THE STUDY OF THE HUNGARIAN LANGUAGE USE IN SLOVAK SECONDARY SCHOOLS

Abstract

The variety of Hungarian spoken in Slovakia is widely used in elevated functions, since it is the language of culture, and several areas of education [Lanstyák 1996; Šenkár 2019; Tóth 2019; Németh 2020; Vančo 2020] despite the fact that the curricula are based on the Hungary Hungarian standard [Kozmács-Vančo 2016]. István Lanstyák conducted a study in 2000 to explore the differences between the use of the Hungarian language in Slovakia and Hungary. The aim of the present paper is to examine how language use in Slovakia and Hungary has changed over the past two decades: it updates the previous data and investigates to what extent Hungarian language use has changed and what the reasons for these changes are. Empirical data were collected using a questionnaire. In order to provide data comparable to earlier findings, it was put together based on a previous questionnaire by István Lanstyák and Gizella Szabómihály [1997], which they compiled at the end of the 1990’s to collect the linguistic data they later analyzed in a monograph entitled A magyar nyelv Szlovákiában (‘The Hungarian language in Slovakia’) [Lanstyák 2000]. This original questionnaire was revised and updated according to the cultural and communicational changes which have taken place since then.