Hungarian Greetings and Forms of Address in a Cross-Cultural Approach
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Hungarian Greetings and Forms of Address in a Cross-Cultural Approach Koutny Ilona Introduction We communicate, consciously or unconsciously, throughout our lives. We transmit information or express our feelings or attitudes toward situations and other people. Verbal communication is accompanied by or sometimes even replaced by nonverbal communication. Greetings embrace the social interaction of communication, and the act of addressing draws attention to and establishes the relation between the interlocutors. Which linguistic form is chosen by the speaker in a given social interac tion depends on the relation and difference between the interlocutors. These forms, often marked on the lexical and/or grammatical level, are deter mined by current social settings and norms. Two main categories are often distinguished: the polite or formal addressing forms designated by V and the familiar or informal forms designated by T introduced by Brown and Gilman (1960) from the initials of the Latin Vos and Tu. They characterized the relation of interlocutors in the framework of power and solidarity. Power can mean not only social status, but also physical strength, wealth, age, sex, skin color, etc. The power semantics is nonreciprocal: the superior says T and receives V. Between persons of roughly equivalent power, theV address became reciprocal in upper classes historically and T in lower classes. The solidarity semantics is based on symmetric relation between power equals (due to likemindedness, similar behavior or dispositions as political mem bership or similar profession) and frequent contacts. Solidarity is gaining supremacy with increased social mobility (Brown and Gilman 1960). The spread ofT-forms can be observed more and more nowadays. Levels of formality or politeness are culture bound. Researchers on many different languages have shown that the power-solidarity semantics is not always sufficient to describe the norms of politeness (e.g. Braun 1984, Haase 1994). The category of respect was introduced with several values (e.g. Schu bert 1986, Haase 1994). If the partners have a similar respect value one to wards the other, their forms of politeness are symmetrical (solidarity), and if they manifest a big social distance, their use of forms of politeness is asym metrical (power relation). It is well known that Asian languages have a rich system of addressing people, including honorifics, but European languages such as French, German, Italian, or Polish can do with the two main forms, the formal (V) and informal (T). The reciprocal V is traditionally consid ered as the expression of politeness and the reciprocal T that of solidarity (Wardhaugh 1992). 6 Koutny Ilona Where is the place of Hungarian? This paper tries to present the ways of greeting and addressing people in different settings in Hungarian, pointing out particulars due also to political and social changes in recent years. Par allel to the forms of address the relation of interlocutors is also marked by the verb conjugation and the pronouns used with them. These last are often referred to as bound forms of address, and the non-bound forms - nouns and pronouns beyond the syntactic structure - as free forms. The phenomena will be analyzed in a cross-cultural framework (comparing Hungarian primarily with Polish) in different contexts (among friends, in the workplace, in advertising etc.). A short e-mail inquiry concerning usage helped my work: 32 questionnaires were filled in by 12 women and 20 men, all high school graduates, aged between 32-72 (30-39: 3+1; 40-49: 3+5; 50-59:6+8; 60-72:0+6). The abbreviations used are: H: Hungarian, P: Polish, E: American English, F: French, G: German in Germany. G reetin g s Greetings are an important part of social contacts; they signal recognition of the other person, readiness to start an interaction or the end of the inter action (Deme et al. 1987). They have some standard forms depending on the time, whether the participants are meeting or leave-taking, and the rela tion of the interlocutors. Greetings are accompanied normally by gestures or facial expressions. Formal and informal greetings can be distinguished in E, F, G and P. The formal greetings in these languages are at the same time neutral, they can be used in informal contacts as well (in the workplace, with friends, in the family etc.), e.g. the PolishDzien dobry ‘Good day’ is the most frequent and general greeting, it works in every case (Zgolkowie 1993, Marcjanik 1997), but Czeid ‘Hi’ is marked as only informal. As for Hungarian, the forms are rather distinct, Jo napot can not