Page 110 [110]
OCR
HUNGARIAN-ENGLISH LINGUISTIC CONTRASTS. A PRACTICAL APPROACH Culture-specific objects or concepts carry more connotative (associative) meanings than other words. These meanings may be context-independent: the associations for szaloncukor in a free association test”? were narancs, fények, meleg, ajándék, tél, betlehem, finom, feny6illat (mostly related to Christmas), signalling the positive emotive associations related to Christmas. Consider also the associative meanings of words like gémeskút, Mohács, gulyásleves, jegenyefa, keszeg, ávós, betyár, zsandár, barackpálinka, kuruc, szűr, etc. 7.4.3 Register Words may have different connotations and stylistic values depending on the register they belong to. Being aware of the stylistic differences of words related to register is important in foreign language learning, especially at advanced and proficiency level. Beginner to intermediate learners tend to disregard register specificity and degree of formality. As a result, mixing of registers often occurs in L2 writing and L1-L2 translation. E.g., the Hungarian word abbahagyni corresponds to English abandon, desist and give up, but the latter is typical of the conversational register and is avoided in written styles. In a similar way, use of the verb get is typical of the conversational register, but is hardly ever used in scientific registers. In Agatha Christie’s novels Poirot regularly uses the phrase J comprehend (cf. French je comprends). This is a covert error: it is grammatically correct and can be understood easily, yet situationally it is usually inappropriate: the usual phrase in informal conversation is I see. 7.5 SENSE RELATIONS A large part of the meaning of a word comes from its sense relations, i.e., its relation to other words in the vocabulary of a language. Sense relations include synonymy, hyponymy, antonymy, meronymy, homonymy and polysemy. 7.5.1 Synonymy Synonymy is defined as similarity of meaning (usually denotative meaning). True synonymy would mean complete identity of all the various kinds of meanings of two words, but this is rare. As a result, synonyms are interchangeable in some, but not all, contexts. Synonyms may belong to different geographical varieties: British English petrol is gas in American English. Within the same 52 This was an informal classroom test conducted by the author with third-year undergraduate students at the University of Pannonia in 2008. * 108 +
