how vowels were pronounced in certain dialects. He specifically mentioned the Székelys, and he stated that the Székelys were genuine descendants of the old Scythian Hungarians (Geleji Katona 1645: 32). In his writings about the Székelys, István Szamosközy, Transylvanian humanist of the 20th century, made several comments on their language and pronunciation. Similarly, Antal Maginus drew attention to the diversity of the Székelys in his Geographia. In his work Hungaria, Miklós Oláh names the Székelys, Cumans,8 and Jazis9 as nations different from the Hungarians. Dávid Baróti Szabó’s writings, namely Kisded Szótár and Magyarság virago, contained many words of Transylvanian and Székely origin (Erdélyi 1905a: 292–294).

4 5

6 7

8 9

Known also as Seklers or Szeklers.

We could interpret the Marczibányi reward issue (Marczibányi jutalomkérdések) as a research grant. It was organized by the Hungarian National Museum in order to ask the thinkers of the era to present their views on the status of Hungarian dialects.

Hungarian National Museum. „Nem csodálhatjuk, ha nyelvjárásaink iránt már a régibb múltban is érdeklődtek tudósaink s mások is, noha az igazi érdeklődés csak azóta fordult feléjük is, a mióta a nép felé, t. i. a XIX. század eleje óta” (Erdélyi 1905a: 292).

Kunok.

Jászok.

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We should also mention the Erdélyi Magyar Nyelvmívelő Társaság10 founded

by György Aranka in 1791, who was Ferenc Kazinczy’s11 correspondent during the language reform. Thus, it is not surprising that during the Enlightenment the Társaság, with its popular language research, took part in the language reform.12

2.1.2. Research of popular language in the age of language reform (1818–1872) In Erdélyi’s view, a more conscious turn to the language of the people was brought about by the age of language reform, when scholars focused on how the Hungarian language could be enriched. József Kassai noted that “S. (Scientist) Mr József Márton, who published a German and a Hungarian–German Dictionary in Vienna in 1807, started to record which words had Transylvanian or Székely origins and which were Hungarian words, more precisely, which word was used in the area where the Tisza or the Danube Rivers flow”.13 Between 1799 and 1800, Kassai also completed a collection of popular languages to expand the corpus of his dictionary.

References to local idioms (some of them spoken by Székelys, others occurring in Szeged, Vas, and Somogy counties as well as in Bodrogköz) were also published in the Tudományos Gyűjtemény journal. Reflections are made on the pronunciation encountered in certain regions (Erdélyi 1905a: 295).

King Francis I of Hungary had the second Ratio Educationis published on 4 November 1806, which gave greater prominence to the teaching of the Hungarian language and history. Thus, this law “has relit the fire in our Hungarians, and, beyond private scholars and language-cultivating societies, even counties have united in order to fill in deficiencies”.14 In response to this law and the ever-expanding need for the Hungarian language to gain space, between 1815 and 1817, the Magyar Nemzeti Múzeum formulated four groups of questions about the Hungarian language (Marczibányi reward issue): 1. What is dialect in grammatical terms? Do dialects exist in the Hungarian language: If so, which are they? How are they different? How can they enrich the Hungarian language? 2. What scientific rules should be used to enrich the Hungarian language with new words and phrases? 3. What would be the best way to create a perfect 10 11 12 13

14

Transylvanian Society for the Cultivation of the Hungarian Language.

Ferenc Kazinczy: leading figure of the Hungarian language reform.

For more on the activity of György Aranka and the Erdélyi Magyar Nyelvmívelő Társaság, see: Benkő 1994.

“T. (Tudós) Márton József úr, a ki német és magyar-német Szókönyvet bocsátott közre Bétsben 1807-dikbenn, kezdé Szókönyvében imitt-amott feljegyezni, meljik légyen Erdélyi, vagy Székely szó; meljik magyarországi, úgy mint a Tisza melléki vagy Duna melléki szó” (Kassai Magyardiák Szókönyve I. csomó, qtd. by Erdélyi 1905a: 295). „[…] ujj tüzet adott Magyarainkba, és már most a’ meg lehető fogyatkozások pótlásokra, még a’ Vármegyék is egyesítették magokat egymással, a’ magánok Tudósokon és nyelvmivelő Társaságokon kívül” (Gáti 1821: 5).

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Hungarian lexicon? Should it cover the archaic elements of the Hungarian language and its provincial words and phrases or the Hungarian dialects? Which is the shortest and the most appropriate way to achieve all this? 4. How could Hungarian spelling be based on philosophical principles rather than opposing habits and arbitrary opinions? (Gáti 1821: 5–6).

The answers to these questions were published in several volumes by István Horváth in 1821. Published in 1815, the first volume comprises Ádám Palóczi Horváth’s work entitled A’ Magyar Nyelv’ Dialectusairól. It presents the reader with his views on Hungarian dialects expressed in question-answer form. Based on Greek traditions, Palóczi paralleled the research and possible grouping of Hungarian folk language with the interpretation and system of Greek dialectology. Against this background, we now see the methodological viewpoint according to which writing and pronunciation, as well as “origin”, are the most important issues.

The author identified two major varieties of Hungarian dialects and their smaller territorial variants. In his opinion, one of the main variants had harsher sounding (Danube), whereas the other variant sounded more softly (Tisza). The boundaries were located between the Danube and the Tisza rivers, and he also noticed the fact that they were not sharply separated but overlapping. He identified the two main dialects on the basis of such phenomena as the pronunciation of the l [l] consonant or the pronunciation of ö [ø] (which is pronounced like a certain e [ɛ]).

The following subtypes of the Tisza dialect were defined as being spoken in smaller areas: in Trans-Tisza, Hegyalja, Pataki, and Tótos counties; the subdivisions of the Danubian dialect occur in counties closer to the Danube: the region of Somogy, Baranya, Ormánság with Okor region, most of Vas and Zala counties, especially the region of Götsej and Kerka, further on, the region of Palócs and the region of Gyöngyös (Palóczi Horváth 1821: 56).

At the same time, Palóczi drew attention to a desirable attitude that appears only in the modern sociolinguistics, and it refers to the equivalence of dialects (Palóczi Horváth 1821: 74).

In the second volume, István Gáti’s work entitled Elmélkedés a’ magyar dialectusról, lexiconról, és helyes írásról was published. For us, the most important part of this work is the attempt to complete a typological classification of dialects.

Gáti’s classification differed somewhat from that of Palóczi. He claimed that there were two main dialects, one for the literate ‘írástudók’ and one for the illiterate ‘írástudatlanok’. Furthermore, he distinguished two subtypes of the main dialect of the literate: the one spoken in the Tiszta region and the other one which was spoken in the Duna district. This is most often the language of the Catholics, while the other one is that of the Protestants.15

15

„Tisza-mellyéki és Duna mellyéki. Ezt többnyire a’ Catholicusok, Amazt a’ Protestánsok követik” (Gáti 1821:15).

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As for the other main dialect type, the one for the illiterate, Gáti said that the number of dialects spoken by common people in the Hungarian homeland is nearly as large as the number of the counties.16 Nevertheless, he highlighted four of them, which he considered most famous: 1) Highlander, or Danubian dialect; 2) the Great Plain, or the Tisza dialect; 3) the Görgői Balog Valley dialect in the Northern parts; and 4) the Székely dialect in Transylvania (Gáti 1821: 18).

István Gáti’s classification is extremely interesting from a modern viewpoint since he took into account social factors that are beyond geographical classification and will be considered by the research of living language as decisive factors (education, religion) only much later.

The previously mentioned Marczibányi questions formulated by the Magyar Nemzeti Múzeum, but most of the works published in response to them (Horváth Palóczi, Gáti) as well as Fábián Szeder’s work on the Palócs (1819), paved the way for the forthcoming collections of folk language (Erdélyi 1905a: 296).

In his work entitled Némely vélekedések a magyar nyelv ügyében, published in Szeged in 1825, József Nátly mentioned idioms occurring in the Tisza dialect. Two volumes of Ferencz Kresznerics’s book, Magyar szótár gyökrenddel és deákozattal, published in Buda between 1831 and 1832, and the work entitled Származtató és gyökerésző magyar-diák szókönyv by József Kassai, published in Pest between 1833 and 1835, contain a lot of interesting folklore data. As a result of the rise of Romanticism on the national level, as Károly Kisfaludy and his followers embraced the use of folk elements, they inspired and supported folk research. Tudományos Gyűjtemény published the works of István Horváth as follows: A jászokról, mint magyar nyelvű népről és nyilazókról (1829), A jász nemzet nyelvéről (1833), A székely nemzet nyelvéről (1834), and A palóc nemzet nyelvéről (1834). Moldavian Hungarians17 also appeared in the discourse in Elek P. Gegő’s work A moldvai magyar telepekről (P. Gegő 1838), in which he accounted for his journey through Transylvania, with a thorough description of the local people. Magyar Tudományos Akadémia18 and Kisfaludy Társaság19 were founded in the 1830s, and eight years later they published Magyar Tájszótár. In 1843, János Erdélyi was entrusted with collecting folk traditions (Erdélyi 1905a: 298). It was then that collecting folk traditions, poetry, songs, and ballads began to unfold; by then, János Kriza had already announced a subscription to support his collection Vadrózsák. It was published much later in Kolozsvár in 1863, with the support of Count Imre Mikó.

The issue of the origin of the Saxons, which was slowly unfolding in German linguistics at the time, made Hungarian researchers take a deeper interest in 16 17 18 19

„a’ köznép dialectusa a’ magyar Hazában tsak nem annyi, mint a’ Vármegyék száma” (Gáti 1821: 18).

Also named Csángós.

Hungarian Academy of Sciences.

Kisfaludy Society.

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the origin of the Székelys (Szabó J. 1990: 17). Such an example is József Vass’s work published in 1860, in which he seemed to describe the dialect spoken on Transdanubian areas, concluding that the language of the Székelys and that of the people of Göcsej must be similar due to their common roots (Vass 1860: 65).

In his work, he thoroughly examined all kinds of linguistic phenomena in the Transdanubian dialect, but comparisons with the Székely dialect were missing.

Nevertheless, Vass’s writing is one of the first Hungarian-related texts in the Hungarian language to support a certain issue based on linguistic data that would somewhat explain the origin of the population and would interpret the history of their settlement.

By the end of the 1850s, partly under the influence of foreign linguistics, Hungarian linguistics had begun to be institutionalized in the form of specialized journals. The publishing of Magyar Nyelvészet, edited by Pál Hunfalvy, began in 1856. The journal changed its name to Nyelvtudományi Közlemények in the 1860s, and it is being published with this new name. In the beginning of the 1870s, another journal, Magyar Nyelvőr was released, which meant the opening of a new period in Hungarian dialect research (Erdélyi 1905a: 298–299).

2.2. From the beginnings of Magyar Nyelvőr to the Treaty of Trianon (1872–1920) 2.2.1. From the beginnings of Magyar Nyelvőr until the foundation of Magyar Nyelvtudományi Társaság (1872–1904) It was the release of Magyar Nyelvőr that marked the emergence of the institutionalized form of Hungarian dialect research. The journal provided a constant space for reflection on Hungarian dialects, the articles published in it received more publicity, and the so-called professional control also came into being as the articles received for publication were reviewed by the editorial staff and were at times criticized. According to Géza Bárczi, “what we know about our dialects today is due to the hard work of a collection of this era. The results were so rich that the second Magyar Tájszótár (József Szinnyei 1893–1901) as well as the first scholarly synthesis (József Balassa: A magyar nyelvjárások osztályozása, 1891) could be completed”.20 However, Magyar Nyelvőr was not the only journal in which writings about folk language could be published. We will see that Ethnographia also played an 20

„[…] amit ma nyelvjárásainkról tudunk, annak igen jelentős részét e korszak szorgalmas gyűjtőmunkájának köszönhetjük. Az eredmények oly gazdagra gyűltek, hogy a tudományos színvonalon álló második Magyar Tájszótár (Szinnyei József, 1893–1901), sőt az első igényes szintézis is (Balassa József, A magyar nyelvjárások osztályozása, 1891) létrejöhetett” (Bárczi 1955: 60) – highlighted in the original.

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important role in publishing works on Hungarian dialects, while more extensive writings continued to be published in Nyelvészeti Füzetek as well as on the pages of the Erdélyi Múzeum journal. This period of almost fifty years is also important because it was in this era that the elementary foundations of systematic and methodical research of Hungarian dialects were laid. The Hungarian nation lived on one political territory, and researchers had not yet encountered obstacles that influenced the institutional, personal, material, and ideological background of the research, which later on took place within the framework of minority relations. By the end of the period, Hungarian dialectology had also reached, although largely on a theoretical level, an important methodological milestone that had already been passed by the Germans, the French, and others for over half a century – namely, the idea of a Hungarian language atlas.

In Hungarian linguistics, the popular-national tendency began to be felt strongly, just as in other areas of Europe. In addition to the aforementioned Magyar Nyelvészet and Nyelvtudományi Közlemények, in January 1872, a linguistic journal entitled Magyar Nyelvőr was released by Gábor Szarvas. Several articles on dialect and folk heritage descriptions were published in it, which, from today’s perspective, might be considered bulky and more or less lacking scientific accuracy, but in the context of the age they did not lag behind the European standard of that time. The great majority of József Balassa’s works, János Steuer’s papers and maps presenting the Székely sound system, Antal Horger’s writings on Székelyland and the Csángó population of Hétfalu, Károly Haag’s papers on dialect mapping, which were published in translation and in which he called for a direct method instead of the indirect one used until then, were all published in Magyar Nyelvőr.21 There is also a need for the historical interpretation of dialects; in 1898, József Balassa discussed the emergence of Hungarian dialects in the ninth edition of Ethnographia, entitled A magyar nyelvjárások keletkezése. In these publications, Balassa listed the dialectal regions and provided plenty of historical data about population and settlement, thus attempting to convey an explanation of how dialects had reached their contemporary state (Balassa 1898a, 1898b, 1898c).

The aforementioned issue of the Székely origin kept on remaining in the focus.

The first pages of the first year of Ethnographia presented an interesting debate between Géza Nagy (1890), László Réthy (1890), Károly Tagányi (1890), and József Balassa (1890). There is no space here for the content of the articles to debate in detail, but it should be noted that, although the authors tried to explain the origins of the Székelys in different ways, each of them had made some kind of reference to the language. This is an important confirmation of what has long been established in linguistics – namely that the study of dialects provides strong arguments for settlement and population history. In the same line, it is worth 21

For other important dialectological works published in Nyelvőr and other interfaces until 1905, see: Erdélyi 1905a: 300–301.

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mentioning Balassa’s study, which, in its method and presentation, foreshadowed the appearance of a major paper published a year later, entitled A magyar nyelvjárások osztályozása és jellemzése.

There is an extensive introduction to his work, largely reviewing all the linguistic and non-linguistic factors to consider when applying classification. It approaches the issue from a historical perspective as it sought to follow the history of the Conquest,22 settlement, resettlement, and migration of the Hungarians, constantly referring to the linguistic consequences of these events. Furthermore, Balassa overviewed the perspective of the emergence of new dialects. He states that a new dialect could be created through self-development, under the influence of a foreign language, and if new settlers took up the Hungarian language during the process of language shift (Balassa 1891: 1–8).

According to László Deme, Balassa developed Simonyi’s classification based on the phenomenon of closed ë [e]. However, it was a novelty that he viewed certain individual dialects as independent systems (Deme 1953: 18).

In his paper dating from 1891, Balassa drew attention to the existence of different languages and dialects: The Hungarian-speaking area still lies in the centre of the country, while the frontiers are inhabited by foreigners, except for the south-eastern border of Transylvania. South of the Danube at the western border, Germans and Wends live only on narrow strips, and the entire area between the Danube and Drava is inhabited by Hungarians; In Transdanubia and in the south, there are some Wend islands and in the north some Slovak ones. Across the Drava River, there are Croatians, we can find only a few Hungarian-speaking villages that are scattered in the area, real Hungarian islands amongst the Croatian population. Lately, many Hungarians have been migrating again, they cross the Drava and settle in Croatian villages.23 The population of Pest County is Hungarian, only a few Slovak islands are scattered amongst them, and on the south-western border of Bács County, there is a smaller German community. [...] To the south of Maros, we find only scattered Hungarian islands, the majority of the population is Wallachian, 22 23

Hungarian Conquest of the Carpathian Basin. „A magyar nyelvterület ma is az ország közepét foglalja el, míg a határszéleket – Erdély délkeleti határának kivételével – idegenek lakják. A Dunától délre a nyugati határszélen csak keskeny szalagon laknak németek és vendek, ezen kívül a Duna és Dráva közé eső egész területet magyarok lakják, s csak kevéssé szaggatják meg kisebb német területek, délen Baranya és Tolna megyében és északabbra Veszprém, Fehér megyékben és Pest megye dunántúli részében, ezen kívül délen még néhány vend, északon pedig néhány tót sziget. A Dráván túl a horvát lakosság, s csak elszórva találunk Horvátországban néhány teljesen magyar ajkú falut, valóságos magyar szigeteket a horvát népesség között. A legújabb időkben ismét sok magyar vándorol át a Dráván, s telepszik le a horvát falvakban” (Balassa 1891: 2).

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German, and Serbian. The Hungarian population of the Great Plain is only cut into here and there by Slovak communities, but in the north, Gomor, Abaúj, and Zemplén counties are confined by Slovaks and Saxons, whereas in Ung, Bereg, and Máramaros Ruthenians set boundaries. In the east by Arad, Bihar, and Szatmár counties, Valahians cut in the Hungarian mass. In Szatmár and Zilah counties, the Hungarian population appears as larger islands amongst Wallachians; we see the same thing in the western counties of Transylvania, and it is Székelyland where we can find a coherent Hungarian language area extending to the border of the country. There are very few Hungarianspeaking areas beyond the borders of Hungary; Hungarian emigrants rarely preserve their language unless they emigrate in masses. Such Hungarian emigrants, called Csángós, are found in Moldova along the river Szeret and in some villages on the eastern border of Bukovina.24 Following Balassa’s writings, József Pápay, in his shorter publication, showed that Kocs is a dialect: “In the Upper Transdanubian dialect, I think this is a unique place, an island indeed. Its language clearly indicates the nationality of the inhabitants.

