VAIDA KNABIKAITĖ

PROFESSOR KAZIMIERAS ROMUALDAS ŽUPERKA – CREATOR OF LITHUANIAN LANGUAGE STYLISTICS

The distinguished Lithuanian linguist and stylist Kazimieras Župerka celebrates his 80th birthday this year. When interviewed on various occasions, the scholar emphasizes: “Stylistics was my destiny.”

Kazimieras Župerka’s scholarly interests are very broad. His research encompasses general stylistic theory, functional and practical stylistics, competition among linguistic means, the stylistics of encoding and decoding, metalinguistics, non-professional linguistics, the teaching of stylistics, and textual and ethnic stylistics. These subjects are reflected in K. Župerka’s dissertations, books, articles, conference papers and their abstracts, and in the topics of the research projects he supervised. Since issue 75, K. Župerka has been a member of the editorial board of the scholarly journal Kalbos kultūra (since 2014, Bendrinė kalba), where he has also published numerous articles.

For K. Župerka as a scholar, postgraduate study at the Department of Lithuanian Language of Vilnius University (1966–1969) was especially important. His academic supervisor, Professor Juozas Pikčilingis, the pioneer of Lithuanian linguistic stylistics, can be said to have laid the foundations of this new branch of linguistics together with his talented postgraduate student. J. Pikčilingis invited K. Župerka to assist in writing the book Leksinė ir gramatinė sinonimika (1969). K. Župerka became a co-author of this scholarly work and arguably J. Pikčilingis’s most outstanding student. In 1969, he successfully defended his doctoral dissertation (then the Candidate of Philological Sciences degree), “The synonymy of subordinate clauses and of participial, half-participial and gerundial constructions in contemporary language,” in which he refined the object of stylistic research. Drawing on the syntactic level, he discussed the significance of syntactic synonyms

BENDRINĖ KALBA 90 (2017)

www.bendrinekalba.lt

ISSN 2351-7204

VAIDA KNABIKAITĖ. Profesorius Kazimieras Romualdas Župerka – lietuvių kalbos stilistikos kūrėjas | 2

for syntactic stylistics and demonstrated their stylistic differences across functional styles. In 1971, K. Župerka was awarded the title of docent.

In 1974–1975, K. Župerka undertook a research fellowship at the University of Brno in Czechoslovakia. There he became proficient in Czech and Slovak and grew interested in the theory of competition among linguistic means developed by Milan Jelinek (Jelínek), a professor at the University of Brno. From then on, it can be said that K. Župerka developed his own conception of stylistics, as it were a link between the theories of J. Pikčilingis and M. Jelinek. He expanded the scope of Lithuanian linguistic stylistics through research into competition among linguistic means.

For the first time in Lithuanian linguistics, K. Župerka established the concept of competition among linguistic expressive means as a technical term in the book Praktinė stilistika (Sinonimai) (1978), making a qualified contribution to the development of a general theory of Lithuanian synonymy, since the concept of synonyms—not only in Lithuanian linguistics—was not yet uniform or settled in the 1980s.

Konkurencijos aspektas plačiai taikomas ir Lietuvių kalbos stilistikoje (1983). Autorius apibūdina konkurencijos termino esmę, nusako būdingus šios sąvokos požymius. Pasak K. Župerkos, stilius – tai galėjimas rinktis. Tad knygoje daugiausia rašoma apie kalbos išteklius bei išgales. Į stilistinių išteklių skyrių patenka konkuruojantys vienetai (variantai, sinonimai, stiliaus figūros). Naujai aptariamos sinoniminių raiškos priemonių funkcijos. Šia knyga K. Župerka aprašomąją bei praktinę lietuvių kalbos stilistiką akivaizdžiau pasuko funkcinės stilistikos link.

The linguist summed up his scholarly work in his 1985 habilitation thesis, “Competition among linguistic means as an object of Lithuanian language stylistics,” defended at Vilnius University in 1996. In 2000, K. Župerka was awarded the title of professor.

The professor subsequently investigated the expression of metalinguistic function in non-linguistic texts. Publications written in the 1980s and 1990s explain the terms metakalbinis komentaras and metakalbinis vienetas, examine metalinguistic comments in non-linguistic texts in detail, and show how society understands stylistic norms and which new linguistic phenomena it notices most. The relevance of this research is justified both theoretically and practically. Particularly valuable are those metalinguistic units in which metalinguistic comments draw attention not to a new word, but to tendencies in contemporary speech. Numerous articles and conference papers on this topic culminated in the comprehensive monograph Metalingvistika. Nekalbininkų kalbotyra (2012).

