Language contact phenomena in the articles and comments
of a Hungarian online daily paper in Vojvodina

Réka SÒLYOM

University of the Reformed Church in Hungary,
Budapest Faculty of Humanities, Department of Hungarian Linguistics
(solyomreka@hotmail.com, solyom.reka@kre.hu)

The paper focuses on the use of Hungarian language among native speakers of Hungarian in Vojvodina.

The hypothesis of the analysis is that in Vojvodina various language contact phenomena concerning Hungarian can be observed due to bilingual situation (cf. Göncz 2004, Molnär Csikös 1989). To prove this, the analysis continues the author's investigations into the language use of an online daily paper, called Magyar Szö ('Hungarian Word'). In 2011, in 2015, and in 2016 the author examined the Hungarian language use of this newspaper (cf. Sölyom 2012, 2017), and found that differences between standard Hungarian and Hungarian in Vojvodina can emerge at many linguistic levels, as speakers of Hungarian there use Serbian language as well in many fields of everyday life (Göncz 2004).

Even though these differences are not proved to be as enormous as in the case of other bilingual Hungarian language users (Göncz 2004: 143, Kontra 2014: 184), differences at various linguistic levels (e.g. morphology: differences in affixation; lexicon: the effects of Serbian on Hungarian words and phrases; syntax: differences in sentence construction and word order) can be witnessed in the articles and related comments of the analysed newspaper. During the analysis, the Dictionary of Foreign Words (=ISZ) often helps interpret differences concerning the lexicon. The talk will give an insight into the above mentioned linguistic phenomena from the period that has not been analysed by the author since the last investigation (December 2016). Thus, the present paper can be considered as the continuation of the former researches on the topic.

The present paper can lead to useful results concerning the Conference's scope, as former researches of the author have proved that it is worth analysing the effects of electronic media in the case of articles in Magyar Szö (cf. eg. Sölyom 2017). For readers, it is possible to comment on the topics of the newspaper on its own website (https://www.magyarszoss/), nevertheless, according to the author's experiences, it has become more and more popular to reflect and react to the articles on the newspaper's Facebook Page. Consequently, strategies for language shift and examples for language contact phenomena in the field of electronic media and on the Internet can successfully be witnessed in the case of these websites.

Keywords: bilingualism, Hungarian language in Vojvodina, language contact phenomena, References

Göncz, Lajos 2004. A vajdasági magyarság kétnyelvűsége. [=Bilingualism of Hungarians in Vojvodina.] Szabadka: MTT Könyvtár 8.

ISZ = Tolcsvai Nagy, Gábor cd. 2007. Idegen szavak szótára. [Dictionary of Foreign Words.] Budapest: Osiris Kiadó. Kontra, Miklós 2014. Néhány különbség a muravidéki és a vajdasági magyar nyelv közön. [=Some Difierences Between the Hungárián Language in the Mura Region and in Vojvodina.] In: Gróf Annamária - N. Császi Ildikó - Szoták Szilvia szerk. Sokszínű nyelvészet - nyelvi sokszínűség a 21. század elején. írások Kolláth Anna tiszteletére, 182-185. Budapest - Alsóör: Tinta Könyvkiadó - UMIZ- Imre Samu Nyelvi Intézet.

Molnár Csikós, László 1989. A magyar nyelv helyzete Jugoszláviában. [=The Situation of Hungárián Language in Yugoslavia.] Magyar Nyelvőr 113 (2): 162-175.

Sólyom, Réka 2012. Vajdasági magyar nyelv és stílus. A vajdasági magyamyelv-használat sajátosságai napjainkban. [“Hungárián Language and Style in Vojvodina. Features of Present-day Hungárián Language Use in Vojvodina.] Hungarológiai Közlemények 43 (1). 31-41.