Abstract:

The teaching of onomastics has a rich tradition at the Institute of Hungarian Language and Literary Science of Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra. In the last decade, the sociological, interdisciplinary education of onomastics has come to the fore at the Hungarian Institute in Nitra. In the lessons, we focus on the socio-onomastic approach, one of the central topics is the study of the relationship between society and the use of names. The research areas of socio-onomastics are demonstrated primarily with the help of examples from the Slovak-Hungarian bilingual environment, from the name use practice of the Hungarian minority living in Slovakia.

The study deals with how to teach and popularize the field of research in proper names in innovative ways, how to involve university students in onomastic research and conferences, and it also touches upon what topics students prefer to work on.

The author emphasizes that proper names should have a place at all levels of public education. Names are an integral part of our lives. The relationship to proper names is one of our basic linguistic and social psychological experiences. The names are the witnesses of the history and the history of culture, and with their examination we can give a lot of information about the past and the present of a small or large community.

Keywords:

Interdisciplinary education, socio-onomastics, proper names, Slovak-Hungarian bilingual environment.