Lietuvių kalbos gyvavimas ir atsinaujinimas šiuolaikinėje visuomenėje

THE LIFE AND RENEWAL OF THE LITHUANIAN LANGUAGE IN CONTEMPORARY SOCIETY The 20th Jonas Jablonskis Conference On 4 October 2013, the Lithuanian Language Institute held the jubilee 20th Jonas Jablonskis Conference. As every year, the conference was organized by the Institute’s Department of Standard Language together with the Department of Lithuanian Language at Vilnius University. This year’s conference theme was The Life and Renewal of the Lithuanian Language in Contemporary Society. Held for the twentieth time, the conference focused on changes in the norms and usage of the standard language, and discussed the status of Lithuanian and its implementation. Speakers from various Lithuanian institutions took part in the conference, and a scholar from neighbouring Latvia attended. Seventeen papers were delivered at the jubilee conference. The director of the Lithuanian Language Institute, Assoc. Prof. Dr. JOLANTA ZABARSKAITĖ, welcomed the large gathering of conference participants and speakers. The opening remarks were delivered by Dr. (HP) RITA MILIŪNAITĖ, head of the Institute’s Department of Standard Language and senior research fellow. The first part of the first session was devoted to discussing the life and work of linguist Jonas Jablonskis, the functioning of Lithuanian as the state language, and language policy. The first paper at the conference, Jonas Jablonskis and the Language of the Nation, was delivered by linguist JONAS KLIMAVIČIUS. He spoke about guidelines for language development and emphasized that J. Jablonskis should be seen as a coherent, modern personality. In studying his work, it is important to bring out the guiding principles of his life and the guidelines for his activities. The Lithuanian Language Institute’s senior research fellow LAIMA KALĖDIENĖ spoke about the standard language and changing conceptions of it in her paper The Concept of Standard Lithuanian at the Beginning of the 21st Century. The state of the standard language in Lithuania was discussed. The project Contemporary Geolinguistic Research in Lithuania and its preliminary results were briefly presented; these suggest that the standard language is now used virtually universally in Lithuania, which has not been the case before. The paper briefly surveyed changes in the standardization of the standard language abroad, and discussed its development, maintenance, and dissemination in 21st-century Lithuania. A. TAMULIONIENĖ. Lietuvių kalbos gyvavimas ir atsinaujinimas šiuolaikinėje visuomenėje 317 It was concluded that the weakest links in the standardization, codification, and maintenance of standard Lithuanian are the dissemination of its norms and the enhancement of its prestige. DAIVA VAIŠNIENĖ, chair of the State Commission of the Lithuanian Language, spoke in her paper Language Policy Today: On Traditions and New Insights about language policy in today’s multilingual and multimodal world. The paper discussed current approaches to the development and standardization of Lithuanian, the state of standard Lithuanian standardization, and the latest proposals for modifying norms and identifying variants. It examined whether, in planning language development, it is possible to reconcile tradition and change, to achieve a balance between scientific validity and diversity of usage, while leaving room for distinctive expression, including varieties beyond the standard language. KAZIMIERAS GARŠVA, senior research fellow at the Lithuanian Language Institute, delivered the paper The Origins and Authentic Spelling of the Place Names of Southeastern Lithuania on the origins and spelling of place names. He discussed the origins of the names of settlements and bodies of water in the Vilnius and Šalčininkai districts (most of the place names are of Lithuanian origin), as well as the spelling of personal names. The second part of the first session was devoted to discussing language change in various areas of social life. Two papers focused on the language of advertising. In her paper Figurative Play with Renewed Phraseology in the Media, Vilnius University professor REGINA KOŽENIAUSKIENĖ drew attention to renewed phraseology, which demonstrates the particular stylistic vitality of the Lithuanian language. The paper offered a fresh look at reworked phraseology, describing and analyzing it together with the syntactic figures of disruption that accompany it. It was concluded that authors use figurative play at all costs to capture the audience’s attention. The paper Intertextuality in Advertising was delivered by IRENA