Standard Slovenian Research Articles

Intralingual Translation and its Implementation on the Example of Slovene

The article focuses on the theoretical and practical aspects of intralingual translation, which refers to translation within one national language on the older language-modern language time axis. The translation strategies, which can be seen from the accompanying words to the existing intralingual translations of older Slovenian texts from the 10th and 16th centuries, have been verified and identified on the basis of a comparative analysis of selected source texts (Brižinski spomeniki/Monumenta Frisingensia, Trubar’s Abecednik/Alphabet and Cerkveni red/Church Order) with their translations into contemporary Standard Slovene.

SLOVENIAN CHILDREN’S AND YOUTH LITERATURE IN GERMAN TRANSLATION FROM 1921 TO 2020

The article examines translation flows from Slovenian into German in the last hundred years (1921–2020), focusing on children’s and youth literature, especially prose as the most frequently translated literary genre. There are several reasons for choosing this research topic. First, although translated children’s and youth literature in general accounts for a large share of world publishing (Prodanović Stankić and Begonja 2021, 332), a detailed analysis of translated Slovenian children’s and youth literature has not yet been conducted. Second, German was chosen as the target language because Slovenian-speaking territory is most closely connected to German-speaking territory due to its active cultural, historical, political, and economic contacts. Third, over the centuries of translation into Slovenian, German language and literature had a great influence on the development of standard Slovenian, specialized terminology, and the emergence of new literary forms and genres (Kocijančič Pokorn 2008; Žigon, Almasy, and Lovšin 2017; Maček 2018; Žigon 2020). German as a foreign language continues to play an important role in Slovenia today. It is taught in schools as a second foreign language, right after English, and it is the second most common source or target language for the translation of literary works into or from Slovenian (Zlatnar Moe, Strsoglavec, and Žigon 2017, 172; JAK 2019, 24). Given Slovenia’s upcoming appearances as Guest of Honor at the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2023 and the Bologna Children’s Book Fair in 2024, the number of translations from Slovenian into German has increased significantly in recent years. Among them, translations of children’s and youth literature account for a considerable part of the translated works. In the last decade (2011–2020), translation production has greatly increased in view of the two major book fairs in Frankfurt and Bologna. This focus on the German-language book market is also clearly expressed in the national strategy as part of Slovenia’s cultural policy since 2014 (Republika Slovenija 2013). Contemporary authors are being translated, including a rising star who was first discovered abroad through translations into Chinese: Manica Musil with her creative children’s books.

Prouti tvojemi bližnyemu krivo ne izvedocsi.« Slika prekmurskega protestantizma v medijih v preteklosti

“Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.” Media Image of Protestantism in Prekmurje in the Past In Prekmurje, the leading publisher of newspapers in the local Slovene language was the Catholic priest Jožef Klekl Sr. (1874–1948), who published the highly popular monthly Marijin list (since 1919) and the weekly Novine (until 1941). After the unification of Prekmurje with the rest of Slovenes, the range of newspapers expanded and each publisher or editor tried to reach the readers in his own way—with carefully selected publications. Klekl left a special mark in the Prekmurje media landscape, not so much as a priest and because the contents of his publications were mostly religious, but because he was also active as a politician. During Klekl’s political career, Prekmurje became part of a new country. From Hungary, where a Slovene word was rarely, if at all, heard in the public sphere, this region entered the politically troubled Kingdom of SHS/Yugoslavia. And this happened at the time when two ideologically opposite camps were finally outlined: conservative/Catholic and progressive/liberal. After 1919, the identity of the people of Prekmurje was redefined: it was no longer only that Slovene region with religious diversity; now there was a tension between the native dialect and a “new”, standard Slovene. Old friends became new political rivals, the coexistence with the Hungarians took on a new meaning. The only constant in Klekl’s media was his attitude towards non-Catholic believers and/or atheists. Despite the fact that he was a knowledgeable erudite, he maintained a firm belief throughout the years of his activity that the only true religion was Catholic. According to Klekl, all other religions, especially Protestantism, deviated from the path. This is how he perceived them, and it was from this perspective that he wrote, translated and published articles about them, in which many pieces of information were not verified. As a result, he often came into “conflict” with other newspaper offices or Christians of the Augsburg Confession. Keywords: Prekmurje, newspapers, fake news, Klekl, Lutherans, Catholics

