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CHAPTER 5 —o — BACKGROUND INFORMATION ON HUNGARIAN-AMERICAN IMMIGRANT COMMUNITIES INTRODUCTION Optimality Theory for the analysis of bilingual grammar premises upon the assumption that there is a universally applicable bilingual grammar, consisting of five principles, acting as constraints of linguistic inputs, of which ranking varies in different bi- or multilingual communities. Bhatt and Bolonyai have set up four socio-cultural-historical aspects relying on which the ranking of constraints can be hypothesized. These are “(1) differences in socio-cultural norms; (2) history of bilingual contact; (3) structural position of bilingual group within the larger social historical context; (4) and collective agency in how communities organize their bilingual resources and (re)negotiate meanings of code choice and CS in particular socio-political economies”!”'. In order to set up a hypothetical order of rankings in the Hungarian-American bilingual community in North Carolina, it is necessary to examine this particular community along these aspects proposed by Bhatt and Bolonyai. As the first aspect of community characteristics defined as “differences in socio-cultural norms”'** seems to be too vague in terms of its scope of study, it will be excluded from my investigation. The focus of my investigation, instead, will be on the three other socio-cultural-historical aspects. First, the history of bilingual contact will be analyzed, that is, a historical overview of Hungarian-American immigration will be given. It will be followed by an examination of the structural position of the bilingual group within the larger social historical context, that is, how Hungarian-American communities can be positioned in the U.S. social context in terms of their socio-economic status. Thirdly, Hungarian language use patterns will be examined in the 1 Bhatt — Bolonyai, Ibid., 524 1 Bhatt — Bolonyai, Ibid., 524 + 79 +