SMETONIENĖ, associate professor at Vilnius University. It discussed the concept of intertextuality and its features. The speaker explained how various types of intertextuality help advertising creators highlight the characteristics of the advertised product, interest or intrigue potential buyers, and encourage them to purchase it. The linguist illustrated her paper with numerous examples from advertising. The next two papers addressed language change in the media. RASA DOBRŽINSKIENĖ, a lecturer at Mykolas Romeris University, delivered the paper The Image of the Police Officer in the Lithuanian Media. The paper sought to show which connotations—positive or negative—predominate in media reports about police officers. The speaker was prompted to undertake the study by hearing 318 KALBOS KULTŪRA | 86 the view that the media contributes to poor police ratings and that only negative information about police officers is published. The material collected showed that statements with positive and negative connotations were roughly equal in number. INGA NANARTONYTĖ, a master’s student at the Kaunas Faculty of Humanities of Vilnius University, described the main ways of foregrounding vocabulary in journalism for teenagers in her paper Ways of Foregrounding Vocabulary in Magazines for Teenagers. It was emphasized that in magazines for teenagers, especially in magazines for boys, the boundary between journalistic and colloquial styles is disappearing as pragmatic goals are pursued (to appeal to and please readers) or particular roles are created. In the speaker’s view, authors of magazines for teenagers should not imitate young people’s manner of speaking, but rather set readers an example of vivid, standard-language usage. RITA MILIŪNAITĖ, senior research fellow at the Institute of the Lithuanian Language, examined the causes, sources, and structural features of these blends in her paper New Blends in Contemporary Usage, drawing on the index of the Database of Neologisms. The linguist stated that most such formations enter the language as borrowings, especially from English; other blends are translated morpheme by morpheme from other languages, while native ones are those that context shows to have been created in Lithuanian (the fewest of these were found). The speaker stressed that it is worthwhile to discuss blends that have become more frequent in usage in order to update both the understanding of them and the stock of examples of this type of neologism found in scholarly and educational literature. The first part of the second session was devoted to vocabulary, its usage, and innovations. DZINTRA ŠULCĖ, associate professor at the University of Liepāja, discussed the principles governing the adaptation of international words in a given language in her paper Current Issues in the Use of International Words, and presented dictionaries of international words published in Latvia as well as institutions that address the adaptation of international words. The speaker compared the adaptation of international words in Latvian and Lithuanian. It was noted that Lithuanians have dealt more successfully with most international words, fully adapting them to the grammatical system of Lithuanian. RASUOLĖ VLADARSKIENĖ, senior research fellow at the Institute of the Lithuanian Language, spoke about the causes of language change and presented the most readily changing layer of language—vocabulary—in her paper Lexical Innovations in Administrative Language. The paper discussed innovations in the vocabulary of administrative language, examining individual groups in detail and illustrating them with examples of usage. The speaker concluded that innovations arise from the need, when translating European Union A. TAMULIONIENĖ. Lietuvių kalbos gyvavimas ir atsinaujinimas šiuolaikinėje visuomenėje 319 documents, to name new objects, places, and concepts, a need constrained by efforts to reproduce the expression of the source language as literally and precisely as possible. AURELIJA LEONAVIČIENĖ, professor at Kaunas University of Technology, and DALIA LIEPUONIŪTĖ, an undergraduate student of French Philology at Vilnius University, presented a paper on translating European Union documents from French into Lithuanian, Translation of Lexical Analytic Constructions in European Union Documents from French into Lithuanian. The paper examined one genre of administrative style: court opinions in French and Lithuanian. The speakers emphasized that the topic’s relevance stemmed from the very frequent errors in translations of texts from analytic languages (English, French, etc.) into synthetic Lithuanian, as