Normative Labels in Slovene Dictionaries: Users’ and Lexicographers’ Perspectives

AbstractThis paper discusses normative labels in the Dictionary of Standard Slovene from the point of view of users and lexicographers. Using a questionnaire distributed to the students of the University of Ljubljana, we wanted to learn how native speakers of Slovene interpret select normative labels. Additionally, five Slovene lexicographers were interviewed to get an insight into their views on labeling lemmata or their senses. The problems they encounter when assigning the labels were assessed in the interviews. The results of the student survey show that the presence of normative labels and their type has an effect on the users’ perceived degree of acceptability of the word in the standard language variety. Though still marking inadequate forms, the lexicographers interviewed strive to stay away from prescriptivism by trying to give reasons for a less adequate form. This is a new development that diverges from traditional, strongly prescriptive, attitude of Slovene linguists.

User guides in monolingual Slovenian dictionaries: users’ perspective

This contribution discusses the front matter texts of three Slovenian monolingual dictionaries: Dictionary of Standard Slovenian, Dictionary of Slovenian Synonyms and Dictionary of Legal Terminology. Thirty-two MA students of English at the University of Ljubljana were asked to read the front matter texts and comment on various aspects of their usefulness from the intended users’ perspective. The problems they pointed out were terminology, syntax and general information overload. Among the strengths of the front matter, texts are well-structured sections and subsections. They also suggested improvements such as simpler syntax, the use of Slovenian terms and the rearrangement of sections.

Strictly Local Impoverishment: An Intervention Effect

Strictly Local Impoverishment: An Intervention Effect

Analiza frazeološke variantnosti za slovarski prikaz v eSSKJ-ju in SPP-ju

This article presents a theoretical and methodological basis for lexicographic presentation of phraseological and paremiological variants in the third edition of Slovar slovenskega knjižnega jezika (Standard Slovenian Dictionary, eSSKJ), which has been published on the Fran portal, and in Slovar pregovorov in sorodnih paremioloskih izrazov (Dictionary of Slovenian Proverbs and Similar Paremiological Expressions, SPP), the first volume of which will be published in 2020 on the same lexicographic portal. The need for accurate lexicographic presentation of variants in both dictionaries is then discussed. This is followed by a description of various methods of corpus analysis and combining them with data from sociolinguistic surveys.

Focus on the User: Front Matter in Slovenian Dictionaries

This article focuses on the front matter texts of three Slovenian monolingual dictionaries: Dictionary of Standard Slovenian , Dictionary of Slovenian Synonyms and Dictionary of Legal Terminology . We asked thirty-two MA students of English at the University of Ljubljana to read the front matter texts and comment on intelligibility of the text, usefulness of the text from the point of view of intended users, language used in the text, examples provided to illustrate the theoretical explanation and length of the text as a whole. According to the majority of the students, the front matter texts of all three dictionaries use terminology known only to linguists. They also frequently comment on the length and complexity of sentences, information overload and the indirect inclusion of examples that illustrate the theory. Apart from being critical of the texts, they point out what they like (the front matter texts in all three dictionaries are well-structured, as they are divided into sections and subsections, thus enabling easy access to relevant information within the text) and give proposals for improvement of the text (rearrangement of various sections, the use of Slovenian terms instead of borrowings, the use of paraphrases instead of terms, shorter sentences and simpler syntax).

