Šešioliktoji Jono Jablonskio konferencija

The Sixteenth Conference of John Jablonski 319 JONO JABLONSKIO CONFERENCE On October 3, 2008, Vilnius University hosted the 16th Jon Jablonskis Conference “Sociolinguistic Studies of Lithuanian Language”. The conference was organized by researchers of the Department of Language Culture of the Lithuanian Language Institute and the Department of Lithuanian Language of Vilnius University. Seven papers were presented, which discussed the sociolinguistic research currently carried out in various institutions, their innovation, methodology, objectives and results. Me l u t ė Ra m o n i e n ė (Vilnius University) in her presentation “Language Use and National Identity in Lithuanian Cities” presented the project “Cities and Languages” carried out in 2007-2008 by a group of researchers from Vilnius and Vytautas the Great Universities and the Lithuanian Language Institute together with colleagues from the Netherlands and Great Britain, supported by the State Fund for Science and Studies. The main aim of the project is to analyse the relationship between the languages spoken in the major Lithuanian cities (Vilnius, Kaunas and Klaipėda), other language variants and national identity, the perspectives of identity preservation. The aim was also to investigate the languages spoken at home by the residents of large cities, to determine the prevailing and other languages or language variants used, the choice to use them and the vitality of their use, the tendencies to use spoken and written language, the language proficiency and use of respondents by work areas and ethnic groups in the public and private spheres. Based on the prepared questionnaire, quantitative surveys of schoolchildren (8-10 years old) and adult respondents were carried out. Ri t a Mi l i ū n a i t ė (Lithuanian Language Institute) introduced a new expression of electronic language – the language of online blogs. The blog language, as described by the author in the presentation “The place of blog language in the current usage scheme”, is special in that it is created without intermediaries and is not specifically regulated by anyone from the outside, but it is written 320 LANGUAGE CULTURE | 81 texts are public and accessible to everyone. Lithuanian blogs appeared on the Internet around the year 2000, so the study of their expression allows us to judge about the actual usage of the current language. According to the scope of use, the blog language can be considered a kind of electronic form of communication, and according to the peculiarities of the language (form of expression, public openness, style of use) – a genre of electronic public free usage, in which new language tendencies and changes are constantly found. Re g i n a Ko ž e n i a u s k i e n ė (Vilnius University) talked about modifications of phraseology – the use of occasional phraseology in the verbal and written texts of politicians, lawyers, journalists, advertising creators (“Controversial phraseological discourse: possibilities of manipulation and language games”). The purpose of such usage is not to convey information, but to complicate understanding for various reasons: to attract the attention of readers, to circumvent the law (for example, in alcohol advertising), or to avoid that the statement becomes a basis for insult when assessing a person negatively. Offensive uncensored idioms, which have the character of non-standard hints, which sometimes raise the need for linguistic expertise, attract the most attention. In the presentation of Al i ū k a i t ė s (Kaunas Faculty of Humanities, Vilnius University) “Intelligibility of dialectal speech: a study of attitudes” data from the study “Evaluation of dialectal speech” conducted in 2004–2006 were analyzed. The questionnaire was prepared using the methodology of perceptive dialectology. The study was carried out in several ethnographic regions of Lithuania. When filling out the questionnaire, the participants chose answers from the proposed assessments: dialectal speech is completely incomprehensible; almost incomprehensible; partially understood; easy to understand. Only 2-3% of respondents were completely unable to understand dialect speaking. The majority of respondents (more than 60%) thought that dialectal speech was partially understandable. In their comments, they emphasized that dialectal expression is understood when it is similar to common language, the evaluator’s own speech or the speech heard in his environment. La u r a Si m o n av i č i e n ė (Vytautas Magnus University) raised the question: “Do men and women ask differently?” (this is also the title of the presentation she prepared together with I. Balčiūnienė). Until now, the study of the differences in the language of men and women has mostly been limited to the analysis of written or public spoken language (TV programmes, announcements). The 16th Jono Jablonskio conference 321 The creation of the Textbook of Oral Lithuanian Language in 2006–2008 provided an opportunity to analyze natural spontaneous conversations. The aim of the study is to analyze the questioning sentences used in spontaneous speech and to determine the differences in the structure of these sentences in male and female speech. The aim was to test three hypotheses: 1) men and women follow different strategies of conversation development, therefore the questions in the female language should be more frequent than in the male language; 2) during the conversation women pay more attention to showing commonality with the interlocutor, so it is likely that in women’s language check questions should be used more frequently, and in men’s language – more frequent sentences of the special question; 3) women should use more often than men questioning sentences with particles ane, so at the end of the sentence, which indicate that the speaker takes into account the listener's opinion. The results of the research did not deny the aforementioned hypotheses, but the conference participants raised questions about the accuracy of the methodology and the representativeness of the selected data. Mantrimas Danielius (Vilnius University, Vilnius College) examined Lithuanian sign language („Influence of Lithuanian language on Lithuanian sign language“) – an independent language of more than 6000 Lithuanian deaf people, with a peculiar and completely different expression. The language of the deaf is distinguished from the verbal form of speech used by the deaf and hearing people, called calque speech: when speaking Lithuanian, gestures are shown together. The speaker outlined the ways in which the Lithuanian language influences the visual sign language of a completely different expression. One of the main and most visible influences of Lithuanian language on sign language, according to the speaker, is articulated lip movements. Also, due to the influence of Lithuanian language, the sentence pattern S-O-V characteristic of sign language is increasingly changed to S-V-O, the accent and prepositions are placed before the noun, etc. Another very common way of interaction between sign language and Lithuanian is the borrowing of words. The finger alphabet shows words, usually personal names, toponyms, names of new things, used in Lithuanian sign language as foreign words, but they are very quickly replaced by gestures. In his presentation “Lexicon characteristic of spoken language: usage and relationship with Lithuanian language dictionaries” Giedrius Ta m a š e v i č i u s (Institute of Lithuanian Language) analyzed the results of the study of the lexicon characteristic of spoken language. The words for the questionnaire were selected from the textbook of oral Lithuanian language. The aim of the study is to find out how prevalent are certain spoken language or slang expressions in different age groups and among respondents of different sexes. 322 LANGUAGE CULTURE | 81 words assigned to nui. Such research, according to the rapporteur, should encourage consideration of the possibility of including in dictionaries the most commonly used words in spoken language or their meanings. At the end of the conference, opinions and advice on how to conduct sociolinguistic research were shared, and what could be the topic of next year’s Jon Jablonskis conference was discussed. Received 07/12/2008 VILMa ZuBaITIENĖ University of Vilnius universiteto g. 5, LT-01513 Vilnius [email protected]