Szilvia
RÁSI
(szilviarasi@gmail.com)
Keywords: language attitude, dialect, prestige, stigma
Nowadays the perception of dialect usage is quite controversial: some people appreciate it positive, while others often consider it negative. About the attitude of people speaking in dialect towards their own language version several studies have been carried out in Hungarian linguistics. These studies have been written in Hungary (eg. Kontra 1997; Fodor–Huszár 1998; Kiss 2000) and beyond the Hungarian border (eg. Kožík 2004; Sándor 2000 etc.). Some of them discuss the question of language attitude involving more research centers, while other researches deal with this topic involving of a single settlement. My own research aims to join the latter, that is, the examination of attitude of people who are using palóc dialect (a dialect of Hungarian language on the area of Slovakia).
The settlement, Méhi, is a village of 818 inhabitants in the region of Gömör, Slovakia. The dialect is the dominant language variant in everyday speaking situations in the language usage of the examined settlement where villagers speak in eastern-palóc dialect. This Hungarian dialect - compared to the standard - shows significant differences in both phonetic and lexical level.
In the current research I have used the questionnaire method besides the passive observation. The sociolinguistic questionnaire was filled with 100 habitants. The data were analyzed mainly by gender and age category.
I set up three main hypotheses. First, I assumed that the speakers judge their language skills to be weaker than the Hungarian speakers´. Furthermore, my hypothesis also included the fact that speakers regard their dialect as natural and not ashamed. Finally, I assumed that the population aims to retain the Hungarian language. The hypotheses have been partially justified based on data processing so far. The data show that although more than one third of the 100 informants have been stigmatized by their dialectical speech, and most of them are ashamed of their language usage, a small proportion still has a positive attitude towards it. It is also obvious from the data obtained that nearly half of the informants consider their language skills to be weaker than speakers living in Hungary, and more than two-thirds consider the Hungarian speech to be more beautiful than their own. Responses also reveal the fact that the inhabitants aim to keep the Hungarian language, since the speakers use Hungarian in most of their speaking situation.