Linguistic landscape as a way of public communication in Nagyszolos/Vinogradovo (in an anciant transcarpathian region Ukraine)

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University of Pannonia

Linguistic landscape as a way of public communication in Nagyszolos/Vinogradovo (in an anciant transcarpathian region Ukraine)

Beata Dobsa,

multilingualism doctoral school

Veszprem

Abstract

Nowadays one of the most popular research topics among linguistst is linguistic landscape: the research and examination of the visual usage of language. The conception of linguistic landscape lets the variegation of society, interpersonal relations, political ideologies be seen as a unity, so currently the topic is rightly and increasingly popular. The language is the means of expressing identity. Identity is multilayer, and that is why language is able to express countless identities. In this article, based on the linguistic landscape of a Transcarpathian town, Nagyszolos / Vinogradovo, I aim to show some examples of the many types of identity, linguistic hierarchy, that can be expressed through linguistic landscape

Keywords: linguistic landscape, visual usage of language, symbols, Ukraine,

Transcarpathia, Vinogradovo.

Анотація

linguistic landscape language visualization

Лінгвістичний ландшафт як форма суспільної комунікації в м. виноградів Закарпатської області України

Добша Беата

Университат Паннонія Угорщина, м. Веспрем

Однією з найпопулярніших тем дослідження серед лінгвістів є лінгвістичний ландшафт, тобто вивчення та використання візуалізації в мові. Ця галузь, яка цікавить багатьох дослідників, існує відносно давно, та її визначення пов'язане з іменами канадських соціальних психологів початку 90-х років. Лендрі та Бурхіс стали першими, хто відзначив використання зображень як мовного елемента в назвах областей, регіонів або агломерацій, на громадських дорожніх знаках, білбордах, у назвах вулиць, у комерційних написах і в назвах урядових будівель, що в системі й формує лінгвістичний ландшафт міста. Останнім часом на Закарпатті проводять дедалі більше досліджень мовних ландшафтів. У пропонованій роботі представлено одне закарпатське місто - Виноградів, за допомогою деяких елементів мовного ландшафту, які демонструють обличчя населеного пункту 2021 року.

Ключові слова: лінгвістичний ландшафт, візуалізація в мові, символ, м. Виноградів Закарпатської обл. України.

Аннотация

Лингвистический ландшафт как форма публичного общения в г. Виноградово Закарпатской обл. Украины

Добша Беата

Университат Панношя Венгрия, г. Веспрем

Одной из самых популярных тем исследования среди лингвистов является лингвистический ландшафт, то есть изучение и использование визуализации в языке. Эта отрасль, интересующая многих исследователей, существует относительно давно, и ее определение связано с именами канадских социальных психологов начала 90-х годов. Лендри и Бурхис стали первыми, кто отметил использование изображений как языкового элемента в названиях областей, регионов или агломераций, на общественных дорожных знаках, билбордах, в названиях улиц, в коммерческих надписях и в названиях правительственных зданий, что в системе и формирует лингвистический ландшафт города. В последние годы в Закарпатье проводят все больше исследований языковых ландшафтов. В предлагаемой работе представлен один закарпатский город - Виноградово, с помощью некоторых элементов языкового ландшафта, демонстрирующих лицо населенного пункта 2021 года.

Ключевые слова: лингвистический ландшафт, визуализация языка, символ, г. Виноградово Закарпатской обл. Украины.

Main part

When we arrive in a new country or city / town, public signs, ads and billboards are often the first forms of contact we have with the language and the script of the place. If the country is multilingual, each instance of language choice and presentation in the public signage transmits symbolic messages regarding legitimacy, centrality and relevance of particular languages and the people they represent.

Research aiming at the linguistic landscape examines how the language appearing in public land and public place [1, p. 164]. The first wave began with the work of Landry and Bourhis in 1997, focusing mainly on quantitative methods that Shohamy and Ben-Rafael [2, p. 21] described as «interpretation of the language presence, representation and meaning in public space».