The way they pronounce the sound ö [ø] proves that they have broken out of the Great Plain and migrated from there to their present place of residence”.25 “Examining the dialectal features of this settlement, we are certain to say that the settlers were Hungarians from the Great Plains. [...] It is almost certain that the majority of the population of this place settled here from Kiskunság”.26 As our topic requires it, we need to mention some works from the early 1900s that are directly related to the research history of dialect islands. Such an example is Sándor Nagy’s work on the folk language spoken in Vác, published in 1903, as the author provided historical details of the settlement and of the settlers, whose original 24

25

26

„Pest megye lakossága magyar, csak néhány tót sziget tarkázza, és délnyugaton Bács megye határán van egy kisebb német vidék. […] A Marostól délre csak elszórva találunk magyar helyeket, a lakosság nagy része oláh, német és szerb. Az alföldi magyarságot csak itt-ott szakítja meg egy-egy tót sziget, de határt szabnak neki északon Gömör, Abaúj és Zemplén megyékben a tótok és a szepesi szászok, Ung, Bereg és Máramaros megyékben pedig a ruthén lakosság, míg keleten Arad, Bihar és Szatmár megyékben az oláh terület szakítja meg. Szatmár és Szilágy megyékben nagyobb szigetekként tűnik fel a magyar lakosság az oláh lakosság között; ugyanezt látjuk Erdély nyugati megyéiben is, s csak az oláhságon túl, a székely földön találunk ismét összefüggő magyar nyelvterületre, mely az ország határáig terjed. Magyarország határain túl nagyon kevés a magyar nyelvű terület; a kivándorolt magyarok ritkán őrzik meg nyelvüket, kivéve ha egyszerre nagy tömegben vándorolnak ki. Ilyen kivándorolt magyarokat, úgynevezett csángókat, találunk Moldvában a Szeret folyó mentén, továbbá Bukovina keleti határán néhány faluban” (Balassa 1891: 3). „A felső dunántúli nyelvjárásban úgy hiszem, egyedül áll ez a helység, valóságos sziget. Nyelve világosan rámutat a lakosok hovatartozóságára. Az ö-zése azt bizonyítja, hogy az Alföldről szakadt ki, onnan vándorolt mostani lakóhelyére” (Pápay 1896: 209).

“E helység nyelvjárási sajátságainak vizsgálata nyomán egész biztonsággal kimondhatjuk, hogy a betelepülők alföldi magyarok voltak. […] Majdnem teljesen kétségtelen, hogy e helység lakosságának túlnyomó része a Kiskunságról telepedett ide” (Pápay 1896: 210).

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residence he also identified. He did not discuss dialect in this context; nevertheless, the relationship between settlement history and dialect is an outstandingly important aspect of dialect research. Similarly, it is worth highlighting Aladár Szemkő’s work: based on the pronunciation of the ö [ø] sound, he established that the dialect of Abaúj had an island feature. While observing the dialect spoken on the areas along the FeketeKörös (Jánosfalva and its surroundings), Géza Böszörményi concluded that linguistic facts proved the theory that the inhabitants of the community were of Székely origin, which is also the community’s position about its members (Szabó J. 1990: 19).

Another significant achievement of the era was that József Szinnyei published Magyar Tájszótár between 1892 and 1901 using the language material collected by the end of the 19th century and the material of the modest first Magyar Tájszótár published in 1838 (Bárczi 1955: 63).

2.2.2. The age of decline (1904–1920) In 1904, Hungarian linguists founded Magyar Nyelvtudományi Társaság,27 and in the care of the newly formed Society another major journal of linguistics – Magyar Nyelv – was launched. In the first year of this volume (issues 7 and 8), Lajos Erdélyi published his two-part article on the past and the future of dialectology, entitled Nyelvjárásaink ügye és teendőink. Overviewing dialect research so far, he discussed Balassa’s typology of dialects established in 1891, which identified eight dialectal regions and pointed out the importance of becoming familiar with dialects as well as listed all settlements that were relevant in this respect (see Erdelyi 1905b: 346–349).

At the turn of the 20th century, Hungarian dialect research stalled until it stopped completely after the First World War. According to Samu Imre, this phenomenon is closely related to the fact that at that point there was still a certain harmony between historical and descriptive research. At the beginning of the 1900s, however, the new journal, Magyar Nyelv, was released, and thus Magyar Nyelvőr lost its importance and became second-rate from the point of view of dialect research. The community of dedicated dialectologists was ageing by then, and, although the Magyar Nyelvtudományi Társaság still admitted the importance of learning about folk language and dialects, there were no significant results. The quality and the volume of Hungarian works published in Magyar Nyelv was decreasing as well. By the 1910s, dialectology-related publications had almost disappeared from the journal. Finally, on 19 November 1913, the Society’s Board of Directors decided not to publish lists of words and expressions of the popular language that had been sent in. There were certainly financial reasons for this, but perhaps the most important aspect was that by then the historical approach had completely taken over in Hungarian linguistics (Imre 1971: 9). Zoltán Gombocz himself stated: “Undoubtedly, in recent decades, 27

Society of Hungarian Linguistics.

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our linguists have been interested only in the problems of Hungarian language history and Finno-Ugric comparative linguistics”.28 According to Imre, the few works related to dialects published by rural universities were not better than the monographs of the early 20th century, either in volume or in content (Imre 1971: 10).

In 1913, Károly Viski published his article A szalontai nép nyelvéből in a special issue of Magyar Nyelvőr, which he called not a methodological study but rather a collection. He expressed his conviction that the dialect of Szalonta is not a dialect island, but the poet’s29 childhood and youth make it an exceptional place. In this work, he emphasized certain dialectal features. At the same time, he stated that the dialect had properties that were roughly the same as those of the Tisza, more precisely the dialect variants with special phonological features (Viski 1913: 3–4).

Béla Vass published his monograph entitled A nagykőrösi nyelvjárás in volume 57 of Nyelvészeti Füzetek, which revealed his highlight of the historical aspects of the settlement. Following its historical introduction, he stated that “the highly conservative Kőrös village absorbed and suppressed all sorts of dialects that could be assimilated under half of a lifespan to the local pronunciation. Thus, we can say that the dialect of Nagykőrös has not been subject to any foreign influence – except for the Turkish influence on the universality of our language and the transmissions of words”.30 Samu Imre also pointed out that while Hungarian linguistics studying the spoken language had been almost completely disregarded by the scientific sphere, “language atlases are planned and compiled from Algeria to Estonia, from England to Romania [...], and, as it is known, they were the first to carry on collecting the material of the »Hungarian language atlases« since »Atlasul lingvistic român«,31 although small in number, also contains Hungarian data”.32 In Géza Bárczi’s opinion, it was this period of nearly 25 years that Hungarian dialectology was gradually lagging behind European trends, and that could not be replaced by Bálint Csűry, Antal Horger,33 or Gyula Laziczius’s works, irrespectively of their endeavour (Bárczi 1955: 60).

28 29 30

31 32

33

“Kétségtelen, hogy az utóbbi évtizedekben nyelvtudósaink érdeklődését kizárólag a magyar nyelvtörténet és a finnugor nyelvhasonlítás problémái kötötték le” (Gombocz 1927: 1).

He referred as poet to János Arany. „[…] az erősen konzervatív szellemű Kőrös magába olvasztotta, elnyomta az összes besereglett nyelvjárásokat, amelyek egy fél emberöltő alatt assimilálódhattak az ottaniak kiejtéséhez. Így hát elmondhatjuk, hogy a nagykőrösi nyelvjárás nem szenvedett semmiféle idegen befolyást – leszámítva a töröknek nyelvünk egyetemlegességére gyakorolt hatását, szó átvételeit” (Vass 1909: 6).

Linguistic Atlas of the Romanian Language. „[…] nyelvatlaszok készülnek és nyelvatlasztervek születnek Algírtól Észtországig, Angliától Romániáig […] sőt – mint ismeretes – ebben az időben folytak már az első »magyar nyelvatlaszgyűjtések« is, hiszen az »Atlasul lingvistic român«, bár csekély számban, de magyar adatokat is tartalmaz” (Imre 1971: 10).

He created the first Hungarian dialect map; see: Horger 1905.

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While the events mentioned above were unfolding in Hungarian dialect research, the First World War took place between 1914 and 1918, the consequences of which tore the Hungarian scientific life apart for a long time. On 4 June 1920, the Trianon Peace Treaty split up former Hungary, a country that used to be politically and administratively undivided, and fragmented its nation. Since then, we speak about Hungarians that live in Hungary and the ones living in Romania, Slovakia, and Austria as well as about Hungarian linguistics from these countries.

3. Conclusions As I have pointed out in the introduction, the division of the research history of a subject into eras is itself a delicate area because the aspects taken into account in its process can always be questioned. At the same time, the main purpose of a chronological approach is to help orientation in time. In my view, there is no point in dividing a research history into periods consisting of long centuries and their achievements with the help of some transparent but rigid system (e.g. decades or centuries) since it does not provide any grip except for some cases (some of the objective ones) when it can become a tool for time orientation. I think it is more important for us to have such an overview. It can become arbitrarily subjective in some respects as it is used by researchers to make others see and understand what they want to say. So far, divisions in research history have served this purpose as they have used the retrospective of the past to value what was accomplished and to highlight the gaps that need to be filled in. If one wishes to write the history of the research history of Hungarian dialectology, one will inevitably consider some aspects irrelevant or less relevant that may be of great importance to a minority researcher.

The division into periods I have presented here set out to look primarily at the path of general Hungarian dialectology. Context and personalities involved in this highly marginalized topic are also important, and such are the roots and consequences of the long-standing delay when compared to other European countries. As such, there were aspects that I consider important milestones in the development of research on the subject such as the language reform, which drew scholarly attention to the vernacular, and the 1920 Trianon Peace Treaty, which by all means was a watershed in the context of Hungarian linguistics and in science in general. Similarly important was the publication of the journal Magyar Nyelvőr, the establishment of the Magyar Nyelvtudományi Társaság, which represented a framework in which the institutional or scientific nature of the field of science changed greatly when discussing the “Romanian” aspects, important and prominent personalities being the decisive ones, who, through their work, induced considerable progress in the research of Hungarian dialects.

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It is a peculiar part of Hungarian dialectology that has become truly researchable only after the emergence and spread of the geolinguistic method, and it has occasionally appeared in the form of publications but has not really become the focus of interest. The reason for this was its place among the priorities, the lack of a specialist, and more recently the marginalization of dialectology as a field of research.

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Tagányi, Károly. 1890. A honfoglalás és Erdély. Megvilágításul a székely kérdéshez [The Conquest and Transylvania. Shedding light on the Sekler issue].

Ethnographia 1(5): 213–223.

Vass, Béla. 1909. A nagykőrösi nyelvjárás [The dialect of Nagykőrös]. Nyelvészeti Füzetek 57. Budapest: Athenaeum Irodalmi és Nyomdai Rt. Vass, József. 1860. Dunántúli Nyelvjárás [The Transdanubian dialect]. Magyar Nyelvészet 5: 63–163.

Viski, Károly. 1913. A szalontai nép nyelvéről [On the language of the people of Szalonta]. Nyelvészeti Füzetek 69. Budapest: offprint from Magyar Nyelvőr.

Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Philologica, 12, 3 (2020) 155–171 DOI: 10.2478/ausp-2020-0029

On the Discourse of Online Sports News Headlines Andrea PETERLICEAN

Department of Applied Linguistics Sapientia Hungarian University of Transylvania (Cluj-Napoca, Romania) Faculty of Technical and Human Sciences Târgu-Mureş, andrea.peterlicean@ms.sapientia.ro

Elena-Cristina BERARIU

Dimitrie Cantemir University of Târgu-Mureş cristina.berariu@gmail.com Abstract. Sports discourse is one of the most common types of discourses today. It is regarded to be one of the types of media discourses which is supposed to display mainly features of description and commentary, with a unique, specialized vocabulary. This study focuses on sports news headlines published online. One of the objectives of the study is to establish some of the markers with respect to lexical choices, events, and formulation of content.

Another objective is to see what ideologies these headlines may reveal.

Keywords: sports, discourse, online news, headlines, ideologies

1. Introduction Whereas reality can be described in a variety of native tongues, English connects nations and their contributions to global progress by moving beyond borders and by creating a common environment in which communication can take place. With the increased diversification of knowledge branches, we may observe the intricate relationships that occur in the interpretation and description of reality in texts that are interrelated and build specific fields of expertise. This is why the interdiscursive feature is a key characteristic of the discourse of many specialized discourses, among which the discourse of sports news is to be listed.

Davis and Brewer (1997: 2) identify an important feature of online discourses, sharing the view that online writing is “writing that … reads as if it were being spoken”, suggesting that this could be one of the distinguishing traits of news reporting in online media. The role of social context cannot be understated in the

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case of news published online. Such an approach also appears to be in line with the perception that the “discourses ... are integral parts of communicative acts in some sociocultural situation” (van Dijk 1983). Furthermore, a special branch of discourse analysis, CDA, may be used to “understand ... a socially constructed, nuanced analysis of culture, identity and experience” (McGannon–Smith 2015).

News headlines are used by readers to obtain general information about what they are going to read. They are meant to attract readers’ attention and generate interest in the content of the article. At times, there are meanings that come from beyond the linguistic expressions themselves. Some headlines may mislead by employing vocabulary that does not match the content of the article. Journalists and editors may prefer sensationalism to attract the public, such examples being common in all online media. Journalists are subjective: they may write headlines and news content with underlying ideologies, as highlighted, among others, by Hazard Owen (2017), who states: claiming news(papers) “are just being impartial observers, ... hurts trust in journalists”. Lewis believes that when journalists “decide what to cover, they’re making a subjective decision about what’s important”.1 Furthermore, Lombardi (2018) also points out that online headlines are “bearers of subjective truths and ideologies”.2 The purpose of this study is to discover some of the linguistic and discursive devices and forms of rhetorical strategies that are used in online sports news headlines.

2. Theoretical considerations Discourse analysis shows the relationship between the notions of ideology, discourse, and text. It is a meaningful way to consider the ways language is employed to represent different worldviews. The application of discourse analysis to news material offers meaningful insights and understanding of media perspectives, and it also focuses on how the meanings appear in media texts, while it may critically examine issues related to power and ideology.

Discourses are forms of our experiencing the world. The knowledge we have about the world plays an important role in how we understand the social world, people, and behaviours. This applies to all areas of life from politics to sports.

To analyse discourses involves making assumptions about how power operates in society. Lukes (2005) believes that exercising power could be an individual’s “supreme” wish. Then, Crystal (2004), Fowler et al. (1979), Kress and Hodge (1979), and Fairclough (1995) studied the facets of media language as well as some of its functions and recurrent patterns. Bell (1991) believes that the media use certain 1 2

https://medium.com/@ariamalula/why-its-okay-to-be-subjective-in-journalism-cab33be80a6d. https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/8e91/10d3c08bc4fd86705c9b9c96f5591edc4fb8.pdf.

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language features in a very specific way, and they play a role in affecting language in the wider society. Cotter (2003) writes that research on media has registered the presence of bias. Wodak and Busch (2004) suggest that the media produce and reproduce social meanings. All of the aforementioned contributions seem to agree with van Dijk’s claim that ideologies “are acquired, spread, and reproduced by text and talk”.3 Furthermore, ideologies are believed “to reside with varying degrees in different discourses” (Määttä 2014), representing “systems of social cognitions of groups” (van Dijk apud Freeden–Stears 2013). As far back as the beginning of the 20th century, Adorno was concerned with the ideology of sport, arguing that sport produced dangerous, powerful, and social messages. This was later translated into the conception that sport is a cultural object which influences the development of individuals in capitalism, remaining among the powerful ideologies of the 20th century (Mangan 2012).

In many countries, sports function as a major ideological and cultural force.

We should not forget to mention the economic dimension of sporting phenomena.

As with the other aspects of human activity, globalization has had an important contribution in the shaping of the world of sport and its discourses. Sports media carry information from one country to another, recording events to suit viewing times of international audiences and transport ideologies or philosophies by or through sport. While it may not be entirely accurate to use the term globalization when talking about sports discourse, there is a large body of evidence that suggests a focus on internationalization, a shift from national dimensions to broader ones.

This is one of the reasons why we decided to focus on news headlines from countries such as the USA, Spain, or Italy.

A classification of discursive strategies that has been in use is the one which groups such according to their purpose: legitimation, credibility, and captation.4 The first group is believed to consist of those strategies through which an emitter in a communicative situation consolidates a certain legitimate position when there are doubts about the manner in which the receiver of the message perceives the sent message or when there is a discrepancy between the positions of authority of the emitter and the receiver. Credibility strategies presuppose various discursive attitudes (maintaining a neutral position, maintaining distance, or engaging into communicative acts), with the help of which the sender of a message imposes a reasoning method that will be accepted as it is. Captation strategies are based on polemic discursive attitudes of seduction or dramatizing, which help the sender of the message achieve an adhesion of the receiver to the proposed discursive project – a sharing of views, ideas, opinions, or emotions. Earlier studies also focused on similar modes of representation (Shapiro 1990). Focusing specifically on media discourse, Reisigl and Wodak (2009, 2016) write about nomination, predication, 3 4

http://www.discourses.org/OldArticles/Ideology%20and%20Discourse.pdf. http://www.patrick-charaudeau.com/A-communicative-conception-of.html.

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argumentation, perspectivization, mitigation, and intensification and their purposes (discursive construction, characterization of social actors, persuading addressees, modifying forces of utterances, etc.). At this point, it would be useful to glance at the different types of context where discourses work: co-text, with its relevant thematic and syntactic features, lexical choices, collocations, connotations; co-discourse – the relationships between texts and utterances, discourse representations; social factors and institutional features of special contexts of situation (style, place, time, occasion, ideologies, national and international identities). Montesano Montessori, Farrelly, and Mulderrig (2019) mention the topoi of authority and uncertainty as being frequently used in various types of discourse, while Dosena and Rosso (2016) highlight discursive strategies historically in Europe and the USA, looking at different genres and text types.

