Abstract:

Among the language varieties, a central role is played by the standard variety , whose system of norms is laid down in grammars, dictionaries and sets of rules. One of the aims of Hungarian mother tongue education in Slovakia is to enable students to master the standardised version of the Hungarian language. The theoretical starting point of our research is that a significant part of the Hungarian-speaking community speaks the standard or near-standard variety of the language, while a large part of the Hungarian-speaking community in Slovakia are dialect speakers, so for them dialect is the primary language variety acquired for language socialisation. The aim of this research is to assess the extent to which Hungarian standard is spoken in certain regions of Slovakia by Hungarian secondary school students, to what extent they use this variety in their own admission, to what extent they know it, whether they have received comments on the way they speak it and whether they think there is a difference between the Hungarian spoken in Hungary and the Hungarian spoken in Slovakia. The survey involved 793 respondents from 13 secondary schools in Hungarian-speaking regions of the country. Based on the responses of the students surveyed, we obtained primary data to answer the research questions formulated above. In the questionnaire survey, students responded to questions in line with the research objectives by selecting the speech situations listed, using a five-point Likert scale and answering multiple-choice questions. In our presentation, we will present the primary findings of our research, covering the marked language use contexts of standard language use, the degree of acceptance of vernacular language use, and the differences between the Slovak and Hungarian language varieties as perceived and expressed by secondary school students. The results show that the standardised norm is mainly used in writing, while in oral communication, students from the Eastern Slovakia region most often indicated the use of the standardised version of Hungarian. 95% of Hungarian secondary school students in Slovakia reported that there is a difference between the Hungarian variety used in Slovakia and the Hungarian variety used in Hungary.

Keywords:

Attitude, standard norm, survey, secondary school.