Country of residence

Hungary

Brief introduction

Researcher, Institute for Linguistics, Hungarian Academy of Sciences

Education

PhD – Linguistics, 2011, University of Pécs

Academic profile

My current research focuses on Romani speakers’ and scholars’ language ideologies of Romani language in Central and Eastern Europe. On the one hand, relying on the data collected during a linguistic anthropological fieldwork, it gives an insight to the discourse strategies used in Transylvanian Gabor Roma communities. I examine the pragmatic and social functions of culturally specific discourse strategies both in the context of everyday interaction (e.g. in caretaker speech, in teasing, offer and invitation situations etc.) and in public, more formal situations and speech events (eg. public oath, Romani political discourse), paying special attention to the gendered aspects of them. I analyse the speakers’ own ideology on the forms and functions of the particular discursive forms, and its relation to the gender ideologies. On the other hand, the research focuses on the experts’ ideologies of Romani language: it investigates how the experts’ language ideologies influence the representations and the status of Romani. It analyses how Romani is represented in the scholarly descriptions and in institutional discourses and practices, e.g. in censuses (language ideologies in statistical discourse), in public education, in the context of state language exam etc. The research project can have implications for state policies and for Romani language planning as well.

Publications

• Szalai, A. (2010): Nyelvi ideológiák és a társadalmi határok kijelölése egy erdélyi gábor roma közösségben. [Linguistic ideologies and the construction of social boundaries in a Transylvanian Gabor Roma community.] In Feischmidt, Margit (ed): Etnicitás. Különbségteremtő társadalom.  Budapest: Gondolat – MTA Kisebbségkutató Intézet, 418-429.
• Szalai, A. (2006): Egységesség? Változatosság? A cigány kisebbség és a nyelvi sokféleség. [Unity? Variability? The Gypsy minority and the linguistic diversity.] Nyelvtudományi Közlemények 103: 163–204.
• Szalai, A. (1999) Linguistic Human Rights Problems among Romani and Boyash Speakers in Hungary with special attention to education. In Kontra, Miklós, Tove Skutnabb-Kangas, Robert Phillipson and Tibor Várady (eds.): Language: A Right and a Resource. (Approaching Linguistic Human Rights.)  Budapest: CEU Press, 297-315.

Keywords

Sociolinguistics, linguistic anthropology, Romani language, language ideologies, gender and language, language policy

Contact

szalaia71@gmail.com browse members list