substitute for Szia in the case of friends or children. The familiar forms Szia, Czeid, Salut are less sensitive to the time and the situation (such as the beginning or ending of a meeting) in all the lan guages mentioned (see Table 1). It can be observed that even the polite forms Jo napot, Dzien dobry, Bonjour or Guten Tag are more and more used as a general greeting regardless of the actual time (e.g. in the evening, espe cially in telephone calls). In English, especially in American English, Good morning and Good afternoon give way toHello. In Table 1, tim e is signaled without giving precise hours because there are differences in the usage of the treated languages. The details of time distinction would exceed our pa per, for this same reason, we have to limit ourselves to the principal forms of greeting. Modern Filológiai Közlemények 2004. VI. évfolyam, 1. szám 7 Table 1 Hungarian greetings in comparison with Polish, German, French and English Formal forms at the beginning of meeting L anguage T im e morning a.m. n oon p .m . evening night HUN Jo reggelt Jo napot Jo estet I | | 1 1 1 POL Dzieri dobry Dobry wieczor ... GER Guten Morgen G u ten Tag Guten Abend | 1 FR Bonjour Bonsoir ENG H ello Good morning G ood Good evening afternoon i i Formal forms at the end of meeting L anguage T im e m orn in g a.m. noon p.m. evening night i i i i HUN Viszontlátásra Jó éjszakát POL Do widzenia/zobaczenia D obranoc GER Auf Wiedersehen G ute N acht FR A u revoir Bonne nuit ENG Good-bye, Bye-bye G ood night Familiar forms L anguage at the beginning at th e end HUN Szia, Szervusz, Helo Szia, Szervusz, Heló POL Cze£ci,Witaj Czeáő, Na razie, Pa GER Hallo T schtiss FR Salut A bientöt ENG Hi See you, Bye 8 Koutny Ilona To add a kívánok ‘I wish’ to Jó napot and similar expressions is more polite. In French, the polite Bon après-midi and Bonne soirrée have appeared on the analogy of Bonne nuit at leaving. The informal forms have a plural Sziasz tok, Szervusztok, Helótok for the case of greeting several persons. This goes back to the original meaning and use of the Latin word servus ‘servant’, so Szervusztok means ‘your (plural) servant’, and this affixation spread over to the other two forms (Szia which comes from Szervusz and Heló borrow ed from English, but also used upon leaving). The farewell Pa, usually infor mal in Polish, sounds affected in Hungarian between adult women, it is used normally to little children with a wave of hand. These Hungarian greetings are usually reciprocal between adults. In contrast to the other languages under investigation, there is a non-recipro cal form (Kezét) csókolom ‘I kiss your hand’ or in everyday speech Kezicsó kolom used by children to adults and by polite older men to women. This form has survived from an earlier time, but not the act: children no longer kiss the hand of an adult and even men do not do this in contrast to a po lite Polish man who may kiss a woman’s hand, but rarely says Calujç rqczki. My small-scale inquiry shows that men over 50 use this greeting rather for all women, but younger men do it only in the case of well-known or respected older women. Some women under 50 use this greeting with elderly persons. Adults return an informal Szervusz to children’s greetings and women answer with a formal greeting such as Jó napot to the men’s (Kezét) csóko lom. The adult-child relation manifests a power relation. The situation can change however, when the children grow up, into reciprocal formal greet ing or in the case of friendly relations, into the reciprocal informal greeting. The transition is not always simple, it can cause problems for a youngster, e.g. an adolescent girl who still says (Kezét) csókolom to her neighbor, re ceives a Jó napot or even the same (Kezét) csókolom from him in return, be cause he considers her a young lady already. As regards the accompanying greeting acts in Hungary, a handshake is common between men, it can happen between a man and a woman and is very rare between women (mainly when introducing themselves at the be ginning of a contact). They rather kiss each other twice (in Poland 3 times and in France even more) in the case of close relationship, but not in every day contacts. The kisses are more popular among the youth. A nod of the head with or without a smile and a waving with the hand can accompany and even replace the verbal greeting when the partners are at a certain physical distance from one an other. Addressing people Addressing someone can fulfill several functions, such as drawing and main taining the attention of the interlocutor, establishing the relation between them, and an emotive function with diminutive forms (Jancsika, drága kisfi am! ‘Little John, my dear son’).