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OCR
AN OPTIMALITY THEORETICAL ANALYSIS OF HUNGARIAN-AMERICAN BILINGUAL USE In this utterance, the speaker is talking about a gadget that an acquaintance of hers invented. She is not familiar with the Hungarian equivalent of this term, so first she refers to this thing as ‘some gadget’ in Hungarian (“ketyere”). She also explains that the reason why she calls it “ketyere” (‘this gadget’) is because she does not know its name. However, as she feels that the Hungarian term “ketyere” is hardly specific, she switches to English to specify this invention. Giving the English name of this gadget expresses this specificity with the greatest economy. The switch to English, therefore, serves the function of filling in this particular semantic gap, and as such, it fulfils the constraint of Faith. However, the switch to English violates the constraint of Solidarity. As the default language of the interview is Hungarian, and the shared mother tongue of the four participants is also Hungarian, the switch to English is a move away from the ‘we-code’ of this situation. Nevertheless, as the greatest semantic specificity is ensured by the switch to English, and the main sociopragmatic aim of the speaker is to inform the other participants of the situation about this gadget, she switches to English. First, she hesitates, she tries to give the Hungarian equivalent of this thing, in compliance with Solidarity, that’s why she says ‘I am going to call it this gadget’ (“igy fogom nevezni”), but then she resorts to the English switch as an option which expresses the thing with the greatest economy. Tableau 12: The interaction of FAITH and SOLIDARITY (FAITH >> SOLIDARITY) Candidates PERSPECTIVE | FAITH | SOLIDARITY | FACE | POWER a. — Hun to Eng: “feltalalt egy kis ketyerét, igy fogom nevezni, mert nem tudom igazabdl, page keeper, 6 page keepernek nevezi” (‘(He) invented a gadget, I will call it like this because I do not really know its name, page keeper, he calls it a page keeper.’) b. Mono Hun: ‘feltalált egy kis ketyerét, így fogom nevezni, mert nem tudom igazából, oldalszámláló, oldalszámlálónak nevezi" *] + 177 +