In recent years, we have seen a new approach to analysing metaphor and its placement into genre events. Steen (2008) proposes a three-dimensional model of metaphor – language, thought, and communication –, whereby we name and build up concepts and construct frames in which these concepts can be interpreted.

According to Cameron (2008), metaphor makes difficult topics approachable.

Langacker (2016) referred to metaphors and their presence in all fields of activity, emphasizing their lack of appropriateness, whereas Kövecses (2010) focused on the cultural specificity of metaphors. Molek-Kozakowska (2014) analysed the application of metaphors in news headlines (from the publication The Daily Mail) to prove how certain ideological representations can be forced onto the public through the use of figurative language. We attempt to find out what frequent conceptualization is like as a strategy in online sports headlines, alongside other strategies that we will develop in the following.

News as a form of mass communication has been divided into four categories of news discourse: print, online, radio, and TV (Bednarek–Caple 2018). News reporting as a type of media discourse has had the attention of scholars, who observed the influence of this kind of information dissemination. Bednarek and Caple (op. cit.) make a distinction between the functions and features of print and online news headlines, noticing similarities and differences, among which the most notable could be the purpose to attract readership and a similar format structure.

Newsworthiness has been one of the criteria in assessing pertinent news (Busa 2014), while van Dijk (1988) focused on the economic, social, and ideological categories of values. The latter also highlighted relevance structures in view of understanding the cognitive, social, and ideological production, processing, and use of news by readers. Similarly, according to van Dijk (op. cit), rhetorical structures are intertwined with the other structures of discourse. Furthermore, an essential objective could be the discovery of power relations and ideologies behind discourses, taking into consideration institutional as well as social and cultural contexts which underlie the production of news discourse. Richardson (2010) analyses discursive

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strategies and ideological standpoints, distinguishing between writers’ strategies and readers’ strategies. One such strategy appears to be that sensationalism will sell the news, a claim that was demonstrated to not be completely true for televised content (Vettehen–Cleemans 2017). Still, a large number of scientific studies have found that sensationalism attracts large audiences, especially when it comes to news with political content or broadcast news.

Modern media has created shifts in the scope, intensity, and effectiveness of the production and reception of messages. Online publications now offer synchronous and asynchronous modes of communication, making this medium an attractive place for provocation to thrive. Provocative narratives may be a result of the modification in media, and they appear to be present in many types of discourses.

Steensen (2009) remarked that online journalism is now “marked by contradictions and inconsistencies”.

In these uncertain times, where the dynamics of human activity are greatly impacted by restrictions imposed on social activities, the importance of online communication has increased. It has become an option, if not a necessity, for educational institutions, for accessing and sharing information perhaps more than before, when traditional resources were also available. In an internationalized context, cultural norms and values seem to converge on certain points, such as the ones relating to respect and honour, as well as in the reproduction of social power in discourse, as reflected in news headlines. The online dissemination of news continues with an apparent stronger need for positive self-representation.

Marking positions of authority and problematizing are phenomena that were studied by discourse analysts of the discourse on news. Evaluation of athletes, professional football players, and teams appear frequently in TV news and also in online media. The discourse of sport has been studied over time in dichotomies of public–private, professional–amateur, men–women, fantasy and television representations. Various genres of sports discourse have been addressed together with the way in which they shape activities at local and international level. In specific contexts and situations, they develop in conjunction with other discourses.

In Romania, for example, there is a more or less humorous association of the discourses of sport and politics as Romanians believe they are knowledgeable and free to discuss such matters in public and in private, with varying degrees of authority in the matter. The structure of online news seems to try to cater for the tastes of this sort of public by dedicating special sections to opinion forums, with specific interests at the centre.

Authority in discourse has been studied in many areas, such as literature or the arts, questioning its source and impact (Everman 1988). In news, the power of the writer and the source appear to be related to the legitimacy of the quoted or mentioned characters. Authoritative speech is assumed to be produced by people with relevant experience: for instance, a carpenter will be more credible than a

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skincare blogger who would like to give advice on how to build a wooden cradle; by the same token, a football player who gives his opinions on football events should be seen as more reliable by supporters, fans, and readers of football news. News needs to be valid and verifiable, so knowledgeable sources will be quoted in order to ensure their validity.

Perceived credibility refers mostly to audience perceptions of news media, not to the credibility of journalists. Meyer (1988) refers to affiliation and believability as the main criteria in the measurement of the credibility factor. This may have to do with the previously mentioned criteria of reliability and validity.

3. Methodology and analysis Language should be analysed as social practice (Fairclough), as behaviour (Van Dijk–Fauconnier–Turner), and as ideology (Wodak). Discourse analysis may offer insights into social problems (Van Dijk 1985) and could be meaningful for analysing different forms of interactions in various contexts, including messages transmitted by the media (Fairclough 2013). Discourse analysis is useful in the examination of the association between such messages and their social and cultural contexts (Van Dijk 2004), language content, themes, or issues discussed in the news (Gee 2014).

According to Van Dijk (1988), headlines are the items of information that readers are most likely to memorize from news. They give an insight into news writers’ views of the world, which will probably influence readers’ opinions of the depicted events.

The material was selected based on the perceived importance assigned to headlines as they are said to influence the reader’s choice (to read or not to read the article whose headline they encounter). They are believed to appeal to readers and prompt them to engage and interact with texts and (their) socio-cultural context, thus being informative and persuasive.

This study is layered on two levels. Firstly, at the macro level, we apply Fairclough’s CDA framework to reveal the relationship between news discourse and society. Secondly, at the micro level, we look at the discursive strategies employed online, namely: sensationalism, positive/negative (self-)representation, provocation, modality, evaluative language, topicalization, the use of authoritative remarks, problematizing, and assurance. These strategies have different communicative functions to help news writers achieve their aim of influencing and shaping readers’ perceptions regarding sports events during the coronavirus pandemic.

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4. Data collection Data for this paper were collected in the month of March, in the year 2020 from the websites: bbc.com, dailymail.co.uk, wwos.nine.com.au, reuters.com, euronews. com, foxnews.com, espn.com, skysports.com, gazzetta.it, marca.com, newsnow. co.uk, and cnn.com. The selected websites are available for public viewing all over the world for English-speaking communities, which is one of the reasons they were selected. Whereas in the case of politics or other domains the geographical location could be more relevant to people residing in a specific region, with sports in the global world the focus lies on the interests of readers, regardless of their position on the globe. Readers of sports news are said to be mainly people with an interest in general topics, who sometimes choose to access sports news (Shehu 2010). Headlines were selected taking into account frequency of access and number of readers as reported by ranker.com and similarweb.com. In addition to the access rate, news providers were chosen to cover a variety of contexts and geographical locations from Canada to Italy.

4.1. Data analysis In the following, we are going to analyse the selected sports headlines. As we can see in Table 2, the news headlines selected display a number of features pertaining to lexical choice, events, and formulation of content. Many headlines contain some sort of reference to sports events likely to happen, events which have been scheduled but need to be re-scheduled. Most headlines contain abbreviations of organizations in charge of sports branch management, tournaments, etc. Sports people are mentioned by full name or simply by family name, with goals, options, and plans for the sporting season.

News writers are likely to employ discursive strategies, such as those mentioned in Table 2. They may employ strategies on various levels to achieve ideological aims. This is one of the reasons why we must look closely at the structures and strategies they use and the way they relate to the audience.

4.2. News headlines, discourse, and society News discourse is considered to be complex, including communicative events and their social contexts, with attention directed towards text, participants, and opinions. Mardhyarini and Ariyanti (2016) suggest that news serve as ways â&#x20AC;&#x153;to express and deliver someoneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ideas, show the power of a person or further persuade the ones who read thatâ&#x20AC;?.5 The discourse of news is perceived to be a result of certain social and professional routines in institutional settings and a 5

https://core.ac.uk/reader/230651964.

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means to process information. Investigating text and context is meant to reveal the type of relationship(s) between the two. Headlines structure a view of the world, a categorization, which suggests a particular relation to the reader.

Some readers will choose to read local news, to be closer perhaps to their preoccupations, while others will access international news too. Headlines are a rich source of information about culture because they depend on the reader’s recognition of the field, allusions and issues needed to access the content of the article. Thus, they rely on knowledge, representations, and models of reality that can be assigned meaning. References to the PM, Düsseldorf, or Ultimate Fighting Championship suppose an amount of social, political, and general knowledge and also help readers to situate themselves and the news within a national and international framework.

The recognition of various types of lexical items, metaphorical expressions also relies on general linguistic knowledge. Wordplays are typical in headlines and are less likely to be found in the bodies of articles.

Sports news will make reference to specific historical events, like the Olympics, or to well-known figures of athletes, sports clubs, personalities’ past and present, economic considerations, and so on. The use of linguistic and cultural forms helps readers to create a sense of community and identity. Sport is a universal component of each culture, so in the case of sports news a certain type of universal knowledge is accessed. Sport is a starting point for many conversations, so reading about sport is highly relevant in many countries.

Headlinese has established itself as a special means of communication among those employed by the media online and offline. Headlines have been known to meet the important requirement of fitting much information into as little space as possible. Headlines are believed to reach a wider audience since some readers will only glimpse at them fleetingly. The impact of headlines is likely to be strong because certain features are going to make them memorable and effective such as the use of puns, alliteration, emotive vocabulary, or special rhetorical devices.

Bell (1991) analyses the special syntax of English news headlines, while Mardh (1980) offers a list of headline features: the omission of articles, verbs, and auxiliaries; nominalization; the use of complex noun phrases; the use of short words, puns, and alliteration; the importance of word order; independent wh constructions not linked to a main clause. The following features have also been suggested: the lack of spatial and temporal markers; the use of the present tense of verbs; the suppression of declarative verbs; the disappearance of quotation marks, personal pronouns.

4.3. Linguistic choices In online news, structures, patterns, and vocabulary seem to have common features with print news, at the same time showing a number of differences as well. Readership may also be different, with various intentions, and so could the aims of the writers/

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editors be. Some of the tendencies regarding lexical items in news headlines were identified by Robescu (2008), while other researchers found ambiguity, vagueness, and strategic lexical choices to be characteristic of online news (Srivastava–Sahami 2009). Asmaradhani (2019) mentions nominalization and passivization, whereas Dykstra (2019) writes about expressiveness. All of these phenomena are to be analysed in a discourse that defines sport as means for achieving health and fitness, stress management, socialization, and relaxation (Doty 2006). Today, many believe that sport builds character.

In our examples, the language employed by headline writers comprises descriptive adjectives such as: eerie, supernatural, immobile, inexcusable or tough.

What seems interesting is the use of antonyms, such as full or empty, in the same headline. Words with a negative connotation are also found in the headlines, but they refer more to restrictions and bans that are due to the ongoing health crisis: hiatus, it’s like a horror movie. An event such as retirement from sporting activity is also to be encountered among the news items, with the well-established collocation announces retirement maintaining a neutral tone, leaving room for readers’ subjective interpretations. Seven thousand miles, twelve yards and one small step is an intriguing construction, a creative interpretation and possible reformulation of the proverb a journey of a thousand mile begins with a single step. This, however, requires background knowledge of the history of Australian soccer, with moments of it mentioned in the narrative, including the occasion when a player had to shoot a penalty kick into Uruguay’s goal post in 2006 with hopes to ensure his team’s qualification to the World Cup. This moment meant victory for one side when the goal was scored and loss for the other, or the small step which meant the other team had fallen short of a great achievement.

Very fortunate events may happen in the pandemic. At least to some of us. As we can read in the headlines, idioms such as a dream come true or a golden day appear to confirm that sport builds strong characters, as the language used is not only positive but also contains specific reference to plans that can be fulfilled and to building strength of character and resilience: will come true, targets, defies, fears, and pledges are expressions that hint at character traits that aim for improvement, if not performance. The lexical field of sport is populated by terms that refer to branches of sport (tennis, rugby, baseball, gymnastics) as well as toponyms (Liverpool, Seattle, country names) or players’ names (Sharapova, Rooney, Djokovic, Biles). The lexical field of health may be illustrated by the use of noun phrases, such as coronavirus outbreak, knee surgery, the verb heal, or the verbal collocation test positive. Nominalization is encountered in such examples as fairytale rise or immobile message, while infinitives can also be found: UK government to ban mass gatherings, Jude Bellingham to choose between four European clubs.

These examples seem to show either future results of previously-made decisions or verbal promises or future events or plans. A different aim is illustrated by Wuhan

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football team leaving Spain to escape virus, the purpose of the Chinese football team being to steer clear of the virus. The negative will construction: Mariners won’t play games in Seattle in March hints at a high degree of formality or an emphasis, while the implication is that the cancellation of games in Seattle is a certainty.

Tokyo Olympics will go ahead appears to be a promise that has meanwhile been taken back, leaving us wondering whether the organizers’ true intent when making this statement was to simply declare their intentions.

It may be for the sake of brevity that prepositions and participles are used: marathons called off, …out after knee surgery, Spain drawn with Russia. Past participles appear in elliptical constructions that function as a stylistic device to indicate a certain degree of orality, as it appears that ellipsis is mostly common in spoken discourse (White 2013). Verb phrase ellipsis is believed to be frequent in news discourse, as pointed out by Hakobyan (2016) and Altarabin (2020).

A large number of acronyms and abbreviations in English are in common use as a means of simplifying and speeding up communication and have been demonstrated to cover an endless range of topics (Lwin 2012). MLB, UFC, and NT are used to convey a type of information in short, which is why THE BAT in Example 27 appears at first intriguing as it stands for the news writer’s own system to rank/ select baseball hitters. It is generally recommended that certain types of words be capitalized in news headlines, for instance, verbs, and principle words. At the same time, using capital letters in online environments is sometimes regarded to be rude as it implies shouting/being shouted at.

4.4. Content In the case of the 51 headlines selected for our study, a summary of the discursive strategies could look like the following: Table 1. Frequency of discursive strategies in sports news headlines Discursive strategy Positive self-representation Topos of authority Establishment of assurance Authoritative remark Provocation Sensationalism Conceptualization/metaphorization

Frequency 4 3 2 17 12 2 2

The results above indicate that the use of authoritative remarks and provocation seem to be the most frequent strategies employed, followed by positive selfrepresentation.

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Authoritative remarks are quotes that highlight the ideas being referred to in headlines and, at the same time, are an intertextual means of building news discourse. Using quotation helps render the impression of neutrality on behalf of the news writer, editor, or publication.

The writers tend to name organizations rather than individuals (e.g. European rugby club) to create a dichotomy of us versus them, which could cause heated debates. The choice of words is highly relevant and could function to hint at certain ideologies. The choice of figures of authority, such as a national team coach, Klopp, or Japan’s Prime Minister, gives a certain weight and credibility to the news items.

Provocation in news headlines seems to suggest some sort of aggravation in order to illustrate actions that tend to stimulate discussion or trigger controversies.

Table 2. Sports news headlines in the month of March 2020 Headline 1. Caster Semenya says she is ‘supernatural’ as she targets Olympic 200m 2. Tokyo Olympics will go ahead, says Japan’s PM Shinzo Abe 3. ‘We’re not stopping’: UFC stages full fight card in front of empty stadium in Brasilia despite coronavirus epidemic as organisation’s president Dana White reveals he won’t cancel shows 4. ‘A dream come true’: Virgil van Dijk says his fairytale rise through Holland’s lower leagues will make Premier League title success with Liverpool even more special 5. Jude Bellingham to ‘choose between four European clubs after Manchester United, Chelsea, Borussia Dortmund and Bayern Munich all meet Birmingham’s £30m valuation’ 6. Sergio Ramos works out on a treadmill, Neymar watches Netflix and Lewis Hamilton goes rockclimbing: What sports stars are up to as coronavirus pandemic shuts down sporting world

Source bbc.com

bbc.com

https://www. dailymail.co.uk/

Topos of authority Establishment of assurance

https://www. dailymail.co.uk/

Positive selfrepresentation

https://www. dailymail.co.uk/

Evaluative language

https://www. dailymail.co.uk/

Positive selfrepresentation

https://wwos.nine. com.au/news https://wwos.nine.

8. McLaren out of Aus GP after positive test com.au/news 9. Reports: Pistons’ Wood tests positive for https://www. /news/ coronavirus archive/sportsNews https://www.reuters.

10. Mixed martial arts: Oliveira wins in eerie silence com/news/archive/ as UFC Brasilia defies coronavirus fears sportsNews 7. London, Boston marathons called off

Discursive strategy Positive selfrepresentation Modality Topos of authority Establishment of assurance

Provocation Authoritative remark Provocation Provocation

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Headline 11. USA Gymnastics birthday tweet brings heated Biles response 12. NBA: Affected player Gobert pledges $500,000 to virus relief effort 13. Wuhan football team leaving Spain to escape virus 14. Continued Georgian & Japanese judoka success at Düsseldorf 15. Racism in football: “The message being sent is devastating” 16. UEFA bans Manchester City from Champions League for two seasons 17. European rugby club signs player who said ‘hell awaits’ gay people 18. A golden day for Israel 19. Kid who got autograph from Utah Jazz player tests positive for coronavirus, but officials deny connection 20. Portugal grouped with France in Nations League title defense 21. Pro Football Hall of Fame closing until March 27 due to coronavirus 22. Many team officials question start of NFL’s league year (March 15, 2020, 12:31 AM ET) 23. NFL franchise tag tracker: Who’s getting paid for 2020, what’s next (March 14, 2020, 4:41 PM ET) 24 Vikings release CB Xavier Rhodes, NT Linval Joseph to clear cap space (March 13, 2020, 9:39 PM ET) 25 MLB allowing players to go home after canceling spring training (March 14, 2020, 3:16 AM ET) 26. Mariners won’t play games in Seattle in March (March 13, 2020, 2:31 PM ET) 27. Fantasy baseball pitchers THE BAT identifies as top values (March 12, 2020, 3:13 PM ET) 28. Adam Silver says NBA hiatus likely to last ‘at least’ 30 days (March 13, 2020, 12:29 AM ET) 29. Inside stories from the Chinese Basketball Association’s coronavirus-induced hiatus (March 12, 2020, 1:46 PM ET)

Source https://www.reuters. com/news/archive/ sportsNews https://www.reuters. com/news/archive/ sportsNews https://www. euronews.com/news/ sport https://www. euronews.com/news/ sport https://www. euronews.com/news/ sport https://www. euronews.com/news/ sport https://www. euronews.com/news/ sport https://www. euronews.com/news/ sport https://www. foxnews.com/sports https://www. foxnews.com/sports http://www.espn. com/espn/latestnews http://www.espn. com/espn/latestnews http://www.espn. com/espn/latestnews

Discursive strategy Authoritative remark

Provocation

Authoritative remark

Authoritative remark

Provocation

Authoritative remark Conceptualization Metaphorization Provocation Authoritative remark Authoritative remark Problematizing Problematizing

http://www.espn.