well as from disregard for the characteristics of the native-language system, its norms, and stylistic usage. Two papers were devoted to the Dictionary of Standard Lithuanian. DAIVA MURMULAITYTĖ, senior research fellow at the Institute of the Lithuanian Language, delivered a paper entitled The Semantics of Monetary Unit Names. The paper presented the lexical-semantic group of monetary unit names and discussed how this semantic group is defined in dictionaries of various languages. Drawing on material from dictionaries of different languages, the speaker proposed that monetary unit names have three meanings (or three shades of meaning): the monetary unit of a particular country; that unit in terms of its value compared with other monetary units (used only in the singular); and a monetary sign representing its value (a banknote and/or coin). The speaker provided a possible dictionary entry for a monetary unit name in the Dictionary of Standard Lithuanian. AURELIJA TAMULIONIENĖ, a research fellow at the Institute of the Lithuanian Language, delivered a second paper on the Dictionary of Standard Lithuanian, entitled Monetary Unit Names in the “Dictionary of Standard Lithuanian.” The paper examined the problems encountered when describing monetary unit names in the Dictionary of Standard Lithuanian, presented possible criteria for selecting monetary unit names, discussed variation in the forms of some monetary names, and showed cases that have not been standardized. The second part of the second session was devoted to the assessment of language phenomena and questions of syntax. LINA MURRINIENĖ, associate professor at the Lithuanian University of Educational Sciences, delivered the paper Degrees of Assessment of Language Phenomena: At the Boundary of (Non-)Standard Usage. The paper raised anew the problem of degrees in assessing the correctness of language phenomena. The speaker emphasized that the essential question frequently asked by language users and language practitioners is this: which of the aforementioned four degrees of assessment should unquestionably be considered part of standard language 320 KALBOS KULTŪRA | 86 errors? The report focuses mainly on the most controversial, second degree of assessment of the correctness of language phenomena—the language phenomenon that should be avoided. The report on the syntax of legal documents, Teisės dokumentų sintaksės bruožai, was delivered by LAIMA PEČKUVIENĖ, a lecturer at Mykolas Romeris University, and GIEDRĖ ČEPAITIENĖ, a professor at Šiauliai University. The report surveyed case, preposition, and postposition constructions characteristic of legal language, as well as instances of sentence-element coordination, in relation to the norms of standard language. The claims were illustrated with examples from the codes of the Republic of Lithuania, their commentaries, and texts from the Supreme Court’s online publication Teismų praktika. The final conference paper, Dėl kai kurių sintaksės reiškinių norminamojo vertinimo ir pateikties, was delivered by VIDAS VALSKYS, an associate professor at the Lithuanian University of Educational Sciences. He presented a project undertaken since 2012 by the Department of Lithuanian Linguistics and Communication at the Lithuanian University of Educational Sciences and funded by the State Commission of the Lithuanian Language: “A study of the relationship between Lithuanian syntax norms and recommendations and contemporary usage.” The paper discussed several syntactic phenomena about whose codificatory assessment the speaker expressed some doubts and invited discussion. He discussed contemporary usage and normative assessment of the expression tikėti į ką, as well as the locative case, which should be avoided when expressing a property of an object. The speaker stated that expressions using the locative are quite widespread and productive in contemporary usage, and therefore invited the audience to consider whether the constructions in question should indeed be avoided. JONAS KLIMAVIČIUS delivered the closing remarks. The linguist summarized the presentations and expressed delight that the conference tradition continues and that this year it attracted so many listeners and presenters. The abstracts and information about this and previous Jonas Jablonskis conferences can be found on the website of the Institute of the Lithuanian Language at www.lki.lt. Received 2013 12 16 AURELIJA TAMULIONIENĖ Institute of the Lithuanian Language 5 Petro Vileišio St., LT-10308 Vilnius [email protected] A. TAMULIONIENĖ. Lietuvių kalbos gyvavimas ir atsinaujinimas šiuolaikinėje visuomenėje 321