In the international literature, the topic of research on linguistic landscape is increasing gradually, and the interpretation of the concept is expanding as well: nowadays it is regarded as the part of it in the documents, official forms, business cards as well as labelling of products.

The linguistic landscape that appeared as the concept of relatively new research direction is considered to be the reflection of language policy and a kind of public expression. According to Dal Negro [5, p. 206], «the language landscape makes the language policy immediately visible». Firstly, this is the result that the appearing languages in the linguistic landscape have symbolic function. The first researches that are related to this topic imputed two functions for the appearing epigraph in public: communicative and symbolic meaning.

The object of the research. During my research I am trying to demonstrate the linguistic landscape of a Transcarpathian town. What languages and how they can appear in a broadly interpreted linguistic landscape indicates the linguistic policy ambitions of the state and provides information about the linguistic attitudes and the ideologies of power.

So, in the thesis, I examine the linguistic landscape of a small town embedded in a language policy context. The linguistic landscape of a Transcarpathian town I am going to subject to quantitative and qualitative (semiotics) analysis.

The aim of the research. The investigation of linguistic landscape is one of the investigational methods of language expressing identity and symbolic role. With the help of linguistic landscape investigation, we can get closer to recognise the language policy aspirations, to explore the linguistic ideologies behind language policy. Case studies presenting the language landscape of the town provide additives in order to understand the linguistic and language policy processes, promote the exploration of language and identity relations and provide a broader view of language-based conflicts.

The aim of the research is to show that how linguistic landscape was effected by the occurring changes in the ethnical structure of towns population, state affiliation and the economic context. First, I analyse the linguistic landscape of each town from the beginning of the 20th century to the present, and then I would like to show the similarities and differences.

During the research, I start from the fact that the languages appearing in the LL have symbolic significance besides their communicative function. I would like to show that the classical language policy analyses can be well complemented by the linguistic landscape research.

During the research, I will examine how the languages used today in Transcarpathia are located in the «good, useful, valuable» versus «bad, useless, worthless» artificially created by the elite possessing power. In my paper I aim to show some examples of the many types of identities that can be expressed through a linguistic landscape.

Transcarpathia is on the West side of Ukraine, it is the neighbouring part of 4 European Union member states.

The territory is a multi-ethnic region. Not only one linguistic identity is on the linguistic landscape, because there are many people living in Transcarpathia, who speak different languages. The editors of the volume «'Minority Languages in the Linguistic Landscape» claim that qualitative and quantitative criteria should be combined in LL research.

In my thesis I focus on qualitative analysis in a multilingual region: Transcarpathia. This makes it a suitable place to investigate the use of minority languages in the linguistic landscape. The investigation of linguistic landscape according to Ben-Rafael (et al. 2010) - the elements of linguistic landscape can be explained by the following factors: power relations, communicative goals, self-expression, expression of collective identity.

A brief introduction of the examined town. There are some important information about the examined town. Their names in Ukrainian and Hungarian. Number of inhabitants and their ethnolinguistics composition at the beginning of the 20th century and nowadays.

Made at the Antal Hodinka Linguistics Research Center 2020 httvs://hodinkaintezet.uz.ua/wv-content/uvloads/2020/11/Transcaryathia 1920-2020.pdf

The national composition of 2 Transcarpathian towns (1910-2001).

The research method. Analysis of language landscape in a dynamic model. According to Pavlenko [13, c. 247-248], linguistic landscape research contributes to the better understanding of linguistic and identity relationships and also to the exploration of linguistic ideologies. However, it also points out that research on linguistic landscape is dominated by synchronous investigations that focus on a single time, implicitly considering the public space as static [13, c. 253]. However, Pavlenko (2009, 2015) does not observe the linguistic landscape as here and now phenomenon but dynamically, as an investigational process that is correlated with other linguistic practices.