Problematizing com/espn/latestnews http://www.espn. com/espn/latestnews http://www.espn. com/espn/latestnews http://www.espn. com/espn/latestnews http://www.espn. com/espn/latestnews

Authoritative remark Modality Problematizing Authoritative remark

http://www.espn.

Provocation com/espn/latestnews

On the Discourse of Online Sports News Headlines Headline

Source https://www.

30. Rooney: Footballers treated like guinea pigs skysports.com/ football/news https://www.

31. UK government to ban mass gatherings skysports.com/ football/news https://www.

32. Klopp’s message to sports fans skysports.com/ football/news https://www.

33. ‘Language was inexcusable’: US soccer chief skysports.com/ quits football/news https://www.

34. Real quarantined, Man City game off, La Liga skysports.com/ suspended football/news https://www.

35. Serie A clubs could lose 700m gazzetta.it https://www.

36. Barcelona look at Lazio’s Luiz Felipe gazzetta.it https://www.

37. Napoli organise singing flashmob gazzetta.it https://www.

38. Immobile message to Dr Jessen gazzetta.it https://www.

39. UEFA to change European competition format gazzetta.it 40. Papu: ‘Bergamo is empty, it’s like a horror https://www. movie’ gazzetta.it https://www.marca.

41. Real Madrid’s injured players have time to heal com/en/ (https://www.marca.

42. Official: FIA cancel Bahrain and Vietnam races com/en/ due to coronavirus outbreak 43. Real Madrid: How is Marcelo in trouble with the https://www.

Spanish government again newsnow.co.uk/ 44. Inter Were Close To Signing Fabian Ruiz Two https://www.

Years Ago Before He Joined Napoli newsnow.co.uk/ 45. Seven thousand miles, twelve yards and one https://www. small step newsnow.co.uk/ 46. Spain drawn with Russia and Ecuador in Davis https://www.

Cup newsnow.co.uk/ 47. Maria Sharapova announces retirement from https://edition.cnn. tennis com/sport/tennis 48. Nick Kyrgios gives expletive-laden media https://edition.cnn. conference after being booed off court com/sport/tennis 49. Roger Federer out of French Open after knee https://edition.cnn. surgery com/sport/tennis 50. Novak Djokovic rallies to win eighth Australian https://edition.cnn. com/sport/tennis Open title https://edition.cnn.

51. Djokovic says tough upbringing makes him com/sport/tennis ‘hungrier for success’

167 Discursive strategy Authoritative remark

Authoritative remark

Authoritative remark

Authoritative remark

Provocation Modality Positive selfrepresentation Positive selfrepresentation Authoritative remark Authoritative remark Authoritative remark Topicalization Topos of authority Sensationalism Sensationalism Conceptualization Metaphorization Authoritative language Provocation Provocation Provocation Provocation Authoritative remark

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5. Conclusions This paper analysed a number of headlines from some major news portals all over the world, focusing on sports news for English-speaking audiences. The discursive strategies used by news writers are revealed: lexical choices, intensification of the message using adjectives, maintaining a neutral stance using quotes, role labels, agencies, countries and events.

A multidisciplinary analysis of online news headlines may prove useful in the exploration of perspectives on the language of sports news. The headlines we selected were among the most accessed pieces of news in the period of the coronavirus pandemic of 2020. From the point of view of news headlines being examples of social practices, sports news headlines maintain institutional identities and bring to light evaluations as exemplified by the descriptive adjectives used. The examples we looked at seem to depict the news writers’ representations of the sports world. Journalists/editors use direct quotes to give more credibility to the items of information the readers are likely to access in the articles while also employing figurative language to trigger varied mental associations in audiences across the globe. Linguistic features that other researchers reported to describe the language of news are to be encountered in the 51 headlines analysed: elliptical sentences, the use of present tenses, abbreviations and acronyms, metaphorical expressions.

Participle constructions, adjectives belonging to related lexical fields (supernatural, fairytale), infinitives, and modals are also found in the selection of headlines that are neither too short nor too long, matching the writers’ or editors’ choices to promote their content. Figures of authority appear in the headlines as well as competition names and geographical locations where sports events are held. A number of social and cultural phenomena are also mentioned, such as racism and homosexuality, as well as behaviours that are deemed unacceptable (Kyrgios). There seems to be a tendency to portray such phenomena using negative connotation: “‘hell awaits’ gay people”. As regards the underlying ideology, it may be argued that such language is used to describe oneself as superior and to present others as inferior. It may be possible that these representations are viewed differently depending on the social and cultural context where the news items are read. However, this could constitute the objective of future research.

Future research could continue along the same coordinates to analyse news in sports, including the analysis of sportscasting and comments on sports websites and forums.

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Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Philologica, 12, 3 (2020) 172â&#x20AC;&#x201C;187 DOI: 10.2478/ausp-2020-0030

Apple Varietal Names as Culturemes: Translation Issues in Scientific Textual Environments Imola Katalin NAGY

Department of Applied Linguistics Sapientia Hungarian University of Transylvania (Cluj-Napoca, Romania) Faculty of Technical and Human Sciences nimolkat@gmail.com Abstract. In this study, our purpose is to establish a link between the concept of cultureme and a very intriguing type of specialized discourse: scientific texts belonging to the field of pomology (horticultural sciences). At least a segment of apple (and other fruit) varietal or cultivar names (especially those restricted to a certain geographical and cultural area or region) can be considered from a linguistic and translational viewpoint lexemes which carry cultural meaning. In our research, we focus on the apple varietal names which are specific to the region of Transylvania. We intend to see the way Romanian specialized literature observes or flouts the mentioning of Hungarian terms related to pomology (i.e. apple varietal names which are culturemes) as synonyms of the currently promoted Romanian versions. We also examine whether Hungarian specialists tend to mention the Romanian versions of Hungarian apple varietal names in their works. In fact, this research is, to a certain degree, an analysis of the attitude specialists display with regard to the scientific terminology and the long-established terms of the proximal culture.

Keywords: realia and cultureme, standardized, parallel versions or synonyms, Transylvanian apple varieties, Romanian, Hungarian

1. Introduction In our research, we focus on the apple varietal names which are specific to the region of Transylvania, part of the Hungarian Kingdom and the Austro-Hungarian Empire prior to World War I and presently part of the Romanian state. We have chosen the field of apple varietal names as they are specific cases of cultural realia (as defined and described by Vlakhovâ&#x20AC;&#x201C;Florin 1970, 1980), cultural words (Newmark 1988), or culturemes (Katan 1999). As a result of the specific historical and political shift which took place in 1918, a remarkable amount of peculiarities and changes

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can be spotted not only in social, political, or administrative organization but also in some seemingly stable and less mutable areas such as scientific terminology: names related to the geography, flora, and fauna of the region started to be used in Romanian (while Hungarian terminology slowly receded).1 We intend to see the way Romanian specialized literature observes the mentioning of Hungarian terms related to pomology (some of the apple varietal names we analyse are very-very old, and, in fact, they were overtaken by Romanian terminology) or whether Hungarian specialists tend to mention the Romanian versions of Hungarian apple varietal names in their works. In fact, this research is, to a certain degree, an analysis of the attitude specialists display with regard to the scientific terminology and the long-established terms of the proximal culture.

In our research, we focus mainly on two reference books in Transylvanian pomology, one in Hungarian (Nagy-Tóth, Ferenc. 1998. Régi erdélyi almák) and one in Romanian (Bordeianu, T. et al. 1964. Pomologia Republicii Populare Romîne, vol. II, Mărul). We have built up a corpus of 102 Transylvanian apple varietal names from Bordeianu et al. (1964) and 120 Transylvanian apple varietal names from NagyTóth (1998). We compare the way Romanian variants are provided in the Hungarian reference book and the way Hungarian variants are listed in the Romanian reference book. As this is an ongoing research, we do not intend to offer statistics in this study; our aim is solely to notice tendencies and analyse phenomena.

2. Peculiarities of botanical taxonomies from a linguistic viewpoint From the point of view of the specialized vocabulary, texts in the field of agriculture or horticulture are connected with several related scientific fields belonging to natural sciences but also to economic or social sciences. A particular segment that lends itself to terminological confusions is the field of taxonomies, especially botanical taxonomy. Flora lexemes are one of the most interesting themes of linguistic research, which is also a source of difficulty if it comes to translation.

Plant naming and botanical terminology has a long history.

The father of systematic denomination of plants was Carl von Linné, or Linnaeus, who introduced in 1753 the binary nomenclature in Latin (Species Plantarum, 1753; Systema Naturae, 1758). In the 19th century, Latin was more and more competed by the many national languages, and, in order to avoid the emergence of terminological chaos, the Vienna Botanical Congress (1905) imposed the mandatory use of Latin 1

Nevertheless, the impact of politics and ideologies on (the language of) science and terminology (ban imposed on terms, ideas, concepts, and languages, the presence of snarl words and purr words in scientific or specialized discourses, etc.) is intended to be the subject of a forthcoming study.

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names as official scientific names. Today, the standardization of plant names is ensured and regulated by nomenclature codes (cf. Nagy 2013c, 2014).

In previous studies, we have described the main tendencies which regulate botanical denominational practices (Nagy 2013aâ&#x20AC;&#x201C;c). The scientific name (nomen scientificum) is Latin. Over time, the scientific nomenclature has undergone a process of uniformization and standardization because of the need for precise and stable names, universally valid for plants. The scientific name of the plant is the name given to each taxon in Latin in accordance with the rules stipulated in the International Nomenclatures (for instance, Malus domestica). The name of the taxon in the national language is also called scientific name provided that the botanical nomenclature is standardized and developed. Thus, each taxon corresponds to a single scientific name, therefore meeting the demands of scientific denomination (one name corresponds to one variety only).

Besides the scientific name in Latin and the scientific name in the national language, there is the so-called folk taxonomy, i.e. popular names of plants, a domain which is subject to semantic phenomena like synonymy, homonymy, etc.

Folk taxonomy refers to the popular name of the plants (also called colloquial name, trivial name, country name, farmerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s name). Popular names are not standardized or regulated by international documents such as Latin scientific names or cultivated plant names (also called cultivars). The spelling of popular names follows general rules of different languages.

Therefore, we can talk about three types of botanical nomenclatures: an international botanical nomenclature, a national botanical nomenclature, and a popular botanical nomenclature.

In the botanical taxonomy, valid in international communication and terminology, each variety is named in two terms, the first word representing the genus (first letter written in capitals), and the second name is the specific epithet (name of the species) written in lower-case letters used only with the generic name: e.g. Prunus domestica (plum). The binomial scientific name is always Latin or transcribed, transliterated in Latin. Both terms are written in italics. According to the International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants (also known as the Cultivated Code, first published in 1953 and revised several times at irregular intervals since then), all varieties or derivatives of wild plants which are raised under cultivation are to be called cultivars, and cultivar names are not subject to translation. Scientific names in Latin are never translated. Scientific names in the national language are spelled according to the rules of each language, and they can be translated. If there is no available recognized translation, then the loan translation technique is applied.

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3. Cultural words. Culturemes. Realia From a translational viewpoint, the cultural aspects (lexemes with cultural implications) have received different denominations throughout time and the problem of culture-related linguistic units has been the subject of numerous research studies. One must mention remarkable contributions such as Andrei Fiodorov’s (1941), who establishes the theoretical basis for the study of words with cultural specificity, introducing in the translational language the term realia to refer to “objects or phenomena with a national specificity and the term realia-word to name, to designate these objects and unique phenomena” (cf. Iordan 2017: 59).

Eugene Nida (1945) speaks about cultural foreign words. Nida analyses cultural translation and offers a classification of such foreign words, dividing them into five major areas: ecology, material culture, social culture, ideological culture, and linguistic culture (starting from which Peter Newmark created his own taxonomy in 1988). In the 1952 volume signed by Leonid Sobolev, Пособие по переводу с русского языка на французский (Russian–French Translation Manual), there is an argued and pertinent definition of the term realia, conceived as the set of those words that do not exist in other languages because these objects and phenomena do not exist in other countries (apud Iordan 2017: 60).

Vlakhov and Florín (1970) define realia as words connected with realities strongly associated with a specific culture. In Barkhudarov’s view (1975: 94), realia, or non-equivalent vocabulary, represent a part of background information, “implying specific historical facts and information about the state structure, the peculiarities of the geographic environment, concepts of ethnography and folklore” (Barkhudarov 1975: 94 apud Ketevan-Pareshishvili 2014: 8).

According to L. Barkhudarov (1975), such non-equivalent vocabulary mainly includes the following groups of words: 1. Words that denote the objects, concepts, and situations non-existent in the practical experience of the groups of people speaking other languages.

2. Words that denote the objects characteristic of the material and spiritual culture of a particular nation, for example, national dishes, clothes, shoes, etc.

3. Words and set expressions denoting the political institutions and social events characteristic of a particular nation (Barkhudarov 1975: 93 apud KetevanPareshishvili 2014: 9).

The concept of cultureme was originally introduced by Oksaar (1988), then retaken

by Reiss and Vermeer (1984) and revisited by Katan (2009). Peter Newmark (1991) speaks about cultural words or cultural terms, while Mona Baker (1992, 1995) talks about culture-specific concepts. Leppihalme (1997) calls the words with cultural implications cultural bumps, whereas Franco Aixelà (1996) proposes the term culture-specific items. Nedergaard-Larsen (2003) refers to cultural references and proposes four main headings: references to geography, history, society, and culture.

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When the term realia, derived from the Russian Realii, penetrated the field of translation studies, a radical terminological change occurred, and the distinction between linguistic and objectual realia emerged since realia, in fact, “does not mean objects, but signs, words and, more precisely, those words signifying objects of the material culture, especially pertaining to a local culture. It is, therefore, necessary to distinguish realia-objects (mostly outside translation studies) and realia-words (mostly inside translation studies)” (Ischenko 2012: 274).

Ischenko (2012: 275) divides linguistic realia, or realia “as the units of translation”, into abbreviations and phrases. From a thematic viewpoint, they may be subdivided into geographic (names of the geographic and atmospheric objects and endemic species) and ethnographic realia (which describe the daily life and culture of nations, their spiritual and material culture, traditions, religion, art, folklore, items connected with everyday life, names of residents and ethnic objects, currency units, etc.). Within one language, Ischenko (2012) distinguishes own realia and borrowed realia, which are further subdivided into national (known to all the citizens of the country), local (belonging to one dialect), and microlocal realia (peculiar to a definite locality) (Ischenko 2012: 275). In interlinguistic comparison, Ischenko talks about regional realia and international realia, “existing in the lexicon of many languages, which entered the vocabulary though preserving their initial colour” (Ischenko 2012: 275).

In translation studies, the notion of realia and that of cultureme are used alternatively as culture-bound lexemes or linguistic units that designate or bear cultural information. In Romanian specialized literature, the term realia first emerged in 2001 (Condrea 2001); Romanian specialists, however, seem to prefer the term cultureme. In the comparative-cultural theory of translation promoted

by Georgiana Lungu Badea (2012: 54–56), culturemes are defined as some words that bear cultural information (cultural information words or the smallest units of cultural information).

Hungarian specialist Dusan Tellinger (2005: 124) highlights the polysemantic nature of the term realia, stating that it designates the objects specific to a given community on the one hand and the words that designate those objects on the other.

Realia encompass both the entities in the objective reality and the language units that name those objects. What is interesting is that, prior to Tellinger, Hungarian translation studies specialists (Klaudy 2003, Forgács 2004) generally operated with the terms reália ‘realia’. Tellinger already introduces the term cultureme in the form of etnokulturéma ‘ethnocultureme’. Although in the practice of everyday use of translational terminology there is a tendency to treat the terms cultureme and realia as perfect synonyms, there are differences in the semantic nuances between the two concepts: while culturemes are words that designate cultural objects or phenomena, they are words bearing the cultural information, the concept of realia; in Georgiana Lungu Badea’s view (2012: 118), it is also linked to what is called

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common knowledge or common ground, that is, that set of common knowledge that bridges the two cultures. According to Lungu Badea (2004), culturemes are monocultural, realistic, autonomous units of translation, elements and structures that carry cultural information which impose a type of cultural translation.

In this study, we will treat the terms linguistic realia and linguistic cultureme as relative synonyms as we consider that, in this sense, culturemes and realia are those linguistic units that carry cultural information, are part of the culture about which they provide information, describe or define a segment of that culture, are linked to culture and are rooted in it, have a meaning that awakens associations related to that culture. We subsume the term cultureme and realia to those culture-bound linguistic units (words, combinations of words, phrases) referring to the ethnic and cultural life of a given population, all the linguistic elements related to the natural, material, spiritual, and administrative life of populations or communities living in a given geographical-cultural space. In this sense, apple varietal names emerging from specific geographical regions can be treated as linguistic realia or linguistic culturemes.