Word Order in Slovene Dialectal Discourse

There has been little discussion of word order in Slovene to date, even though the first extensive study of clitics and their position in a sentence in Slovene by Matija Murko was published already in 1891–1892. The majority of articles in Slovenian linguistics on word order in the past were based on an analysis of word order in literary texts. Only in the past fifteen years have there been discussions of word order in spoken discourse. This paper discusses on the differences in fixed word order between Slovene dialectal discourse and Standard Slovene written discourse and word order characteristics of the Slovenian dialectal discourse focusing on only selected sentence elements that are subject to fixed word order rules. The analysis of texts from all Slovene dialect groups has shown that three groups of word order features can be distinguished in a study of word order in Slovene dialectal discourse. The first group of features, such as, for example, the initial position of clitics in an utterance, is characteristic of texts from all dialect groups, and is therefore a general word order feature of Slovene dialectal discourse. The second group includes word order characteristics that are found only in the texts of certain dialect groups, for example the separated position of the particle ne and the verb in Littoral dialects and the position of the past participle of the verb biti ‘to be’ at the end of the utterance in Pannonian dialects; these characteristics can be considered as specific features of particular Slovene dialectal discourses. The third group of characteristics is made up of those that can be found in all texts but nevertheless differ in the frequency of their use, for example, the position of the adjective premodifier in agreement with the noun and noun/ prepositional phrase modifiers in a noun phrase as well as the position of the verb (past participle or infinitive) at the end of the utterance. The frequency of use in these cases is the criterion that shows whether the word order characteristic is well established and can thus be understood as an established word order variant in the dialect or rather a dialectal word order rule, or is sporadic and as such the result of a basic pattern in spoken language, i.e. short planning time, which does not allow for the deliberate structuring of utterances.

Perception of Foreign Phonemes: The Case of Slovene Students of English

The study focuses on assessing the state of foreign phoneme acquisition by foreign language (FL) students at the end of their undergraduate studies. To determine whether they prioritise vowels over consonants, a perception experiment was devised that focuses on the phonemes in Standard Slovene and General British reported as most problematic for Slovene learners of English. Thirty-three Slovene students of English were tested, along with a positive and a negative control group (CG). A set of stimuli was tested using the AX discrimination method; the participants listened to 60 phonemic contrasts, played in a pseudo-randomised order. The results foregrounded the most problematic phonemes which act as perceptual magnets. Analysis shows that the students can discriminate foreign phonemes well, and that they consistently perform better in discriminating vocalic contrasts.

20 YEARS OF CONTEMPORARY MILITARY CHALLENGES

20 YEARS OF CONTEMPORARY MILITARY CHALLENGES

Some dialect characteristics in selected local Slovenian dialect texts of the Littoral and Lower Carniolan dialect groups

This article uses texts about spring chores to present selected local dialects of the Littoral dialect (Sovodnje, Karst dialect; Lokev, Inner Carniolan dialect) and the Lower Carniolan dialect group (Borovnica and Ambrus, Lower Carniolan dialect; Globočdol and Šentrupert, Eastern Lower Carniolan subdialect). Dialect consonant features, special morphological features, and interesting lexemes are examined synchronically and compared with standard Slovenian.

Anton Breznik’s conceptualization of linguistic changes in Evangeliji in listi (Gospels and Epistles)

This article uses a research methodology to analyze Anton Breznik’s commentary on the literary tradition in the collection known as Evangeliji in listi (EiL, Gospels and Epistles). The article starts by analyzing Breznik’s interpretation of the concept of literary tradition and some of his statements about the development of standard Slovenian, and literary style in EiL is also examined. It is then observed how linguistic ideology affects Breznik’s defnitions and the judgement of various authors in EiL. Quantitative data analysis and the defnition of the meaning and the time of a linguistic innovation is also examined. Finally, changes in various verb‑adverb combinations in eleven editions of EiL (from 1612 to 2003) are examined.

Use of Independent and Clitic Forms of Non-Reflexive Personal Pronouns in Sixteenth-Century Standard Slovenian

This article presents the use of independent and clitic forms of non-reflexive personal pronouns in sixteenth-century standard Slovenian. It presents phrases in which the use of one or the other was fxed, and other examples highlighting the differences between individual authors and, within their works, also between individual pronouns and clitics. In addition, the situation in Old Church Slavic and in older preserved Slovenian manuscripts is comparatively described. The conclusion evaluates possible explanations for such use in the sixteenth century.