It presents and analyses the elements of linguistic landscape as participants of social and linguistic changes. I examine and analyse the linguistic landscape as a dynamically changing process. That is why I follow the evolution of the linguistic landscape of the town over the past 100 years in my thesis. Now I would like to present a small detail of this through the example of Nagyszolos today.

The language question. The Transcarpathian community is a bilingual speaking community [8, p. 4-78]. The everyday's inherent to the minority existential situation for the Transcarpathian people, is the office routine.

In the summer of 2012, the Supreme Council of Ukraine adopted the law that is under the title, About the basic foundation of the state language policy» Закон України ,, Про засади державної мовної політики `'( http://zakon4.rada.gov.ua/laws/show/5029-17 ) Transmits in hungarian : Beregszaszi Aniko-Csernicsko Istvan - Ferenc Viktoria : Our language rights and opportunities. Instruction and handout to the practice of language policy for transcarpathian hunagrians. Budapest: Bethlen Gabor Alapkezelo Zrt., 2014; Fedinec Csilla - Csernicsko Istvan: The scent of language policy in Ukraine : Unfinished 2012's chapter.Minority research 2012/3: 568-588.. The law specifies that in the area of those administrative units (district, region or settlement) where the rate of one regional or minority language reaches the 10%, the given language beside the official language of the state, can be used in certain official functions, or rather in the public area. The Constitution of Ukraine also declares that the language of the office and workplace administration is the Ukrainian language, but the gentilitial language can be used in line with the Ukrainian in the gentilitial majority areas (Article 11) Constitution of Ukraine - https://rm.coe.int/constitution-of-ukraine/168071f58b.

During this era the Ukrainian laws permit of the administration on the minority language in the offices in written and spoken form, if the representatives of the national minority are in majority.

This was the period of time when Hungarians in Transcarpathia could go about their lawful occasions in their mother tongue. I would like to emphasise here the issue of possibility. From 2013 to 2018 I passed the questionnaire of the Hodinka Antal Research Institute to the leaders of several settlements with Hungarian inhabitants.

I made inquiries whether I could take all the opportunities provided by the relevant law and whether I could write my official applications in my mother tongue, i.e. in Hungarian. In spite of the law declaring that I do have the right to write any kind of official application in Hungarian in a town inhabited mostly by Hungarians, 17 mayors of Transcarpathian Hungarian towns answered in the negative, saying it is possible but not allowed. On 5 April 2019, the Supreme Council of Ukraine passed a law guaranteeing the role of the Ukrainian language as the state language Закон України «Про забезпечення функціонування української мови як державної». [Law of Ukraine “On Supporting the Functioning of the Ukrainian Language as the State Language”.] https://zakon.rada.gov.ua/laws/show/2704-19. Non-official translation of the law is available here: https://www.venice.coe.int/webforms/documents/?pdf=CDL-REF(2019)036-e (SLL2019). Excerpts from SLL2019 in this paper are given based on this document. The act was passed with a significant majority, and was signed into law by President Petro Poroshenko. In less than 8 months, the law that protects the

Ukrainian language as the only official language is expected to come into force. It has survived attempts to abolish it, both within the Ukrainian parliament and within the UN Security

Council (initiated by Russia). However, the law will still be subject to new president Volodymyr Zelenskyy's «through analysis,» as well as the analysis of the Council of Europe's Venice Commission.

So, the Central Council of Ukraine adopted the law on the official language in April 25, 2019. The aim of the law was to extend the Ukrainian language as the official language to every aspect of life, regardless of the linguistic rights of the minorities living in the country.

Before introducing the law on the official language the European Union had already drawn the attention to the linguistic rights of the minorities in case of legislation. The representatives of the national minority organizations expressed their fears many times, that the Ukrainian Government is ignoring their fundamental rights, yet it was accepted and partially entered into force July 16, 2019.

Let's look at the Picture 2 and Picture 3 again!

In Picture 2 we can see that the inscription of the Nagyszфlфs railway station's board is bilingual. The board is preceded by the Hungarian inscription and after it followed the Ukrainian. So, as the Table 1 shows, in 1939, Nagyszфlфs belonged the Czechoslovak Republic and during that time the Hungarian inscription was also allowed.

The following research question will be examined through photographs: how are minority languages presented in the LL? Why?

Language is all around us in a textual form as it is displayed on shop windows, commercial signs, posters, official notices, traffic signs, etc. Most of the time people do not pay much attention to the so-called «linguistic landscape» that surrounds them. However, in recent years an increasing number of researchers have started to take a closer look and study the language texts that are present in the public space.

Nowadays, the linguistic landscape is one of the most famous research areas under linguists. Language is a mean of expressing identity.

In this study, based on the linguistic landscape of Vinogradovo, I aim to show some examples of the many types of identities that can be expressed through a linguistic landscape. Since in this region people speak multiple languages, it goes without saying that not only one single linguistic identity is depicted in this linguistic landscape. According to the authors of the book Minority Languages in the Linguistic Landscape, which was published in 2012, we have to amalgamate the qualitative and quantitative methods while exploring the linguistic landscape. While agreeing on that, I put more emphasis on the qualitative research.

Nagyszфlфs/Vinogradovo. Nagyszфlфs/Vinogradovo is the seat of the former Ugocsa county. it is a small town which is located on the border of the Hungarian language area. Nowadays it is a district center. The Hungarians living here cannot yet be considered dispersed but the settlement is outside the area where the Hungarians live in a block.

It has a population of approximately 24 000 and that is the number it is not growing currently. About four thousands of them profess to be Hungarian. It is only 16% of the population of the town [12, p. 24-74].

Vinogradovo has always been an ethnically and linguistically mixed town with Hungarian, Ruthenian and Jewish communities. These communities living here as bilingual since in the last century.

Ukraine became independent after the split-up of the Soviet Union. In this quiet short period, two revolutions took place in the country: the orange revolution in 2004 and the revolution of dignity in 2013/2014.

These revolutions with the war going on in the eastern part of the country since 2014 evoked nationalistic feelings. Apart from the Ukrainian national colours, the national minorities «symbols appear on the linguistic landscape as well.

The appearance of national identity through symbols. The faзade of one of the Hungarian education institutions in Nagyszфlфs/Vinogradovo (Picture 4), Zsigmond Perйnyi Secondary School.

Nagyszolos / Vinogradovo is a county center with 15% of the inhabitants being Hungarians, that's why you can also see a Hungarian flag next to the Ukrainian one. These flags function just like the symbols have on top of church-towers have for the past centuries: someone who came to town could tell at once if they were in a Catholic or Calvinistic settlement.

If you take a stroll in the center of Nagyszolos/Vinogradovo and glance at the school on the main street, you instantly know: you may be in Ukraine but there are Hungarians living here too.

Bilingual signs, Ukrainian national colours. On the Picture 5 and 6 we can see that the sign is bilingual: it is in Hungarian and Ukrainian. However, the colours of the official signs resemble the blue-yellow colours or the Ukrainian majority. Not to mention that those who have made the inscriptions do not even really know Hungarian grammar.

Multilingual signs. The coexistence of nations and languages along with multilingualism is a characteristic of Nagyszцlцs/Vinogradovo too.

Here on a newspaper stand you can see both a Hungarian and a Ukrainian sign showing that these nationalities can be found living here, but also an English sign to express the will to integrate Ukraine into Europe. We must not forget: in November of 2013 when the protests against the regime of Yanukovich - who later has fled the country - started in Kyiv, one of the main goals of the crowd was the integration into the European Union.

Conclusion. In a place like Transcarpathia where you have an ethnically mixed population it is natural for languages to get into contact with each other. This kind of contact is now an elemental part of how local Hungarians speak: words borrowed from Ukrainian seem so natural to them that they can also appear on public signs.

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