Oldal 173 [173]
AN OPTIMALITY THEORETICAL ANALYSIS OF HUNGARIAN-AMERICAN BILINGUAL USE
In this utterance, the speaker is asked to open a bottle of wine that he cannot
open. The bottle is actually opened by a younger man who is also present at
the interview. The wife of the speaker makes a sarcastic comment pulling her
husband’s leg over the fact that the younger guy acts more competently in this
situation than her husband. The speaker is embarrassed and feels that his face
as a competent husband — who is able to open any bottle of wine — is threatened
by his failure to open this particular bottle of wine. When he comments on the
situation, he switches to English to express that he is aware that his face of a
competent husband has been threatened in the situation by his wife’s comment
in front of all the other participants of the situation. He tries to come up with
an explanation for his failure and he makes a sarcastic comment in English
that you need crude force for this act. The switch to English enables the speaker
to take a distant position from the embarrassing situation and to take on the
position of the sarcastic observer. This shift in his perspectives also allows
him to leave his face of a competent husband threatened by his wife’s sarcastic
remark. By doing this, he is able to mitigate the face threatening effect of her
wife’s sarcastic remark.
(b) Negative politeness: freedom from imposition
Example [52]
1 GIM5I,78 "Köszönöm, no, nagyon finom, de elég volt."
(No, thanks. It was very delicious, but it was enough.)
(source: data collected by Koväcs in 2008-2009)
In this utterance, the speaker politely but clearly refuses to take more food
offered by the hostess. As in Hungarian culture, not to accept food offered by
a host or a hostess is often regarded as some slight violation ofthe Hungarian
code of conduct, the speaker switches to English to say no, to accentuate the
force of his utterance that he wants to be freed from this imposition.
The functions of Power-related code-switches
The various sociopragmatic Power-related functions that have been found in
the sample are listed below. All examples have been collected by the author.
* 171 +