A Sociolinguistic Study
of Shifting Formalities. In Hungarian Urban Discourse
Erika Sólyom
Globalization unifies the world in linguistic way as well
after Wall Break, eat Europeans showed a great interest to English
method
Observation of interactions in two hungarian companies
Angelus and Tardoz (1995): "binary system of address is representation of binary relationship in society"
There are 6 lexical items to indicate formality/informality in Hungarian.
The hypothesis: Changes in language formality are influenced by globalization and democratic [changes].
Research on formality in workin place. Angelusz, Róbert and Róbert Tardos. 1995. Megszólítások egy átalakuló világban.
found out: in 1980 big spread of nicknames ---> tendency to informality
happend in hungarian (personal exparience of the suthor
happend in China. A study of Zhang (2001)
happened in Russian (Krouglov, 1996)
My
hypothesis is that I would find more formal
language used with clients at a place where
there exist residues of the former traditional
socio-political structure and, less formality
at a place where there are newer forms of
democratic structure and ideology.
socilinguistic interview
Pro-drop language ❗ - language where you can do without pronouns
preliminary results show that people notice changes in formaity
reasons for that shifts that respondents mentioned are:
Fast food culture
Power og young people
Americnisation
lacking manners/education
democratisation
influence of foreign languages
economical and politics changes