Dialect as a Sound Basis for Recognizing and Understanding Some Syntactic Phenomena in One’s Own Language

By examining a number of linguistic phenomena, this article shows how some grammatical occurrences in standard Slovenian can be explained through one’s own local dialect. The natural coexistence of dialect and standard language and their comparisons facilitate a better comprehension and use of Slovenian in general. A key component of literacy is therefore closely connected to encouraging conscious awareness and consequently proficient use of one’s own dialect, other regional variants, and standard Slovenian.

Particles between adverbs and conjunctions (based on language material from the Freising manuscripts)

This article offers a comprehensive analysis of conjunctive elements (i.e., particles, conjunctions, and adverbs) that appear in the Freising manuscripts (AD 972–1039), the oldest known attestation of Slovenian. It establishes and juxtaposes the performative parameters of particles vs. conjunctives, and also identifies the circumstances (and captures the accompanying semantic restructurings) under which conjunctives assume the syntactic role of proper conjunctions. Particular attention is paid to the systematization of particles (based on language material from contemporary Standard Slovenian).

Usage of biti sem ‘to be, am’ in sixteenth-century standard Slovenian

This article outlines the basic morphological, semantic, and related syntactic characteristics of the usage of the verb biti sem ‘to be, am’ in sixteenth-century standard Slovenian. Based on materials collected for lexicographic purposes, it includes a complete list of all preserved Slovenian printed works from the second half of the sixteenth century. Due to its double functionality (full verb and auxiliary verb), the verb biti ‘to be’ was one of the most frequently used words in the sixteenth century.

Romance Linguistic Elements in a Šavrini Hills Dialect Text

This article examines Romance linguistic elements in the text “Šavrinka drži tri kantone od hiše, četrtega pa osel” (A Šavrini Woman Supports Three Corners of a House, and a Donkey Supports the Fourth), which was written in the Šavrini Hills local dialect of Puče by a local woman, Viktorija Pucer Štromar. The text was transcribed using the Slovenian phonetic transcription system and translated into standard Slovenian. The Romance borrowings in the dialect text have been marked and etymologically explained.

User Queries of the Online Standard Slovenian Dictionary and 2001 Slovenian Normative Guide at bos.zrc-sazu.si

This article analyzes the user query logs of the online versions of two Slovenian dictionaries—Slovar slovenskega knjižnega jezika (Standard Slovenian Dictionary, SSKJ) and Slovenski pravopis 2001 (2001 Slovenian Normative Guide, SP 2001)—at bos.zrc-sazu. si (BOS), which for almost a whole decade (2000–2010) served as a portal for searching through various text collections and dictionaries prepared or adapted for the online environment by the ZRC SAZU Fran Ramovš Institute of the Slovenian Language in Ljubljana. We focused on unsuccessful queries. It turned out that for new-generation dictionaries—that is, dictionaries primarily designed for online use—users need search engines with hints, search engines with corrections for unsuccessful queries, and combined search engines for various dictionaries, and in the dictionary itself they need information that is as complete and unabridged as possible.

Rastislav Šuštaršič and current issues of standard Slovene language

By studying languages in contact, we can observe one language while revealing hidden features of another. This was the original idea of the two Slovene-Croatian phonetic and phonological bilateral projects, which connected various Slovene and Croatian phonologists. This paper highlights the work of Rastislav Šuštaršič, who continued his contrastive research of English and Slovene in contact within these projects. Several open issues of the Slovene standard language were also at the centre of his research interests, including the issue of tonemic accent in Slovene, which he studied mainly in collaboration with H. Tivadar. The findings of their works underlined a gap between the explicit norm and language use, which future codifiers of the Slovene standard language should take into consideration.