1. 2022.

Abstracts in English

Studies

Neuberger, Tilda

Consonant duration perception in 1st- and 2nd-grade students: Age and gender differences

In educational and speech therapy practice, it is often observed that the speech perception processes of children entering school do not reach the level expected for their age. This delay may also be due to difficulties in the perception of speech sounds. This paper presents the results of a perceptual study of consonant duration perception among young schoolchildren, focusing on age and gender differences in the responses to a decision test involving voiceless plosives in seven- and eight-year-olds. Results confirm that perception processes of consonant durations at this age are similar regardless of gender. Furthermore, they showed the age-specific differences in duration perception at the beginning of the school years. Based on these results, the research aims to raise awareness of the need to use developmental practices aimed at improving sound duration as early as possible.

Bátyi, Szilvia – Airi, Kemppainen

The impact of the second language on the mother tongue in different language learning contexts

This study examines the impact of different language learning contexts on the mother tongue. The study covers the spoken and written language production of Russian-speaking students starting their studies in Hungary and compares their results with those of their English-speaking and monolingual peers in Russia. The research instruments include a language use and proficiency questionnaire, semantic and letter fluency tests, storytelling on the basis of a comic strip, and written production. The study is longitudinal: participants′ language performance is measured at the start of the study and after four months. The results show the impact of the non-native language learning environment on the native language, as reflected in a decrease in vocabulary richness and an increase in the percentage of pauses.

Bajkó, Edina

Written and listening comprehension in the third grade

Pedagogical practice shows that children who are already literate develop visual comprehension, i.e. they understand and remember written texts more easily. The research questions are whether third-grade students have a more advanced understanding of spoken or written texts and to what extent working memory plays a role in the process of text comprehension. The study sample consists of thirty-two third-grade students from two schools in Oradea. The survey consisted of three sessions. On each of the three occasions, the students were given a story and then had to solve a worksheet related to the story. In the first session, the children were allowed to keep the text they had received with them and look at it while solving the worksheet. The second time, they had to return the text before solving the worksheet. The third time, they were asked to listen to the text using the method of reading by demonstration. The study investigates the relationship between the results of the three surveys.

Workshop

Imrényi, András

Teaching syntax in the L1 classroom. The current practice and its challenges

The paper identifies outstanding issues and challenges faced by the traditional approach to sentence analysis in the L1 Hungarian classroom. The author highlights three problematic areas that need to be addressed. Firstly, it is argued that the distinction made between sentences and utterances serves little purpose other than legitimizing a general disregard for many aspects of discursive sentence meaning coded by word order and prosody. Secondly, it is shown that the notion of predicate, as now understood in Hungarian traditional grammar, has insufficient semantic and functional motivation. Thirdly, it is demonstrated that idiomatic multi-word patterns pose a challenge to the traditional analysis.

Gulyás, Márk

Root of Fortune. Rhetorical analysis of Éva Berniczky′s short story

The short story Root of Fortune is the title piece of the latest collection of short stories by the young Transcarpathian author Éva Berniczky. Its analysis follows the system and terminology of rhetoric. The first step is an examination of the rhetorical situation, i.e., the problem to be solved, followed by an identification of the type of the short story: the symbolic-balladic short story, which fits into the modern short story genre. Then the complex structure of the short story, with its parallel and internal narrative (the internal narrative also has a parallel structure), is explored. Its argumentation is based on contrasts and contradictions throughout and is therefore fascinating; it also has the logic of Aristotelian enthymemes. The style is distinctive: there is no dialogue, but the characters are also characterised by their dependent speech. Its style is characterised by allusion and symbolism – the title itself is a symbol – and its metaphors and complex images are distinctive, and their unravelling reveals a number of connections. The background of the short story also reveals a sad and tragic human fate.