Abstract
In addition to showing regional and social variation, the language use of the minority Hungarians of Subcarpathia, Ukraine, also presents a reflection of the region’s complex linguistic history and its effects from contact with Russian and Ukrainian. On the basis of quantitative empirical findings, this study shows Subcarpathian Hungarians to be a sociolinguistically stratified group of speakers whose Hungarian language use varies in a systematic manner according to sex, age, level of education, and place of residence. The paper also outlines some of the main differences in the language use of Hungarians in Subcarpathia and Hungary which are manifested in statistically significant ways.
Keywords: language contact, sociolinguistic variation, Subcarpathia Hungarian, pluricentric language
Recommended Citation
Csernicskó, István and Fenyvesi, Anna. “Sociolinguistic and Contact-induced Variation in Hungarian Language
Use in Subcarpathia, Ukraine.” AHEA: E-journal of the American Hungarian Educators Association, Volume 5
(2012): http://ahea.net/e-journal/volume-5-2012
Biography
István Csernicskó was born in Chop, the westernmost town of the Soviet Union, in 1973. He received his university degree as teacher of the Hungarian language and literature at the Užgorod State University in independent Ukraine, and his PhD at Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest. He teaches at the II. Rákóczi Ferenc Subcarpathian Hungarian College, of which he is also vice rector.
Anna Fenyvesi is Associate Professor of English linguistics at the University of Szeged, Hungary. She received her PhD from the University of Pittsburgh. She is co-author of Hungarian (Descriptive Grammar series, Routledge, 1998) and editor of Hungarian Language Contact Outside Hungary (Benjamins, 2005).