4. Apple cultivar names as culturemes Following the criteria offered by specialists in the field of culture-bound lexical elements, we consider that apple (and other fruit) varietal or cultivar names (especially those restricted to a certain geographical and cultural area; in our case, Transylvania) can be considered, from a linguistic and translational viewpoint, lexemes which carry cultural meaning and should therefore be treated as linguistic culturemes. As the majority of the names we will look at are prior to the introduction of the term cultivar, despite the fact that most of the varieties we examine have been raised under cultivation, and are the result of early human intervention and grafting (and are, thus, cultivars), hereinafter we will use the term variety instead of the term cultivar as this latter started to be used only after the 1950s.

In our research, we aim to analyse the way old apple varietal names from Transylvania are used by Hungarian and Romanian reference book writers, i.e. whether the names of apple varieties are mentioned in Hungarian, Romanian, or both variants (in case some apple varietal names display Hungarian and Romanian versions as well). Why are there two parallel name versions of the same apple variety in Transylvania?

The explanation is historical: some of the traditional fruit variety names from Transylvania (once part of the Hungarian kingdom and part of Romania since 1918) have developed two parallel forms (a Hungarian and a Romanian version) mainly due to two reasons: the cohabitation of the two ethnic groups and the fact that Romanian pomology and its terminology had to cope with the scientific and linguistic heritage they overtook with Transylvaniaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s annexation to Romania

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after the Treaty of Trianon. In the case of apple cultivar names, it is striking that sometimes the Romanian version is the simple translated form of the Hungarian name, while some other times adaptation, transcription, or transformation is used to coin the Romanian name.

5. Hungarian apple names in Transylvania.

A historical insight One of the oldest written records of Hungarian apple names in Transylvania is Péter Méliusz Juhász’s Herbárium (Herbarium) (1578), which contains two names – ‘bolondító alma’ and ‘leánczeczü alma’.

Balázs Szikszai Fabricius’s Szójegyzék (Glossary) (1590) mentions 14 apple varieties in Latin and in Hungarian, almost all of them being still existing varieties in Transylvania today (cf. Nagy-Tóth 1998: 17).

Towards the end of the 16th century, there were some 60 Hungarian apple varieties in the records. János Lippay’s Posoni kert (The Poson Garden) (1664) is another rich source of apple variety names in Hungarian, a lot of them being Transylvanian varieties (Nagy-Tóth 1998: 19).

It was only in the 17th century that the very first Romanian variety names appeared, first in a Latin–Romanian dictionary (out of the seventeen names mentioned here, seven names did not have a Latin equivalent and eight names had been taken from Szikszai’s Szójegyzék (Glossary) from 1590, highlights Nagy-Tóth (1998: 20)). Bordeianu et al. also mention this source, calling it simply a dictionary fragment from Caran-Sebes (1740). This manuscript from 1740 (written by the socalled dictionary writer from Caran Sebes – cf. Bordeianu et al. 1964; karánszebesi szótárkészítő – cf. Nagy-Tóth 1998) listed some early Romanian apple names, such as mer gushat ‘apple with goiter’, which seems to be the literal translation of the Hungarian varietal name nyakas alma ‘apple with a large, swollen neck’.

Al. Borza, a pioneer of Romanian pomological terminology creation, is the author of Flora grădinilor ţărăneşti româneşti (The Flora of Romanian Peasants’ Gardens), a book issued in 1921 (short after Transylvania’s annexation). In this volume, the author consequently diminishes the Hungarian contribution and presence in Transylvania by avoiding to admit the existence of Hungarian fruit names and by stating that some of the apple varieties were borrowed by Romanian peasants from străini ‘foreigners’ (Borza 1921) instead of stating that one variety or another is of Hungarian origin. Nevertheless, all the varietal names he mentions show the Hungarian origin of the lexemes: e.g. ‘mere strugurii’ (grape-like apple) corresponding to the Hungarian ‘fürtös alma’ (apple like a bunch of grapes); ‘mere bostăneşti’ (pumpkin-like apple or head-like apple, as bostan in Romanian means pumpkin and human head) corresponding to the Hungarian ‘kobak alma’ (apple

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like human head); ‘mere de glajă’ (glass-like apple) corresponding to the Hungarian ‘üveg alma’ (glass-like apple).

In his 1933 contribution, Borza goes even further and states that it is absolutely inadmissible to spell apple cultivar names such as ‘Pónyik’ according to Hungarian spelling rules (and therefore accept the existence of the Hungarian name), given the fact that it is, in his opinion, an ancient Romanian word (Borza 1933: 7). The only thing Borza forgets to mention is that the Romanian word (variety name) ‘Poinic’ started to be used in the late 19th century, whereas the Hungarian variant (‘Pónyik’) had already been recorded centuries earlier in Hungarian writings and chronicles such as in Döbrentey Kódex (1508) and Érsekújvári Kódex (1530–1531).2 Quite intolerant towards Hungarian terminology and its legitimacy, Borza (1921, 1933) constantly demonstrates that some of the oldest Transylvanian apple varieties are “ancient Romanian” varieties although they first appeared in Hungarian texts, and the Romanian name is, in fact, either the calque translation of the Hungarian name: ‘borsos alma’ (apple with pepper)/‘mere ţipărate’ (apple which tastes like pepper), ‘káposzta alma’ (cabbage-like apple)/‘mere vărzeşti’ (cabbage-like apple)3 (recorded in Lippay’s Posoni kert, 1664), ‘marosszéki páris alma’ (Paris apple from Marosszék/Central Transylvania) /‘Parişe ardeleneşti’, Paris apple from Transylvania) (described in János Lippay’s Posoni kert, 1664) or its corrupted and/ or transcribed version: ‘Török Bálint’/ torombule,4 a variety mentioned in Cordus’s Historia plantarum (1561), Szikszai’s Szójegyzék (1590), and Bauhin’s Historia plantarum universalis (1650).

Bereczki’s four-volume work on pomology, published in Arad (formerly Hungary, present-day Romania) in 1877, Gyümölcsészeti vázlatok (Sketches on Pomology) is one of the most outstanding reference works on pomology in Central Europe, a work which was widely used by the Romanian specialist Al. Borza (1921, 1933) in his attempt to lay the foundations of Romanian pomological literature.

In our research, we have consulted two reference books in Transylvanian pomology, one in Hungarian (Nagy-Tóth, Ferenc 1998: Régi erdélyi almák [Old Transilvanian Apple Varieties]) and one in Romanian (Bordeianu, T. (ed.) 1964: Pomologia Republicii Populare Romîne, vol. II, Mărul [The Pomology of the Romanian People’s Republic. Volume II. The Apple]). We have built up a corpus of 102 Transylvanian apple varietal names collected from Bordeianu et al’s text and 120 Transylvanian apple varietal names from Nagy-Tóth’s text. We have compared the way Romanian variants are provided in the Hungarian reference book and the way Hungarian variants are listed in the Romanian reference book. As the Romanian book proved to be very reluctant to provide Hungarian apple varietal names, we have 2 3 4

For further details on the etymology of the term, see: Nagy 2016.

The word vărzeşti being an ad-hoc lexical creation, coined by the author from the noun varza ‘cabbage’.

Created through word corruption from the proper name Török Bálint.

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also attempted to identify the parallel Hungarian versions (synonyms) based on the following criteria: comparing the morphological description of the fruit, comparing the place of emergence, and analysing the Romanian name in point of origin. In each case, we matched the varieties against each other according to these criteria, thoroughly checking the coincidence of Romanian and Hungarian toponyms (i.e. place of emergence of the varieties) as well.

In the case of the Hungarian reference book, we have noticed an obvious tendency to provide Hungarian synonyms and Romanian names as well. In this respect, we mention some examples: ‘Páris alma’/‘Mere pariş’; ‘Piros pap alma’/‘Mere popeşti’; ‘Sikulai (narancsvörös csíkos) alma’/‘Mere şiculane’; ‘Piros cigányalma’/‘Mere ţigăneşti’; ‘Szeplős piros alma’/‘Mere roşii’; ‘Kerekített alma’/‘Mere rotilate’, ‘Kormos alma’/‘Mere chermeşe’, ‘Édeskés alma’/‘Mere dulcuţe’; ‘Esperes alma’/‘Mere protopopeşti’; ‘Fehér (kicsi) alma’/‘Mere albe’; ‘Borsos alma’/‘Mere ţipărate’; ‘Mustos alma’/‘Mere mustoase’; ‘Gusztáv alma’/‘Mere costane (gostane)’; ‘Halmágy alma’/‘Mere hălmăgene’, ‘gălbejele’; ‘Kék alma’/‘Mere vinete’; ‘Kemény alma’/‘Mere tari’; ‘Kerekített alma’/‘Mere rotilate’; ‘Királyi alma’/‘Mere crăieşti’; ‘Kormos alma’/‘Mere chermeşe’; ‘Bonaburuttya’/‘Mere bunebrute’; ‘Kormoscigány alma’/‘Mere chermeşe ţigăneşti’; ‘Erdélyi kék alma’/‘Mere vinete ardeleneşti’; ‘Gormos (kormos) alma’/‘Mere golmoaşe’; ‘Kőrösbányai alma’/‘Mere crişăneşti’; ‘Kövér alma’/‘Mere grase’; ‘Kicsike alma’/‘Mere pizloape, prâsloape’; ‘Lisztes (kásás) alma’/‘Mere mălăieţe’; ‘Petres alma‘/‘Mere petruşele‘;‘Medve alma’/ ‘Mere urseşti’; ‘Kerek alma’/‘Mere cugle’; ‘Édes alma’/‘Mere dulci’; ‘Bulzesdi alma’/‘Mere de Bulzeşti’; ‘Mocskotár renet alma’/‘Mere muşcotaiu, muşcătarniţe’; ‘Muskotályos alma’/‘Mere muşcătarniţe’; ‘Mustos alma’/‘Mere mustoase’; ‘Narancsvörös szürke alma’/‘Mere sure’; ‘Nyakas vadalma’/‘Măr pădureţ’; ‘Nyári alma’/‘Mere văratice’; ‘Ormányos alma’/‘Mere boghişe, botişe’; ‘Ordos alma’/‘Mere urdaşe’; ‘Piros almák’/‘Mere roşii’; ‘Pirosas sárgás szürke alma’/‘Mere sure’; ‘Piros vékony csíkos alma’/‘Mere roşii’; ‘Savanyú (kicsi sárga) alma’/‘Mere acre’; ‘Ribicei zöld’/‘Mere verzi de Ribiţa’; ‘Szép alma’/‘Mere frumoase’; ‘Rengeti fűzfa alma’/‘Mere sălcii de Renghet’; ‘Tartós alma’/‘Mere statornice’; ‘Téli alma’/‘Mere de iarnă’; ‘Téli alma’/‘Mere iernatice‘;‘Téli fehér kálvil vadonc, meddő alma’/‘Mere sterpe’; ‘Török Bálint’/‘Mere torombule’; ‘Úri alma’/‘Mere domneşti’; ‘Várfalvi alma’/‘Mere mulduane, moldovane’; ‘Zsálya alma’/‘Mere jalnice’; ‘Vindai kemény alma’ /‘Mere tare de Ghinda’; ‘Fürtös alma’/‘Mere strugurii’; ‘Bondoraszói csíkos alma’/‘Mere vărgate de Budureasa’; ‘Marosszalatnai kerek alma’/‘Mere rotilate din Slatina de Mureş’. It is to be remarked that sometimes the author provides the Saxon name as well: ‘Kék alma’/‘Sächischer Blauapfel’.

Due to editorial reasons, we do not insist on the translation aspects of these terms as this aspect is so vast that it certainly requires another study. To illustrate the amount of calque translations from Hungarian into Romanian, we offer the translation of the last few examples: ‘Bondoraszói csíkos alma’ (literally: striped

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apple from Bondoraszó /‘mere vărgate de Budureasa’ (literally: striped apple from Budureasa);5 ‘Marosszalatnai kerek alma’ (literally: round apple from Marosszalatna /‘Mere rotilate din Slatina de Mureş’ (literally: round apple from Slatina de Mureş.6 In their massive volume published in 1964. Bordeianu et al. make a thorough presentation of the apple varieties and cultivars that can be found on Romanian territory. Among these, an impressive number of varieties are Transylvanian, and we have included in our corpus the Transylvanian varieties to analyse these varietal names in point of linguistic explanations and the synonyms given. In the field of pomology, synonymy mainly refers to acknowledged and accepted parallel versions created by translation, transcription, and/or adaptation of a fruit name into other languages.

One of our first remarks is that the authors provide, in some cases, an impressive number of synonyms in four or five languages. The majority of varieties are described thoroughly, the author providing details regarding the origin of the cultivar: American (‘Frumos galben’/‘Yellow Bellflower’), English (‘Winter Pearmain’/‘Parmen auriu’), or French (‘Reinette Grise’/‘Renet cenuşiu’). Nevertheless, in the case of varieties with proven Hungarian origin, the information is either withheld (origine necunoscută ‘unknown origin’) or simply transformed into soi autohton ‘autochthonous variety’.

Bordeianu et al’s volume resumes to a certain extent Borza’s guidelines, and his tendency to avoid reference to Transylvania’s Hungarian terminological heritage.

Another surprising fact is that, in the case of old Transylvanian varieties, which certainly do have a Hungarian name, they do not provide this and pretermit Hungarian-related information (variety’s origin, place of emergence, synonyms, pomologists who described it, first documentary attestation, and details regarding hybridization or cultivation).

We have made a list of examples of apple variety names which do have a Hungarian name but that go unmentioned in Bordeianu et al’s volume. The first and most striking example is ‘Ouţe de Ardeal (literally: eggs from Transylvania), in the case of which only the Romanian synonym is given. ‘Ţâţa fetei’ (literally the girl’s breast) – this variety is obviously the same as ‘Leánycsöcsű alma’ (literally meaning: apple like a girl’s breast), recorded in Szikszai Fabricius Balázs’s 1590 Szójegyzék (Glossary) under the form ‘Lean czeczü alma. The Romanian variant ‘Ţâţa fetei’ is a literal translation of the Hungarian ‘Leánycsöcs(ű) alma’.

In the case of a typical Hungarian variety, ‘Budai Domokos’, Bordeianu et al. provide the name without mentioning that it is a Hungarian variety and name.

Another classical Hungarian variety, ‘Török Bálint’, appears under one of its well5 6

Bondoraszó (in Hungarian), or Budureasa (in Romanian) is a village in Bihor County (Transylvania) – http://szabo.adatbank.transindex.ro/index.php?action=keres1.

Marosszalatna (in Hungarian), or Slatina de Mureş (in Romanian) is a village in Arad County (Transylvania) – http://szabo.adatbank.transindex.ro/index.php?action=keres1.

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known synonyms, ‘Roşu de Stettin’/‘Rotter Stettiner’, but the Hungarian name is listed among many other synonyms, and the misleading phrase “unknown origin” appears as a piece of key information. ‘Talgere’ (plate-like apple) is the Romanian version of the old Hungarian apple varietal name ‘Tányéralma’, or ‘Tánygyéralma’ (plate-like apple), and ‘Parişe roşii’ (red Paris apple) is ‘Piros Páris’ (red Paris apple). The variety names ‘Sălcii de vară’ (summer willow), ‘Mere Rusmaline’ (rosemary apple)7 – where Bordeianu et al. admit no known synonyms – are linked to the Hungarian names ‘Fűz alma’ (willow apple), ‘Rozmaring alma’ (rosemary apple), all these varieties being present together with their names quite early in Transylvanian pomological history.

The list of Romanian apple names withholding Hungarian synonyms and Hungarian-related information goes on as follows (in brackets we have provided the Hungarian name which is not mentioned in Bordeianu et al. 1964): ‘Roşii de Geoagiu’ (the same as the Hungarian ‘Gyógyi piros’); ‘Muşcătare’ (the same as the Hungarian ‘Muskotály alma’);8 ‘Mălăieţe’ (the same as the Hungarian ‘Lisztes kásás alma’, grown in Căinelu de Sus, formerly Felsőkajanél); ‘Crişăneşti’ (the same as the Hungarian ‘Kőrösbányai alma’); ‘Frumoase’ (grown in Ţebea, the same as the Hungarian ‘Szép alma’, grown in Ţebea, formerly Cebe); ‘Sterpe’ (the same as the Hungarian ‘Meddő alma’); ‘Jalnice’ (the same as the Hungarian ‘Zsálya alma’); ‘Pizloape’ (the same as the Hungarian ‘Kicsike alma’); ‘Vărgate de Budureasa’ (the same as the Hungarian ‘Bondoraszói csíkos alma’); ‘Domneşti de Ardeal’ (the same as the Hungarian ‘Úri alma’); ‘Urseşti’ (the same as the Hungarian ‘Medve alma’); ‘Cugle’ (the same as the Hungarian ‘Kerek alma’); ‘Boghişe’ (the same as the Hungarian ‘Ormányos alma’, grown in Călata/Kalota); ‘Verzi de Ribiţa’ (the same as the Hungarian ‘Ribicei zöld’); ‘Rotilate din Slatina de Mureş’ (the same as the Hungarian ‘Kerekített alma’); ‘Mustoase de Albac’ (the same as the Hungarian ‘Mustos alma’, grown in Fehérvölgy/Albac); ‘Grase’ (originating from and cultivated in Fornădia; the same as the Hungarian ‘Kövér alma’ from Fornádia); ‘Hălmăgene’ (cultivated in Cociuba Mică; the same as ‘Halmágy’ alma, cultivated in Felsőkocsoba); ‘Crăieşti’ (cultivated in Ribiţa; the same as the Hungarian ‘Királyi alma’ from Ribice); ‘Golmoaşe’ from Ţebea (the same as the Hungarian ‘gormos/kormos’ from Cebe); ‘Sălcii de Renghet’ (the same as the Hungarian ‘Rengeti fűzfa alma’); ‘Murgi de Săcătura’ (the same as the Hungarian ‘Szürkülő alma’ grown in Szekatúra); ‘Acre de Damiş’ (the same as the Hungarian ‘Savanyú kicsi sárga alma’ from Erdődámos); ‘Costane’, or ‘Gostane’ (the same as the Hungarian ‘Gusztáv alma’); ‘Petruşele’ (the same as the Hungarian ‘Petres alma’); ‘Statornice’ (grown in Albac; the same as the Hungarian ‘Tartós alma’ from Fehérvölgy/Albac); ‘Muşcătarniţe’ (grown in Fornădia; the same as the Hungarian ‘Muskotályos alma’ from Fornádia). ‘Unsuroase de Geoagiu’ is ‘Gyógyi alma’ mentioned by Bereczki (1877, vol. 2: 307).