BENDRINĖ KALBA 90 (2017)

www.bendrinekalba.lt

ISSN 2351-7204

VAIDA KNABIKAITĖ. Profesorius Kazimieras Romualdas Župerka – lietuvių kalbos stilistikos kūrėjas | 3

When examining the interplay between different linguistic devices (competition) and functional styles, K. Župerka employs contemporary methods of pragmatic linguistics. This is clearly evident in the study Advertising Text: Pragmatics, Style, Language (2008). The author emphasizes that viewing advertising from a pragmatic perspective presupposes not only a different kind of analysis but also different terminology.

New and original insights are also characteristic of the textbook for schools Lithuanian Language. Stylistics. Textbook for Grade XII (2001). Explaining the relationship between style and linguistic units, the author writes not only about language and the word, style and the form of the word, but also about style and text. The most important features of this textbook are clarity, coherence, and persuasiveness of presentation, and the harmony of theory and practice. It is a perfect example of didactic stylistics.

K. Župerka devoted considerable attention to discussing the distinctive character of literary style, the stylistic analysis of works of literature, poetics and stylistics, and followed the development of Lithuanian literature. He was interested in the theory of style as a foundation for text analysis. He more often replaced the term literary style with the generalizing term gaining currency in linguistics, free styles, which include literary and colloquial styles, as well as the expressive substyle of journalistic style. An entirely new approach to free styles emerges in the comprehensive article-study “The Expression of Regional Identity in Free-Style Texts” (2014). These texts were examined for expressions of the identity and distinctive worldview of the inhabitants of Lithuania’s four ethnographic regions (Aukštaitija, Dzūkija, Suvalkija, and Žemaitija). Three components associated with regional identity were selected: space (the region’s landscape), regional character (thinking, feeling, and behavior), and language and speech. K. Župerka discusses ethnostylistics as a branch of linguistics in the article “On the Object of Linguistic Ethnostylistics,” published in the 2013 collection of articles Contemporary Directions and Problems in Stylistics. The author’s aim is to define the object of linguistic ethnostylistics and discuss the subject matter investigated by this branch of stylistics. The article’s conclusions outline the subject matter of ethnostylistics as a branch of linguistics. Thus, K. Župerka can be considered a pioneer of ethnostylistics in Lithuanian linguistics. Writing about the Lithuanian national mentality, he compares it with the Latvian national character, thereby laying the foundations for contrastive stylistics in the article “On the Contrastive Stylistics of Latvian and Lithuanian” (Linguistica Lettica, 1999), and in the conference paper “Latvians and Lithuanians: The Correlation between National Character and National Style,” presented at the conference “Lithuania–Latvia in the 20th Century” (1998).

BENDRINĖ KALBA 90 (2017) www.bendrinekalba.lt ISSN 2351–7204

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When congratulated on his 80th birthday, K. Župerka stressed that he would now most like to be called an ethnostylist, since for two decades he has been collecting, organizing, and systematizing material on ethnostylistics, and investigating how the characteristics of the Lithuanian people are reflected in Lithuanian speech and texts. This work requires great erudition and expertise.

K. Župerka was also the supervisor of the author of this article’s doctoral dissertation, “The Development of Lithuanian Linguistic Stylistics in the 20th Century,” which grew into a scholarly monograph of the same title (2006). The monograph also includes a chapter summarizing K. Župerka’s scholarly works, “The Development of the Theory of Competition between Linguistic Devices” (pp. 154–165).

Congratulating the professor on his milestone birthday, I would like to thank him sincerely for having trusted and supported me back then, not only as a young scholar but also as someone in need of help and support. K. Župerka undertook to nurture a professional linguist, guiding me from short student articles to becoming a mature stylistician. My fruitful and meaningful relationship with my doctoral supervisor was fostered not only by the outstanding scholar and educator’s talent, professionalism, erudition, and expertise, but also by his innate sense of humor and optimistic outlook on life. I had to learn all of this from the professor back then.

Today, under the care and guidance of my beloved professor, I feel much stronger in the field of linguistics. After all, I am advised by Lithuania’s foremost stylistician, Kazimieras Župerka. Thank you, Professor.

Submitted 2017 10 27

BENDRINĖ KALBA 90 (2017)

www.bendrinekalba.lt

ISSN 2351-7204