Language and Literature paper by Sárosi-Márdirosz, Krisztina
A Linguistic Institute in the service of Hungarians living in Transylvania
Type of Abstract (select):Abstract (max. 250 words):
Being the researcher of the Szabó T. Attila Linguistic Institute for 10 years now, I considered it would be interesting to present the social and institutional background, aims and objectives of this Institute that was established due to the complexity of those problems that occurred after the regime change in 1989, when minorities regained their right to use more widely their mother tongue again. Insecurity, inconsistency and strong influence of the Romanian language, the lack of information and of public awareness about linguistic rights are just some of the many problems. These problems are characteristic for all the regions outside the borders of Hungary where there live Hungarians (the territories taken away after the Trianon Treaty) and called for the establishment of linguistic research institutes in these regions. Thus in 2001 in Transylvania the Szabó T. Attila Linguistic Institute was constituted.
The main objectives of the Linguistic Institute:
1. to establish, maintain and develop demographic, juristic, sociolinguistic and educational databases,
2. to take part in language and statute planning
3. to make research in sociolinguistics,
3. to offer language services to Hungarian institutions and private entities
The institute also proposes to collect, analyze and facilitate access to every Romanian law and statutory rule that governs language use. Linguistic human rights, bilingualism, contactology, Hungarian minority language variants are also research topics of the Institute. The Institute also creates digitized linguistic databases (glossaries for the public administration, loanwords glossary and monolingual interpretive dictionaries).
Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Sárosi-Márdirosz Krisztina is an Assistant Professor PhD. at Sapientia Hungarian University of Transylvania (Târgu-Mureş, Romania). She gratuated the Faculty of Letters at Babeș-Bolyai University of Cluj-Napoca and the Faculty of Political, Administrative and Communication Sciences at Babeș-Bolyai University of Cluj-Napoca. She received her PhD. in philology at Babeş-Bolyai University of Cluj-Napoca in 2009. She has published studies on linguistics, translation studies and terminology. She is a member of External Public Body of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and at present she is working on the Hungarian-Romanian cultural dictionary and on an electronic data-base of legal terminology in collaboration with Szabó T. Attila Linguistic Institute (Cluj-Napoca). She has also taken part to numerous national and international conferences and scientific sessions (New York, Budapest, Eger, Szeged, Wien, Novi Sad, Cluj-Napoca, Miercurea-Ciuc etc).