7 8

The variant Rusmaline is a corrupted form of the standard term rozmarin.

The Romanian term Muşcătare and its derived variant Muşcătarniţe are of Hungarian etimology, springing from the name of one of the oldest varieties of grapes, apples, and pears: muskotály(os).

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There are quite a lot of Romanian apple names in the case of which the Hungarian version and/or implications are neglected but with the indication of Transylvanian origin under the form soi autohton ‘autochthonous variety’: ‘Tare de Ghinda’ (the same as the Hungarian ‘Vindai kemény alma’); ‘Sălcii de vară’ (the same as the Hungarian ‘Fűzfa alma’); ‘Urdaşe de Feleac’ (the same as the Hungarian ‘Ordos alma’, grown near Cluj, in Feleac); ‘Sunătoare’ (the same as the Hungarian ‘Zörgő alma’); ‘Mulduane’, or ‘Moldovane’ (the same as the Hungarian ‘Várfalvi alma’, Várfalva being a village called Moldoveneşti in Romanian, near the town of Torda/Turda).

There are some Romanian apple names in the case of which the Hungarian version and/or implications are neglected but with the indication of the Transylvanian origin (originar din Transilvania): ‘Pătul’/‘Batul-alma’, ‘Poinic’/‘Ponyik’.9 There are some other Romanian apple names in the case of which the Hungarian synonym is provided but with the indication soi autohton ‘autochthonous variety’: ‘Şiculane’/‘Sikulai alma’; ‘Cormoşe vărgate de Mada’/‘Mádai kormos’.

There is a number of Romanian apple varietal names which the Hungarian synonym is provided for, but the origin is specified as origine necunoscută ‘unknown origin’: ‘Şovari nobil’/‘Nemes Sovari-alma’ (although the place of emergence is indicated as a county in Central Transylvania). Another striking case of misinformation in a scientific text is the case of ‘Şovari comun’, where the authors communicate that there are no available data regarding the origin of this variety (nu se cunosc date ‘there are no data’) although it is more than obvious that the name itself proves that it originates from a village called Sóvár, and – as Nagy-Tóth (1998: 60) puts it – it is an ancient variety from Sălaj County, Central Transylvania, cultivated in the early Middle Ages (Nagy-Tóth 1998: 60). Its Hungarian name is ‘Közönséges Sóvári alma’, a name imposed and standardized by Bereczki in 1886 by dropping the alternative, competing variant ‘Daru alma’.10 The Romanian name ‘Şovari’ is a simple transcription of the Hungarian term ‘Sóvári’. The problems which emerged in the field of sciences due to the social and political changes which occurred in 1918 (shift of borders) are signalled by the inconsistencies that can be spotted up to this day in the database of the National Fruit Collection (UK), where, for instance, under the heading ‘Sovari nobil (of Romania)’ the information regarding origin is the following: “Originated in Hungary. Distributed in 1880 when it was already known to be old.”,11 whereas in the case of ‘Sovari comun’ they state that it “Originated in Romania. Recorded in 1876.”12 9

10 11 12

Several Hungarian synonyms are mentioned: Ponyik, Pojnik, Ponyik-alma, Pojenics. Only two of them are more or less correct, and the authors explain the etimology of the term incorrectly.

For further details, see: Nagy 2016.

See also data from: http://www.nationalfruitcollection.org.uk/full2.php?varid=1470&&acc=194 8363&&fruit=apple. http://www.nationalfruitcollection.org.uk/full2.php?varid=5911&&acc=1958110&&fruit=apple. http://www.nationalfruitcollection.org.uk/full2.php?varid=5910&&acc=1958109&&fruit=apple.

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Finally, we have found a smaller number of Romanian apple varietal names in the case of which the Hungarian synonym is provided, but the origin is left unmentioned by Bordeianu et al. (1964): ‘Roz de Geoagiu’/‘Roze de Gyógy’, ‘Gyógyi csíkos’; ‘Popesc’/‘Szászpapalma’.13

6. Conclusions In our research, we have focused on the apple varietal names which are specific to the region of Transylvania (part of the Hungarian kingdom and the AustroHungarian Empire prior to World War I and presently part of the Romanian state). Our aim was to see the way Romanian specialized literature observes the mentioning of Hungarian terms related to pomology as synonyms of the currently promoted Romanian versions. We have noticed that the Romanian volumes we have consulted seem rather unwilling to communicate or to include terms belonging to the Hungarian apple variety terminology despite the fact that some of the apple varieties they deal with were recorded in very old Hungarian documents.

In fact, a lot of the Romanian varietal names (from Transylvania) are calque translations, transcriptions, or corrupted forms of the Hungarian names. To illustrate this, we mention that, from a semantic viewpoint, the meaning of the Romanian term is quite often definitely opaque, whereas the corresponding Hungarian name does carry meaning: for instance, the Romanian word urdaşe carries no meaning whatsoever, whereas the Hungarian word ordos means striped;14 the Romanian word costane, or gostane, lacks meaning, while Gusztáv is a proper name; the Romanian word Sovar has no meaning, but the Hungarian Sóvári literally means from a place called Sóvár.

We have also examined whether Hungarian specialists tend to mention the Romanian versions of Hungarian apple varietal names in their works. We have found that out of the 120 terms we have extracted, 59 varietal names were also given their Romanian equivalents as synonyms. Nagy-Tóth’s 1998 volume is more complex from this viewpoint (cultural terms have some functions; cf. Klaudy 1999), and in this sense apple variety names as culturemes should display not only the informative but the intercultural function as well.

One should expect scientific texts to be characterized by objectivity, appropriateness, correctness, and clarity, and scientific discourse should be unambiguous, comprehensive, impersonal, accurate, and lacking affective connotations or prejudices. If we approach the volumes we have studied from the 13

14

According to the National Fruit Collection: “Originated in Hungary. Described in 1909.

Fruits have crisp, fine, white flesh with a subacid and slightly sweet flavour.” http://www. nationalfruitcollection.org.uk/full2.php?varid=6241&&acc=1948403&&fruit=apple. https://adtplus.arcanum.hu/hu/view/MagyarTajszotar_2/?pg=11&layout=s.

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viewpoint of apple varietal names and their objective and precise treatment, we must say that in the Romanian volume the pieces of information related to Hungary’s and Transylvania’s joint destiny in the past (i.e. the presence of Hungarian language and terminology in Transylvania) are most times simply overridden, and Romanian specialists tend to disregard the Hungarian names of apple varieties and do not list them as synonyms of the Romanian names.

What is more, Al. Borza, the father of Romanian pomology, considers the usage or the acknowledgement of Hungarian terms absolutely impermissible (Borza 1933).

This research is, to a certain extent, a parsing of what we would call terminological intolerance due to the inference of ideologies in science (Borza’s works were born a few years after the 1918 change, while Bordeianu et al. published their work during the socialist rule) and, perhaps, an analysis of the attitude specialists display with regard to the scientific terminology and the long-established term inventory of the proximal culture.

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Döbrentei Kódex. 1508. Downloaded from: http://mek.oszk.hu/07500/07589/pdf/ dobrentei2.pdf. (downloaded on: 03.21.2016).

Nagy-Tóth, Ferenc. Népi gyümölcsészet és szakszerű gyümölcstermesztés Erdélyben. eda.eme.ro/.../EME_MNTE2005_123-140_Nagy-Toth%20Ferenc%20 -... (downloaded on: 04.19.2016).

Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Philologica, 12, 3 (2020) 188–197 DOI: 10.2478/ausp-2020-0031

Das Verhältnis zwischen den zwei norwegischen Sprachvarianten, Bokmål und Nynorsk heutzutage Attila KELEMEN

Lehrstuhl für Angewandte Sprachwissenschaft/ Department for Applied Linguistics Siebenbürgens Ungarische Universität ‘Sapientia’/ Sapientia Hungarian University of Transylvania (Cluj-Napoca, Romania) akelemen20@yahoo.no

Englischer Titel/English title: The Relationship between Bokmål and Nynorsk Nowadays

Zusammenfassung auf Englisch/Abstract in English: The present paper deals with the present-day relationship between the two official languages of Norway, Bokmål and Nynorsk (actually two variants of the same language, Norwegian), examining how their equal status functions in reality in the Norwegian society, in the administration, in the educational system, in the everyday life, in the digital world, etc.

Schlüsselwörter/Keywords: Sprachvariante, Schriftsprache, Gleichstellung, Sprachbehörden, Unterrichtssprache

1. Einleitung Die vorliegende Arbeit befasst sich mit dem Verhältnis heutzutage1 zwischen den zwei offiziellen Sprachen Norwegens, Bokmål und Nynorsk.

Norwegen ist ein Land mit 5,5 Millionen Einwohnern und mit zwei offiziellen Sprachen: Bokmål ‘Buchsprache’ und Nynorsk ‘Neunorwegisch’, die aber schriftliche Varianten derselben Sprache, des Norwegischen sind.

Bokmål ist die Schriftsprache, die für beinahe 90 % der norwegischen Bevölkerung als hovedmål ‘Hauptsprache’ dient. Sie entstand als Resultat der graduellen Norwegisierung der dänischen Schriftsprache. Wegen ihres Ursprungs im Dänischen ist sie von einigen eifrigen Anhängern des Nynorsk als unnorwegisch und unpatriotisch betrachtet worden.

1

Der Begriff “heutzutage” bezieht sich hier auf den heutigen Sprachzustand, gegebenenfalls – wo es nötig war – mit Einbeziehung der letzten drei Jahrzehnte.

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Bokmål wird vor allem in den Großstädten, in den Provinzen Innlandet, Viken, Troms og Finnmark gebraucht, während Nynorsk in den Dörfern im West-Norwegen und Mittel-Norwegen, insbesondere in den Kreisen Vestland (früher Sogn og Fjordane und Hordaland), Rogaland und Møre og Romsdal verbreitet ist.

Nynorsk ist die Schriftsprache, die der Rest der Norweger (10%) gebraucht.

Nynorsk entstand in der Mitte des vorigen Jahrhunderts dank der unermüdlichen Arbeit von Ivar Aasen. Aasen reiste durch das Land, sammelte Proben der verschiedenen norwegischen Mundarten ein, und auf der Grundlage dieser schuf er eine ganz neue Schriftsprache, die er Landsmaal nannte.

Im Jahre 1885 hat das Storting (das norwegische Parlament) das damalige Landsmål mit dem Dano-Norwegischen in der Schule und in der Verwaltung gleichgestellt.

Seit 1929 heiβen sie offiziell Bokmål (‘Buchsprache’) und Nynorsk (‘Neunorwegisch’).

Im Laufe der Zeit haben die beiden Sprachen gewisse Änderungen durchgemacht. Die meisten Rechtschreibreformen hatten ihre Annäherung als Ziel. Die Anhänger des Samnorsk ‘Gemeinnorwegisch’ wollen sie zu einer einzigen Sprache vereint sehen.

Nach vielen Jahren målstrid ‘Sprachstreit’ hat man heutzutage einen relativen språkfred ‘Sprachfrieden’ und eine musterhafte sprachliche Toleranz.

2. Wahl der Sprachvariante Jede norwegische Kreisgemeinde kann selbst bestimmen, welche Sprachform sie als administrasjonsmål ‘Verwaltungssprache/Amtssprache’ haben will.

In den Schulen müssen die Schüler die beiden Sprachen erlernen, die einzelnen Fächer jedoch in der einen von beiden, aber beim Abitur müssen sie einen Aufsatz im Bokmål und einen im Nynorsk schreiben können.

Trotzdem symbolisiert der Gebrauch der einen oder der anderen Schriftsprache “ulike verdiar, meiningar og holdningar for mange menneske” (Jahr, 1994:10) ‘verschiedene Werte, Meinungen und Haltungen für viele Menschen’.

Beinahe anderthalb Jahrhunderte sind vergangen, seitdem das Parlament die Gleichstellung der beiden Sprachen bewilligte.

Wie fungiert nun aber diese Gleichstellung in der Wirklichkeit heutzutage? Kann man über eine Gleichstellung sprechen, wenn 90 % der Bevölkerung des Landes die eine Sprache als Hauptsprache verwenden, und nur die übrigen 10 % die andere?

Man pflegt zu sagen, dass sie in der Praxis beinahe gleich sind. Nynorsk hat aber niemals 50 Prozent erreicht, weder als Amtssprache noch als Unterrichtssprache.

(Das Rekordjahr war übrigens 1944 mit 34,1%.)

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3. Unterrichtssprache Als Unterrichtssprache steht Nynorsk am stärksten in den ehemaligen Provinzen Vestland, Møre og Romsdal und Rogaland. Diese Provinzen in West-Norwegen sind eigentlich die Kerngebiete des Nynorsk. Neun von zehn Nynorskschüler kommen aus diesen Gegenden. In den Provinzen Viken, Nordland und Troms og Finnmark herrscht Bokmål vor. Die ehemaligen Kreise Østfold, Vestfold, Akershus und Finnmark2 waren einst 100-prozentig Bokmål-Gebiete.

In den Städten hat Bokmål Überlegenheit, während Nynorsk öfters in den Dorfschulen anzutreffen ist. Im Jahre 1994 hatten 17 % der Schüler Nynorsk als Unterrichtssprache, aber es gab nur zwölf Städte, die Nynorsk als Unterrichtssprache anboten.

Im Jahrgang 1993/1994 war es übrigens zum ersten Mal, dass eine Nynorsk Parallelklasse in der Hauptstadt Oslo (Sagaene) eingeführt wurde. Im selben Jahr wurde in der Damgård-Schule in Bergen die erste Nynorskklasse angesetzt, dann vier Jahre später in Trondheim. Stavanger und Tromsø haben das schon 1975 getan. In Tromsø wählten 1% der Schüler Nynorsk als Unterrichtssprache (1995), dann 2010 war es damit aus, dann 2012 gab es eine einzige Nynorsk-Gruppe. Stavanger hatte 17 Nynorsk-Klassen im Jahre 1995, aber das macht nur 1% der Schüler in der Stadt aus, 2012 gab es eine einzige Klasse, heute gibt es keine mehr. Diese Prozentanzahl ist in Florø (Kreis Vestland) am höchsten (98%). In der Provinz Trøndelag sind alle zu Bokmål übergegangen.

Die Studenten und die Schüler können entscheiden, in welcher der zwei Schriftsprachen sie unterrichtet werden möchten. Sie wählen eine hovedmål ‘Hauptsprache’, die andere Schriftsprache wird zur sidemål ‘Nebensprache’. Aber sie müssen in beiden Sprachen schreiben können.

Im Jahre 1907 bewilligte das Parlament den sogenannten sidemålsstil, den Aufsatz in der Nebensprache, der auch heutzutage gültig ist. Die Staatsprüfung an den Universitäten und das Abitur in den Gymnasien werden in beiden Sprachen abgelegt. Zum Abitur sind ein Aufsatz im Bokmål und ein Aufsatz im Nynorsk verpflichtend.

Die Rechtspartei Høyre und die Fremskrittspartiet ‘Fortschrittspartei’ kämpfen für die Abschaffung des sidemålsstil.

In der Schule dürfen die Kinder ihre Mundart sprechen, und die Lehrer dürfen sie nicht verbessern.

Die Frage, in welcher Sprachform die Ausländer, die Norwegisch lernen möchten, unterrichtet werden müssen, ist viel debattiert worden. Vor allem sind es praktische Gründe, die dazu geführt haben, dass der Unterricht im Bokmål stattfindet.

(Das gilt auch für die Norwegischlektorate im Ausland, wo die Studenten im Bokmål unterrichtet werden.)

2

Østfold und Akershus sind heute Teil der Provinz Viken, Vestfold Teil der Provinz Vestfold og Telemark, und Finnmark Teil der Provinz Troms og Finnmark.

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Das Unterrichtsmaterial im Bokmål ist umfangreich. Nynorsk-Lehrbücher gibt es nur für Anfänger, Nynorsk-Wörterbücher sind nur für Englisch und Deutsch verfasst worden.

Aber auch andere Ursachen haben zum Primat des Bokmåls beigetragen. Die Ausländer, die nach Norwegen kommen, empfinden und betrachten Bokmål als die Prestigesprache und haben oft eine negative Haltung und Attitüde gegenüber Nynorsk und den Mundarten. Das geschieht angeblich aufgrund dessen, was sie zu Hause erleben, wo die Mundarten einen viel niedrigeren Status haben als die Schriftsprache. Deswegen wollen sie am liebsten im Bokmål unterrichtet werden, wenn die Wahlalternative vorliegt.

4. Amtssprache Die norwegischen Kreisgemeinden können selbst wählen, ob sie Bokmål oder Nynorsk als Verwaltungssprache haben wollen. Sie können sich auch für språknøytral ‘Sprachneutralität’ entscheiden, d. h. die beiden Sprachen werden akzeptiert.

Sprachneutral sind auch diejenigen Gemeinden, die keine Entscheidung über die Sprachform treffen.

Von 428 norwegischen Gemeinden waren im Jahre 2013 157 sprachneutral, 158 verlangten Bokmål und 113 Nynorsk (laut Statistisk Sentralbyrå). In Vestfold verwendeten 100 % der Gemeinden Bokmål, in Sogn og Fjordane 98 % der Gemeinden Nynorsk. (Inzwischen fand eine administrative-territoriale Reform statt, und diese zwei Provinzen wurden Teil größerer Provinzen, Vestfold wurde Teil von Vestfold og Telemark, Sogn og Fjordane wurde Teil von Vestland.)

