Conduction period: February 2019 –
A multilingual language use and a multilingual linguistic landscape in educational institutions is extremely important, since this is the first institutional place where Hungarian students are confronted with the official language policy and language ideology of the state for the first time. These encounters could influence decisively the expectations and attitudes of students towards the language policy of the state and language practices.
The goal of the research is to map the linguistic situation and language practices of Hungarian medium schools in Transylvania, focusing on non-educational language use and linguistic landscape. According to our data, in 2019 there were 361 mixed schools and 570 independent Hungarian medium schools were children could learn in Hungarian language, yet no comprehensive research had been conducted yet on the linguistic habits and linguistic landscape of these institutions.
The research is conducted in two stages:
- Quantitative research focusing on formal and official language use, such as non-educational language use and linguistic landscape
- Semi-structured interviews with school principals and vice principals – the interviews aim to provide answers in two main topics:
- understanding decision-making practices and mapping challenges and strategies that occur
- how the linguistic landscape of schools and internal language use is negotiated
Our research offers answers to the question of how schools approach language issues and majority-minority relations. Furthermore it shows what opportunities do schools offer to Hungarian students to use their mother language.
Publications, presentations and press releases on this topic
Publications:
- research report – the complete text can be downloaded HERE.
Presentations:
- Kolozsvári Magyar Napok 2019: Mi van kiírva magyarul az iskolákban (Toró Tibor)
- A nyelv közösségi perspektívája IV. Nemzetközi tudományos konferencia, Nagyvárad 2019: Hivatalos nyelvhasználat és nyelvi tájkép a romániai magyar iskolákban (Toró Tibor, Varga Szilvia)
- International Conference on Multilingual Practice, Szczecin 2020: Equal, but some more equal than others? Official language use and linguistic landscape of mixed Hungarian-Romanian schools in Romania (Toró Tibor, Varga Szilvia)
- Társadalomtudományi kutatások az oktatás szolgálatában? Oktatási konferencia, Szováta 2020: Aszimmetria és kizárás? Nyelvhasználat és nyelvi tájkép az erdélyi vegyes iskolákban (Toró Tibor)
Press releases: