The Approaches of the Primary Scool Mother Tongue Education in Transcarpathia

 

Viktoria BODOR

 

Ferenc Rakoczi II Transcarpathian Hungarian Institute (Beregovo, Ukraine)

and ELTE Doctoral School of Linguistics

(bodor.viki8@gmail.com)

 

Key words: Transcarpathia, mother tongue education, primary education, standard and non­standard variants

 

Hungarian is a pluricentric language, the primary center of which is Hungary. However, a Hungarian-language educational system from the kindergarten to the university level operates in several neighboring countries (Romania, Slovakia, Serbia and Ukraine). One of the important tasks of the mother tongue teaching is to learn the codified standard language variant. According to the traditions of Hungarian mother tongue education, this is one of the most important goals and tasks of the school. However, Hungarian communities living outside Hungary live their lives and use Hungarian in other social, political, economic and cultural contexts. This particular language, which is somewhat different from the one used in Hungary, also appears in the mother tongue education of the school. In the neighboring states of Hungary, the Hungarian language is the language of instruction in Hungarian schools. The presentation demonstrates what are the common linguistic ideologies among the teachers in the Hungarian mother tongue education of Ukraine (Transcarpathia) and how they adress the issue of mother tongue education, how they relate to the Hungarian language used by their students. I examine how the characteristics of other language variants appear in the primary level Transcarpathian Hungarian mother tongue education (or more specifically, whether they appear at all). My paper is based on a non-representative survey involving primary school teachers, and is based on a textbook analysis (Hungarian language textbooks).