Laut der Webseite www.lovdata.no waren am Ende des Jahres 2019 aus 356 Gemeinden 148 (42 % der Gemeinden) sprachneutral, 118 (33 %) hatten Bokmål und 90 (25 %) Nynorsk als Hauptsprache. Die Hauptstadt Oslo ist sprachneutral. Die neutralen Gemeinden verwenden aber in den meisten Fällen Bokmål.

In der Kirche steht Nynorsk etwas besser als Verwaltungssprache insofern, dass 31 % der Gottesdienste im Nynorsk abgehalten werden.

1930 erließ das norwegische Parlament ein Gesetz über den Sprachgebrauch im Staatsdienst, das die Behörden zur Verwendung der beiden Sprache in ihrer Korrespondenz verpflichtete.

1980 bewilligte das Parlament ein neues Sprachgesetz, das erklärt: “Bokmål og nynorsk er likeverdige målformer og skal vere jamstilte skriftspråk i alle organ for stat, kommune og fylkeskommune.” (1994: 89) ‘Bokmål und Nynorsk sind gleichwertige Sprachformen und sollen gleichgestellte Schriftsprachen in allen Organen des Staates, der Gemeinden und Kreisgemeinden sein.’

Das Gesetz verlangt, dass Privatpersonen, Privatunternehmen und -organisationen in derjenigen Sprachform eine Antwort bekommen müssen, die sie in ihrem

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Schreiben an das Staatsorgan verwendet haben. Rundschreiben und Bekanntmachungen von den Staatsorganen sollen zwischen Bokmål und Nynorsk wechseln, so dass keine der zwei Sprachformen mit weniger als 25 % vertreten wird. Jedes Staatsorgan ist verantwortlich dafür, dass die Angestellten in Bokmål und Nynorsk unterrichtet werden.

5. Sprache der (Massen)Medien Es ist Bokmål, das überall am meisten gebraucht wird: nicht nur in den Schulen und in der Verwaltung, aber auch in der Wirtschaft, im Radio und im Fernsehen, in Zeitungen und Zeitschriften, im Theater und Film.

NRK (Norsk Rikskringkasting ‘Der norwegische Rundfunk’) ist eine staatliche Institution und fällt deswegen unter das Sprachgesetz. Das Ziel des NRK ist 25 % seiner Sendungen auf Nynorsk zu gestalten.

NRK ist die einzige öffentliche Institution im Land, die eine Normierung der gesprochenen Sprache verlangt. (In Norwegen ist übrigens nur die Schriftsprache normiert, für das Sprechen gibt es keine Norm.)

Die Nachrichten müssen in einem standard Bokmål oder Nynorsk vorgelesen werden. (Standard bedeutet hier schriftsprachennah, da es keine Norm dafür gibt, wie man sprechen muss.) Aber es gibt eine ganze Reihe anderer Programme, in denen man auch Dialekt sprechen darf.

NRK hat zwei Sprachberater, einen für Bokmål und einen für Nynorsk. Jeden Monat schicken diese Berater Briefe mit Verbesserungen und Bemerkungen an die Angestellten.

Was die Sprache der Zeitungen anbetrifft, kann man sagen, dass in vielen Zeitungen die moderaten Bokmålsformen den radikalen gegenüber vorherrschen (z. B. die bestimmte Form Sg. der Feminina endet in –en und nicht in –a: tiden/ tida, solen/sola).

Es ist wahr, dass das moderate Bokmål gewissermaßen Abstand schafft und einen formellen Ausdruck vermittelt, aber seine Anwendung hat einen praktischen Grund, nämlich dass das NTB (Norsk Telegrambyrå), die Nachrichtenagentur, von der fast alle Zeitungen die Nachrichten beziehen, diese gebraucht.

Die Stellung des Nynorsk in der norwegischen Presse ist ziemlich schwach. Außerhalb der Nynorsk-Gebiete verneinen die Redakteure gewöhnlich Nynorsk als Redaktionssprache zu haben.

In den norwegischen Filmen wird größtenteils Bokmål gesprochen. Die ausländischen Filme haben ihre Untertitel auch in dieser Sprachvariante.

Bokmål ist die Geschäftssprache. In dieser Sprachform werden die Handelstransaktionen abgewickelt.

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Wenn man in ein großes Einkaufshaus oder in ein kleines hineingeht, kann man merken, dass die Namen der Waren und die Anweisungen meistens auf Bokmål vorhanden sind.

In den Buchhandlungen gibt es weniger Bücher im Nynorsk als im Bokmål. Fachliteratur, technische Bücher sind fast ausschließlich auf Bokmål. Das gilt auch für das Schul(buch)angebot.

Aus den Fremdsprachen übersetzt man am häufigsten ins Bokmål.

Die Formulare beim Steueramt und auf der Post sind auf Bokmål, obwohl das Gesetz über den Sprachgebrauch im öffentlichen Dienste verlangt, dass alle Formulare sowohl auf Bokmål als auch auf Nynorsk zugänglich sein müssen.

All diese Fakten beweisen, dass es trotz der Gleichstellung in der Praxis eine Bokmål-Dominanz gibt.

6. Argumente für die eine oder die andere Sprachvariante Um dies zu bekämpfen, hat Norsk Målungdom, die ‘Norwegische Sprachjugend’ versucht, das nationale Argument wieder zu beleben. Es wurde behauptet, dass Bokmål Identitätslosigkeit schaffe, und dass Norwegen seine Nationalsprache im Nynorsk habe. Norsk Målungdom betrachtete die Annäherung an Bokmål als eine politische Kapitulation.

Norsk Målungdom ist übrigens die Jugendorganisation vom Noregs Mållag ‘Norwegens Sprachverein’.

Noregs Mållag wurde 1906 gegründet und ist die wichtigste Nynorskorganisation. Noregs Mållag kämpft für die Erhöhung des Gebrauchs der Mundarten und des Nynorsk. Die Prioritäten sind im Schulwesen und in der Öffentlichkeit. Die Organisation zählte im Jahre 2018 über 13.000 Mitglieder.

Die Beschäftigungen von Noregs Mållag streckten sich in den letzten Jahrzehnten von der Gründung des Aasen-Zentrums und Markierung des Aasen-Jubiläums 1996 bis zum Nynorsk Barne-TV. ‘Nynorsk Kinder-TV’.

Noregs Mållag umriss “10 argument for nynorsk” ‘Argumente für Nynorsk’. Nynorsk sei “samnemnaren” ‘der Hauptnenner/ der gemeinsame Nenner’ für alle Dialekte, sei der gesprochenen Sprache für die meisten Norweger am nächsten, sei “meir systematisk” ‘systematischer’ und “norskare” ‘norwegischer’ als Bokmål.

Nynorsk sei eine schöne, präzise, reiche, bildschaffende Sprache, vermittle große Ausdruckskraft. Es könne zur Erneuerung der Amtssprache und der schwierigen Fachsprache beitragen. Für Noregs Mållag bedeute Nynorsk “framtidsmålet i landet” ‘die Zukunftssprache im Lande’. (Norsklæreren. 3/1991. 21).

Als Replik auf diese Argumente gab Riksmålsforbundet die Verteidigung für “das moderate Bokmål”. Es wurde u. a. “die Dominanzstellung des Bokmåls auf Lands-

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basis” als entscheidendes Argument hervorgehoben. Bokmål “er der” ‘ist da’ (d. h. anwesend), ungeachtet dessen in welchem Fachgebiet man arbeitet. Bokmål sei eine völlig entwickelte moderne Sprache, sei leicht zu erlernen, habe Stabilität und sei diejenige norwegische Sprachform, die “er lettest forstått i Norden” ‘im Norden am leichtesten verstanden wird’ (Norsklæreren. 3/1991. 22).

7. Kennzeichen der zwei Sprachvarianten Wenn man Bokmåltexte und Nynorsktexte miteinander vergleicht, kann man beobachten, dass die Bokmåltexte einen formellen Stil haben, während der Stil der Nynorsktexte einfacher, volkstümlicher ist.

Nynorsk ist die Art und Weise, die gesprochene norwegische Sprache schriftlich festzusetzen. Nynorsk ist eine substantivarme Verbalsprache – im Gegensatz zum “substantivsjuk” ‘substantivkranken’ Bokmål –, und berücksichtigt die gesprochene Sprache. Eine aktive, einfache und volkstümliche Ausdrucksweise wird bevorzugt (also wenig Passiv, vereinfachte Syntax, Parataxe) im Gegensatz zu Bokmål, das eine kanzleigeprägte Syntax hat.

Trotz des Sprachstreits zwischen ihnen, haben Bokmål und Nynorsk voneinander Wörter übernommen, und der Austausch im Wortschatz geht auch heutzutage vor sich. Die neunorwegischen Wortlisten haben lange verweigert, die sogenannten an-, be-, -het und -else-Wörter aufzunehmen. (Wörter wie ‘beskjeftige’ und ‘overanstrengelse’ sind im Nynorsk nicht erlaubt). So gibt es eine Reihe von Adjektiven, die beide Sprachvarianten gemeinsam haben, aber die entsprechenden abgeleiteten Substantive (Adjektivabstrakta) gibt es nur in der Buchsprache Bokmål. [Adj. anstendig, forsiktig, likegyldig, stolt, svak; Subst. anstendighet (Bm.) – sømd (Nn.), forsiktighet (Bm.) – varsemd (Nn.), likegyldighet (Bm.) – likesæle (Nn.), stolthet (Bm.) – byrgskap oder æreskjensle (Nn.), svakhet (Bm.) – veikskap (Nn.) u. a.].

Darum ist es dann leichter Bokmål zu lernen als Nynorsk. Der Nynorskmann Ivar Eskeland behauptete, dass er Bokmål schnell und “utan vanskar” ‘ohne Schwierigkeiten’ schrieb, aber mit Nynorsk musste er sich richtig Mühe geben.

Wie man es zu sagen pflegt, sind die Unterschiede zwischen Bokmål und Nynorsk klein, aber wesentlich (“små, men vesentlige”).

Nynorsk hat mehr Palatalisierung (ikkje, leggje) als Bokmål. Die Diphthonge kommen häufiger (dei, ein) vor. Im Lautwerk ist ein wichtiges Kennzeichen, dass in vielen Positionen, wo Bokmål einen reduzierten Vokal e [ǝ] hat, Nynorsk über einen Vollvokal a verfügt (wie in -ende (Bm.) / -ande (Nn.) ’; lærer (Bm.) / lærar (Nn.). Nynorsk hat kv- in Fragewörtern, -st im s-Passiv; starke Verben haben keine Endung im Präsens Indikativ [ ligg (Nn.) – ligger (Bm.)]. Manche Verben lassen sich im Bokmål schwach konjugieren, aber im Nynorsk stark (lese, leke), und umgekehrt (hjelpe, treffe).

Die Aussprache ist in den zwei Sprachformen ungefähr dieselbe.

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Nynorsk hat mehr Wahlmöglichkeiten dank seiner Dialektgrundlage. Bokmål ist auf dieselbe Weise normiert, aber das Schriftbild in dieser Sprachform ist “støere” ‘fester’.

Gleichzeitig kann man sagen, dass die Nynorsk-Wörterbücher liberaler als die Bokmål-Wörterbücher sind, indem sie mehr Wortformen aufführen.

Es gibt auch Bokmål-Nynorsk Wörterbuch, in dem die Wortformen, die nicht gemeinsam sind, aus der einen Schriftsprache in die andere übersetzt worden sind.

8. Chancen des Samnorsk Welche Chancen hat in einem solchen Zusammenhang Samnorsk? – könnte jemand mit Recht fragen.

Der Samnorsk-Gedanke, die Vereinigungsidee, wurde nicht vergessen. Der Gedanke lebt weiter und wird vor allem von der Samnorsk Organisation Landslaget for språklig samling ‘Landesverein für sprachliche Vereinigung’ gefördert.

Samnorsk wurde lange als eine “Zukunftssprache” betrachtet, existiert aber (noch) nicht. Samnorsk ist “navnet på et skriftspråk som enno ikkje finnes, og er ikkje det samme som radikalt bokmål”. ‘der Name einer Schriftsprache, die es noch nicht gibt, und ist nicht dasselbe mit radikales Bokmål’ (Norsklæreren. 3/1991. 23).

Die Aussage stammt aus einem Artikel, entnommen Samnorsk-Organisationens Blatt Språklig samling. Dieser Artikel gibt “10 argument for samnorsk” ‘10 Argumente für Nynorsk’: “Norge trenger ikkje to skriftspråk” ‘Norwegen braucht nicht zwei Schriftsprachen’, wird behauptet. Nur Samnorsk könne in Norwegen Sprachfrieden schaffen. Samnorsk werde überdialektal, leicht erlernbar sein, und werde die sprachliche Toleranz fördern.

Die Anhänger des Samnorsk behaupten, sie wollen nur einen natürlichen Prozess fortsetzen. Ihren Gedankengang scheint ein anschauliches Beispiel zu unterstützen, das im oben genannten Artikel aufgeführt wird: “Vor 100 Jahren hieß es ‘Pigerne kastede Dukken i Elven’ auf Dano-Norwegisch (Bokmål) und ‘Gjentorna kastade Dokka i Elvi’ auf Landsmål (Nynorsk). Heute ist ‘Jentene kasta dokka i elva’ auf sowohl Bokmål als auch Nynorsk.” (Endresen: 10 argument for samnorsk, i Norsklæreren. 3/1991. 23).

Aber die Sprachpolitik des Staates ist heutzutage nicht mehr auf den Vereinigungsgedanken eingestellt. Schon die Gründung des Språkrådet war eine Warnung gegen die radikalen Änderungen, ein klarer Ausdruck dafür, dass man eine natürliche Sprachentwicklung bevorzugt, anstelle einer übereilten und gezwungenen Annäherung. Nach vieljährigem Sprachstreit will man nun endlich “ein Zusammenarbeitsklima, wo die zwei Schriftsprachen nebeneinander leben, befruchtend aufeinander wirken können, eher als tödliche Rivalen zu sein” (Haugen, 1978: 276).

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9. Schlussfolgerung Bokmål und Nynorsk haben einen Entwicklungsprozess durchgemacht, wo sich die beiden der gesprochenen Sprache und gleichzeitig aneinander annäherten. Bokmål ist eine umkonstruierte, umgebaute Sprache, während Nynorsk eine rekonstruierte, wiederaufgebaute Sprache ist. Heutzutage ist die Prestigesprache zweifelsohne Bokmål. Die Machtsprache im Lande ist das konservative Bokmål gewesen, so wie Nynorsk immer eine Gegennorm zur Machtsprache bedeutet hat. Empfangen mit Begeisterung bei seiner Entstehung, wird Nynorsk heute eher als Ausdruck einer Gegenkultur, einer Minderheitskultur betrachtet.

Das Verhältnis zwischen den zwei Sprachvarianten zeigt sich in der digitalen Welt, im Zeitalter der Digitalisierung ähnlich. Trotz einer reißenden sprachtechnologischen Entwicklung in den letzten Jahren gibt es noch viel zu tun. Mehrere Sprachprogramme können zum Beispiel zwischen den zwei norwegischen Sprachformen nicht unterscheiden, und obendrein, verstehen einige von ihnen schlechthin die neunorwegischen (nynorsk) Wörter kaum.

Dass man zwei offizielle Sprachen und mehrere Varianten der gesprochenen Sprache im Lande hat, ist in der ganzen Welt einzigartig und alleinstehend und wird von den Ausländern mit Verwunderung und wenig Verständnis angesehen.

Aber dieser Sprachzustand in Norwegen ist ein Muster für sprachliche Toleranz und Vielfältigkeit, wo die Wahlfreiheit das Selbstvertrauen stärkt und jeder einzelne Mensch sich sowohl mündlich als auch schriftlich leichter zurechtfinden kann.

Literaturverzeichnis Almenningen, Olaf m. fl. 1985. Språk og samfunn gjennom tusen år. Ei norsk språkhistorie, Oslo–Bergen–Stavanger–Tromsø: Universitetsforlaget Berg, Ivar – Bugge, Edit – Røyneland, Unn – Sandøy, Helge 2018. Geografisk og sosiologisk variasjon. In: Mæhlum, Brit (ed.) Norsk Språkhistorie II: Praksis. Oslo: Novus Forlag. 163–256.

Endresen, Rolf Theil 1991. 10 argument for samnorsk. i Norsklæreren. 3/1991. 23.

Gundersen, Dag – Wangensteen, Boye 1973. Over til nynorsk. Fornorskingsordbok.

Oslo Haugen, Einar 1968. Riksspråk og folkemål. Norsk språkpolitikk i det 20.århundre.

Oslo: Universitetsforlaget Haugen, Einar 1976. The Scandinavian Languages. An Introduction to their History.

London–Cambridge: Faber and Faber Limited Haugen, Einar 1978. Språket: en sosiolingvistisk profil. In: Papazian, Erik – Ystad, Vigdis (red.) Språk og tekst. Synspunkter på språk, litteratur og samfunn. Oslo– Bergen–Tromsø: Universitetsforlaget

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Jahr, Ernst Håkon 1992. Innhogg i nyare norsk språkhistorie. Oslo: Novus Forla Jahr, Ernst Håkon 1994. Utsyn over norsk språkhistorie etter 1814. Oslo: Novus Forlag Jahr, Ernst Håkon 2019. Språkplanlegging og språkstrid. Oslo: Novus Forlag Kaplan B. Robert – Baldauf Jr. – Richard B. 1997. Language Planning from Practice to Theory. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters ltd.

Kolberg Jansson, Benthe – Skjong, Synnøve 2011. Norsk = nynorsk og bokmål. Oslo: Det Norske Samlaget Leitre, Arild – Lundeby, Einar – Torvik, Ingvald 1991. Språket vårt før og nå. Bokmål, 3. utgave, 4. opplag. Oslo: Gyldendal Norsk Forlag Martinsen, Osvald – Lind, Asbjørn – Raastad, Frederik 1983. Fra rune til slang.

