Oldal 162 [162]
CHAPTER 7 FINDINGS
system with the Hungarian one, she switches to English. Ihe switch in this
case, therefore, serves as a means of evaluative contrasting, opposing the two
systems, highlighting their supposedly most striking difference.
(e) Emphasis
Example [32]
1 G1F60,82 "... akkor volt egy óriási házuk a Hunnia filmgyárral szemben
és
2 ez, ott olyan gyümölcsfák voltak, hogy az unbelievable, olyan
jó
3 volt, nagyon finom volt minden, ..."
(... they had a huge house opposite the Hunnia filmstudio, and this, there
were such fruit trees that is unbelievable, everything was so good, so deli¬
cious, ...’)
(source: data collected by Kovacs in 2008-2009)
According to Auer, “participants switch languages to [...] give emphasis to what
they are saying”*®’. In the utterance above, the speaker is reminiscing about
her past. As she feels nostalgic for the past, she recalls some fruit trees that
she remembers were very good and gave delicious fruit. When she recalls the
great quality of the fruit trees, she switches to English. The switch to English
functions as an extra comment accentuating the discursive force of what has
been previously said. The switch to English, therefore, as a post-modifying
extra comment does not contain extra information but accentuates the high
quality of the fruit trees, fulfilling the function of emphasis.
(f) Irony
Example [33]
1 G1M51,78 “Ez mind az én masterpiece-eim.“
(‘These are all my masterpieces’.)
(source: data collected by Kovacs in 2008-2009)
During the interview, the speaker modestly shows the photographs taken by
him to the two interviewers. In this utterance, when he presents his pictures,
which he calls my masterpieces, he switches to English. By switching to English,
he softens the actual meaning of the English word and indexes that he uses
302 Auer, Bilingual Conversation, 4
* 160 +