Presentation to the Oxford Hungarian Society
On Friday 23 February, Eszter Tarsoly gave a presentation based on her doctoral research to the Oxford Hungarian Society, entitled ‘Language of Metaphors – Metaphors for Language: A Comparative Approach to Hungarian Linguistic Purism’.
Eszter discussed definitions of linguistic purism, and the origins of the privileging of the idea of conscious and planned intervention in the natural processes of language change, before presenting some examples of the metaphors and images that are applied to language, language variety, and the activity of linguists in the narratives of linguistic purism. She looked at excerpts from Czuczor and Fogarasi (eds), A magyar nyelv szótára (1862-84), Grétsy and Kemény (eds), Nyevlművelő kéziszótár (1996), Lőrince, Nyelvőrségen (1968), and the foreword written by Zoltán Rockenbauer, then Minister of Cultural Heritage, in Balázs and Grétsy (eds), Anyanyelvünkről anyanyelvünkért (2000).