Morsmålskunnskap. Bokmål. Språkhistorie. Norrønt. Islandsk. Dialekter. Sosiolekter m. m. Oslo: J. W. Cappelens Forlag a. s.

Mæhle, Leif – Lundeby, Einar – Grønvik, Oddrun (red.) 1988. Fornying og tradisjon.

Språkvern og språkrøkt 1972-1988. Oslo: Cappelen Mæhlum, Brit (ed.) 2018. Norsk Språkhistorie II: Praksis. Oslo: Novus Forlag *** Målfront. Organ for Norsk Målungdom. 1/1976 *** Noregs Mållag. Årsmeldingar. 1992–2019 *** Norsk språkråd. Årsmeldinger. 1992–2019 *** Norsk Tidend. 2/1994 *** Norsklæreren. Tidsskrift for språk og litteratur. 3/1991 Papazian, Erik – Ystad, Vigdis (red.) 1978. Språk og tekst. Synspunkter på språk, litteratur og samfunn. Oslo–Bergen–Tromsø: Universitetsforlaget Ramsfjell, Berit Sagen – Vinje, Finn-Erik 1984. Språkkunnskap. Språkhistorie. Norrønt. Nyislandsk. Dialekter. Oslo: Aschehoug Ricento, Thomas (red.) 2006. An introduction to language policy: Theory and method. Oxford: Blackwell *** Språknytt. Meldingsblad for Norsk språkråd. 3,4/1993; 2/1994; 4/1995; 1/1996 *** St. meld. 9/2001–02. Målbruk i offentleg teneste. Oslo: Kulturdepartementet Torp, Arne – Vikør, Lars S. 1993. Hovuddrag i norsk språkhistorie. Oslo: Ad Notam Gyldendal Vikør, Lars S. 1993. The Nordic Languages. Their Status and Interrelations. Oslo: Novus Press. (Nordic Language Secretariat, Publication no. 14)

Web-Bibliographie https://lovdata.no https://www.nordeniskolen.org https://www.sprakradet.no/

Book Reviews

Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Philologica, 12, 3 (2020) 198–201 DOI: 10.2478/ausp-2020-0032

Claudia Elena Stoian The Discourse of Tourism and National Heritage: A Contrastive Study from a Cultural Perspective Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2015 Review by

Daniel DEJICA

Politehnica University of Timişoara, Romania Department of Communication and Foreign Languages, daniel.dejica@upt.ro

Using a modern, structural, and functional approach, Claudia Elena Stoian puts forward a contrastive study of the discourse of tourism and national heritage from a cultural perspective. The author successfully combines semiotics, text linguistics, semantics, intercultural communication, cultural studies, and, of course, discourse analysis to offer some very useful tools and models for the analysis of websites.

It is worthwhile mentioning that unlike other research conducted in the field, which is mainly based on the Systemic Functional Theory (see, for instance, Djonov 2005), Claudia Elena Stoian takes the analysis to a further dimension, that of culture, and attempts to show the differences in the communicative acts, which may be rooted in the culture of a country, namely in the way language and image are used to depict people, places, and circumstances, to present social interactions or to compose a meaningful multimodal act.

The aims of the research – as presented by Claudia Elena Stoian in her book – are multiple. First, the author plans to study the way Great Britain, Spain, and Romania present their national landmarks via websites (in English). To perform this study, she uses a Systemic Functional Perspective and applies the tools provided by Halliday’s theory (1985, 1994; Halliday–Matthiessen 2004) in the case of the linguistic text and by Kress and van Leeuwen’s model (1996, 2006) in the case of the visual message since, as she claims, such an analysis can indicate the main linguistic and visual strategies used to present and promote the landmarks of a country. The working hypothesis in this case is that the overall meanings built by the organization of the websites and their webpages as well as the lexicogrammatical and visual features of the promotional messages may share some

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similarities but also reveal some differences. Their identification has a twofold aim: to relate similarities and differences a) to the source of the message, i.e. institutional vs. commercial, and so to the different types of websites, and b) to the culture of the different countries, i.e. British, Spanish vs. Romanian. Second, Claudia Elena Stoian aims to interpret or to consider the results of the study from a cultural perspective: since websites are produced in different countries, they can be considered representative of those cultures. Last but not least, she intends to show the way different messages are encoded in the language and image of online communication in international tourism.

Claudia Elena Stoian structures her book into four main parts. The book also includes a foreword signed by Arsenio JesĂşs Moya Guijarro, a list of figures, a list of tables, an appendix with the detailed linguistic and visual analyses of the webpages, a bibliography, and an index.

The first volume is divided into four parts. It also includes a very rich chapter of about 300 titles, where Claudia Elena Stoian lists the titles she consulted, which are representative of both fundamental and current works written by specialists in the field.

In Part I, the author introduces the thesis, its motivation, the previous studies in the field, the research questions the study aims to answer, and the organization of the book.

Part II sets the theoretical framework of the research in four chapters. Chapter 2 addresses the field of tourism and focuses on a single type: cultural tourism. It also shows the importance destination branding and Internet have on tourism, paying special attention to the features websites need to be successful. Chapter 3 is more specific and presents the particularities of promotional tourism discourse in relation with two of its most frequent modes: language and image. Chapter 4 introduces the theoretical framework for the multimodal analysis of the websites collected in the study: Systemic Functional Theory (Halliday 1985, 1994; Matthiessen 2004; Kressâ&#x20AC;&#x201C; van Leeuwen 1996, 2006). Finally, Chapter 5 adds a new field to the study: cultural variability. It describes studies on the relation between discourse and culture and argues for the appropriateness of the cultural dimension of context dependency (Hall 1976, 2000; Hallâ&#x20AC;&#x201C;Hall 1990) for the study of online promotional tourism discourse. Research questions deriving from the presented studies close Part II. Part III presents the study. The methodology followed in the research is described in Chapter 6, including the design of the study, the collection and presentation of the data, and the method of analysis of its linguistic and visual components. The following chapters present the results of the analyses and the comparison between types of promotion and between countries. Chapters 7 and 8 present and discuss the results of the analyses from two perspectives: the type of websites (institutional and commercial) and countries (British vs. Spanish vs.

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Romanian). In Chapter 9, the author compares and interprets the results obtained from the cultural dimension of context.

Part IV is dedicated to the conclusion of the research study. It summarizes the main findings, highlighting their practical implication for the field of online tourism.

It also considers limitations of the study and possible further lines of investigation.

From my perspective, an important result of the research conducted by Claudia Elena Stoian is that she managed to place the analysis of discourse of tourism and national heritage in an adequate conceptual framework, which, as seen on the analysed corpus, proved to be extremely fertile. It is a framework offered by semiotics, text linguistics, semantics, intercultural communication, cultural studies, and discourse analysis, which offers elements for an integrated, multimodal analysis of websites. Seen from a Romanian perspective, the applied method, the analysis, and the results of the research make this thesis a valuable and needed contribution.

As I see it, another result is the selection, systematization, and processing of concepts in view of integrating them into a model able to offer a sound basis for the analysis of the discourse of tourism. Moreover, the existing models, theories, approaches, or methods are clearly presented and incorporated into a coherent whole. In this way, Claudia Elena Stoian builds a construction which has the merit of displaying a variety of existing points of views integrated into a unified work. I would like to underline that in order to complete such work successfully, it is not enough to be familiar with and coherently systematize such concepts but also to meditate in depth on them and express a personal point of view, in which, I believe, Claudia Elena Stoian has brightly succeeded.

The book has multiple qualities: both scholars and professionals can use the analysis and its results. The success of the study is given by fine and insightful analyses, conceptual clarifications, an integrating perspective, a comprehensive vision, and an original contribution of a researcher able to come up with viable and useful results.

References Djonov, E. 2005. Analysing the organisation of information in websites: From hypermedia design to systemic functional hypermedia discourse analysis. Ph.D. dissertation. University of New South Wales, Australia.

Hall, E. 1976/1997. Beyond culture. New York: Doubleday.

2000. Context and meaning. In: Samovar, L.â&#x20AC;&#x201C;Porter, R. (eds.), Intercultural communication: A reader (9th ed.). Belmont: Wadsworth Publishing Co. 34â&#x20AC;&#x201C;43.

Hall, E.â&#x20AC;&#x201C;Hall, M. 1990. Understanding cultural differences. Yarmouth: Intercultural Press Inc.

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Halliday, M. A. K. 1985/1994. An introduction to functional grammar. London: Hodder Arnold.

Halliday, M. A. K.â&#x20AC;&#x201C;Matthiessen, C. 2004. An introduction to functional grammar (3rd ed.). London: Hodder Arnold.

Kress, G.â&#x20AC;&#x201C;van Leeuwen, T. 1996/2006. Reading images: The grammar of visual design. London: Routledge.

Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Philologica, 12, 3 (2020) 202–206 DOI: 10.2478/ausp-2020-0033

Doina Butiurca, Réka Suba (eds.)

Dicţionar multilingv de gramatică I Többnyelvű grammatikai szótár Multilingual Dictionary of Grammar, 2019.

Iaşi: Institutul European. 395 pp.

Review by

Attila IMRE

Sapientia Hungarian University of Transylvania (Cluj-Napoca, Romania) Department of Applied Linguistics attilaimre@ms.sapientia.ro

There is an “impressive diversity of dictionary types” on the dictionary market, a statement found in a recent book on lexicography (Burada–Sinu 2016: 6). From this perspective, it is no surprise that printed dictionaries are still available although some of them make little sense, especially those that are just a simple collection of mono- or bilingual termbases deriving from CAT-tools.

However, this is not the case of Dicţionar multilingv de gramatică I (Hu. Többnyelvű grammatikai szótár I; En. Multilingual Dictionary of Grammar I), appeared in 2019 under the guidance of Doina Butiurcă and Réka Suba, published

by Institutul European in Iaşi, Romania. The editors are also authors, together with further specialists in various languages: Romanian and French (Doina Butiurcă), Hungarian (Réka Suba), English (Andrea Peterlicean), German (Oxana Chira), and Russian (Inga Druţă), all experts in terminology and translation studies, working at various universities in Romania and the Republic of Moldova.

As the “Foreword” announces, the dictionary promises a contrastive-typological perspective of about 200 terms in the field of grammar (A–J), based on authoritative sources representing the latest research in the respective languages: Gramatica limbii române (The Grammar of the Romanian Language), coordinated by Valeria Guţu Romalo (2005, 2008), or Magyar grammatika (Hungarian Grammar), edited by Borbála Keszler (2000). As such, the entries discussed reflect the latest terminology. For example, the authors discuss grade de intensitate ‘degrees of intensity’, but they still mention its oldest version, grade de comparaţie ‘degrees of comparison’ (344–347).

A full entry contains the head term in Romanian, which – in the majority of cases – is followed by its Latin and occasionally its Greek equivalent (e.g. accent, p. 25

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or diateză, p. 282), offering an added value to the dictionary. Then, the equivalents are listed in English, French, German, Hungarian, Romanian, and Russian, which is followed by the three descriptive sections in Romanian, Hungarian, and English, ending in the bibliography section for the specific term.

What makes this dictionary unique is the basic concept of offering the description of a relevant grammatical term in Romanian (a Neo-Latin Romance language) and then its equivalent term and explanation in Hungarian (a Finno-Ugric language), which already contains the contrast (similarity or difference) compared to Romanian.

When a particular grammatical category is not present in Romanian or Hungarian, we can find extensive explanation, adaptation, and examples in the other language.

Consequently, the outcome is very challenging as some entries have been written in Romanian first and then translated into Hungarian (with the necessary adaptations and parallel structures), while the terms coming from Hungarian were adapted to Romanian. The third large part is the English version based on both the Romanian and the Hungarian descriptions.

The descriptive and functional research includes the case system, inflexion, agglutination, conjugation systems, dependency, and the substitution classes of the determiner. The editors conclude that the expected and found differences between “specific means of expressing logical-grammatical categories do not create interferences at the level of the grammatical systems” of Romanian and Hungarian.

In my view, one of the main strengths of the present dictionary is how skilfully the comparison between Romanian and Hungarian is made, highlighting both similarities and differences in each particular case. While outsiders might think that this is evident, the explanations demonstrate that users of these two languages may not be aware how interesting this approach is. For instance, the case of abbreviation shows that Romanian sources differentiate initialisms (CFR), abbreviations by reduction & compound (Plafar), and abbreviation of scientific terms (ling. instead of lingvistică), while the Hungarian typology uses acronyms (similar to the Romanian initialisms), lexical blends (cf. reduction) as well as fusions and linguistic contaminations, which is definitely an enriched view of the same linguistic term.

The dictionary also offers a careful subcategorization when needed, exemplified by the headword accent. After having presented it as a phenomenon belonging to phonetics, we are indulged with various types such as affective tone, acute accent, prominence, fixed accent, grave accent, free accent, logical accent, mobile accent, musical accent, oxytone stress, paroxytone stress, proparoxytone stress, and syntactic stress, all being described from the perspective of Romanian and Hungarian, and effectively summarized in English.

More ambitious terms are also present, in which respect we should mention the conditional mood, within which the Romanian conditional and optative of main clauses are described, including temporality (present and perfect), drawing a parallel with the Hungarian conditionality marked by conjugated forms of

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present and past. When the lack of a particular grammatical category makes this comparison impossible (e.g. the subjunctive mood in English and Romanian), we have a Hungarian explanation for the phenomenon, which is nevertheless explained with equivalent structures in Hungarian (imperative, conditionalhypothetical, and infinitive).

The listed examples show the great care the authors manifested towards making the links between parallel grammatical terms in Romanian and Hungarian and offering equivalent solutions to expressing grammatical categories not present or less visible in the other language. The English translation, stemming from both Romanian and Hungarian, is a masterpiece of this endeavour, trying to melt the bilingual descriptions into a summarizing third one.

The examples also reveal that the authors try to cover terms ranging from phonetics to syntax, including entries from lexicology, morphology, semantics, and orthography as well; thus, it is no wonder that this first volume only contains terms from A to J, probably awaiting for two further volumes. The content clearly shows the difficulty of lexicographers when compiling the dictionary, focusing on the “canonical form of the lemmata, … meanings of the words and their lexical relationships” (Burada–Sinu 2016: 26), which is further complicated by the multilingual approach, where the equivalent terms replace the definition (cf.

Burada–Sinu 2016: 105).

The thoroughness of the authors trying to present the grammatical term in its full use both in Romanian and Hungarian has resulted in combined examples of the object (Ro. complement, Hu. határozó), reaching almost thirty different types of object on more than fifty pages, which is challenging to understand in this mixed version yet mind-opening for those accustomed to thinking in a single-language set of cases. Thus, the bilingual approach describes complement asemantic ‘asemantic modifier, and complement circumstanţial cumulative ‘adverbial modifier of addition’ from the Romanian perspective, and then we have fok- és mértékhatározó ‘modifier of degree/measure’ from the Hungarian perspective.

Other terms are also described so exhaustively that both students and expert linguists will be satisfied with the explanations. A very good example in this respect is declinare/névszóragozás ‘declension’ covering ten pages in three languages.

While all the terms are justified in this collection, one might wonder about the selection criteria for the volume. Although the “Foreword” announces that “the work comprises approximately 200 terms in the field of grammar (with the necessary exceptions!)”, we do not consider that the exclamation mark is a sufficient explanation for missing terms such as categorii gramaticale ‘grammatical categories’ or interjecţia ‘interjection’.

Another aspect that might need improvement is related to word processing.

The linguistic examples are not always marked clearly, and some of them are in italics, while others are not: Au ajuns zece şi s-au întors doisprezece. ‘Ten arrived

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and twelve returned.’, where ten and twelve should have been in italics as well (p.

313). In a similar vein, the use of punctuation marks should be improved, including quotation marks, slashes, double slashes, or the presence or lack of spaces before and after them might be unified.

Furthermore, the layout could be more user-friendly, an aspect often overlooked in all types of dictionaries, as it is very difficult to separate subsections and the examples in Romanian, Hungarian, and English in longer descriptions (e.g. expansiune). Although it is very convenient that each entry ends with the sources used, by being mentioned only once at the end of the book to avoid repetition, these might save a lot of space to section each article.

The “Index” section actually contains the list of all entries in the Romanian alphabetical order, followed by its Hungarian, English, French, German, and Russian equivalents. Although the page numbers do not always match (e.g. complement direct starts on page 187, while the index indicates page 192), it might prove to be a wonderful replacement of the table of contents of all entries. In our view, this section would have been more practical if it had been presented separately, in the alphabetical order of each language, as in its present form it only allows effective search based on Romanian keywords.

To sum up, we tend to think that the dictionary will serve its purpose, namely to become a reference material for students and scholars alike who would like to see “beyond the veil” and investigate how two typologically different languages depict interrelated grammatical terms, both being effective differently in expressing human thoughts. This is why we expect the promising “sequels”, hopefully covering entries to the very last letter in the alphabet, accompanied with a little more improved word processing and layout of sections.

The readers will sense that the present volume is the result of a team of experts, who must have dedicated a lot of time to “level” different language systems, and they should be proud of both the multilingual termbase in seven languages (including Latin or Greek) and the correlation between the Romanian, Hungarian, and English descriptions. It is true that the French, German, and Russian contribution is confined to offering the equivalents for the entries deriving from Romanian and Hungarian, but they will become important whenever a grammatical term is approached in any of the language combinations. Although the writer of the present review cannot judge the quality of these translations, it is known that the scholars behind this project have long years of experience in similar endeavours.

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References Burada, M.–Sinu, R. 2016. Research and practice in lexicography. Braşov: Editura Universităţii “Transilvania”.

Guţu Romalo, V. (ed.). 2008. Gramatica limbii române. Bucharest: Academia Română. Institutul de Lingvistică Iorgu Iordan–Al. Rosetti.

Keszler, B. (ed.). 2000. Magyar grammatika. Budapest: Nemzeti Tankönyvkiadó.

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