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Cultural Linguistics

Judit Baranyiné Kóczy

Nature, Metaphor,
Culture
Cultural Conceptualizations in Hungarian
Folksongs
Cultural Linguistics

Series editor
Farzad Sharifian, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
Cultural Linguistics advances multidisciplinary inquiry into the relationship
between language and cultural conceptualisations. It champions research that
advances our understanding of how features of human languages encode culturally
constructed conceptualisations of experience. Edited by world-renowned linguist
Professor Farzad Sharifian, Cultural Linguistics publishes monographs and edited
volumes from diverse but complementary disciplines as wide-ranging as
cross-cultural pragmatics, anthropological linguistics and cognitive psychology to
present new perspectives on the intersection between culture, cognition, and
language. Featured themes include:

• Cultural conceptualisations and the structure of language

• Language and cultural categorisation
• Language, culture, and embodiment
• Language and cultural conceptualisations of emotions
• Cultural conceptualisations and pragmatic meaning
• Cultural conceptualisations and (im)polite language use
• Applied Cultural Linguistics (e.g., Cultural Linguistics and English Language
Teaching, Cultural Linguistics and World Englishes, Cultural Linguistics and
Intercultural Communication, Cultural Linguistics and Political Discourse
Analysis)

The series editors welcome proposals that fit the description above. For more
information about how you can submit a proposal, please contact the publishing
editor, Ilaria Walker. E-mail: ilaria.walker@springer.com

More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/14294

Judit Baranyiné Kóczy

Nature, Metaphor, Culture

Cultural Conceptualizations in Hungarian
Folksongs

123
Judit Baranyiné Kóczy
Department of International Studies
and Communication
Széchenyi István University
Győr
Hungary

ISSN 2520-145X ISSN 2520-1468 (electronic)

Cultural Linguistics
ISBN 978-981-10-5752-6 ISBN 978-981-10-5753-3 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-5753-3
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017946954

© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2018

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part
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or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar
methodology now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from
the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this
book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the
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The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-01/04 Gateway East, Singapore 189721, Singapore
To Péter, Jutka, Zsófi and my parents
A magyar népdal az egész magyar lélek tükre,
a magyar nyelvvel egyidős; a magyarság
történelme során kialakult és az évszázados -
évezredes - használatban csiszolódott
népzenei hagyomány anyanyelvünkhöz
hasonló érték. Benne mindannyian magunkra
ismerhetünk, belőle mások is megismerhetnek
bennünket.
“Hungarian folksongs are mirrors of the
whole Hungarian soul, as old as the
Hungarian language. The folk music
tradition, which developed and refined over
centuries, nearly a millennium, throughout
Hungarian history, is as valuable as our native
language. We may all recognize ourselves in
it, and others may also get to know us.”
Zoltán Kodály
Foreword

In this very impressive study, Judit Baranyiné Kóczy successfully applies the
analytical framework of Cultural Linguistics to explore the cultural conceptual-
izations underlying folksongs. In particular, she focuses on folk cultural concep-
tualizations (particularly cultural image schemas, cultural metaphors and cultural
construal schemas) reflected in the nature imagery of Hungarian folksongs, such as
EMOTION AS A RIVER WATER, or A PLACE OF INTIMACY AS A FOREST. She also examines
certain cultural norms and values embedded in the folksongs analyzed as part of this
study. For example, Baranyiné Kóczy maintains that folksongs express particular
principles of morality, including gender role schemas as well as norms associated
with the choice of a spouse. These in turn lead to a specific treatment of emotions
and sexuality, captured in a cultural schema that she labels RESERVEDNESS. The
author argues that the cultural schema RESERVEDNESS governs various levels of
discourse, including grammar and construal, pervading perspectivization, as well as
nominal grounding or employing reference point constructions in the folksongs.
Overall, this book clearly reveals the robustness of Cultural Linguistics for ana-
lyzing (cross-cultural comparison of) folk cultural artifacts, including folksongs.
This book is an outstanding achievement and a brilliant contribution to the new
field of Cultural Linguistics. I highly recommend this book to both scholars and
students interested in this field.

Farzad Sharifian
Monash University, Melbourne,
Australia

vii
Acknowledgements

There was a large number of people whose encouragement, support, guidance, and
criticism helped me with the research whose results were comprised in this
monograph.
My interest in music and folksongs goes back to the times when my late vio-
loncello teacher Sandor Bartha educated me in the theory and practice of music and,
later, my teachers when I attended the Leo Weiner Conservatory during my high
school years.
My intensive interest in the linguistic issues of Hungarian folksongs was awoken
when my MA supervisor Prof. Erzsébet Fehér proposed that I choose this immense,
intriguing and mostly neglected area for the topic of my thesis and, later, when Prof.
Gábor Tolcsvai Nagy guided me toward the completion of my Ph.D. thesis.
Valuable comments came from my external examiners Profs. Réka Benczes and
Péter Pelyvás. Upon obtaining my degree, my interest more and more articulately
turned toward the new emerging field of linguistics that has unambiguously some
roots in cognitive semantics but has essentially outgrown it, opening up a new and
wide horizon to a new “continent” on the map of the world of linguistics, Cultural
Linguistics. My thanks goes to Prof. Zoltán Kövecses for his suggestions and
especially Prof. Farzad Sharifian, who invited me as a speaker to the first inter-
national conference of Cultural Linguistics (Prato 2016), and encouraged me to
extend my existing research results toward a more comprehensive model: a model
that has led to a deeper understanding of the chosen subject. Considering the
plethora of available and yet linguistically unexplored folklore texts, this might be
without question one of the most promising research directions of Cultural
Linguistics: The analysis of folkloristic texts is on the borderline of oral and written
literature, sometimes going back to millennia-old cultural traditions and beliefs, and
preserving extremely interesting linguistic phenomena. I am really grateful to Prof.
Sharifian for his inspiration and support, which made it possible for this book to
become one of the first volumes in the new series on Cultural Linguistics.

ix
x Acknowledgements

Last but not least, I would like to thank my husband and my family for their help
and understanding, to Széchenyi István University (Győr), especially Rector Prof.
Péter Földesi for moral and financial support of the research and to John Kowalchuk
for spending so much time with polishing my translations of the texts of the
Hungarian folksongs and all his valuable comments and suggestions.
Contents

Part I Introduction to the Study of Hungarian Folksongs

1 Folksongs in Cultural Linguistics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.2 Main Goal of the Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.3 Methodology. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.4 Theoretical Framework: Cultural Linguistics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1.5 General Characteristics of Hungarian Folksongs . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
1.5.1 Folk Cultural Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
1.5.2 Discourse-Pragmatic Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
1.5.3 Historical Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
1.5.4 Nature Imagery in Folksongs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
1.6 Hungarian Folksongs from a Cultural Linguistic
Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
1.6.1 Cultural Cognition in Peasant Communities . . . . . . . . . 14
1.6.2 Cultural Metaphors in Folksongs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
1.6.3 Cultural Schemas in Folksongs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
1.6.4 Emotions in Folk Cultural Cognition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
1.7 Folk Cultural Conceptualizations from a Present
Day Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ......... 21
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ......... 22
2 Folk Conceptualizations Across Languages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
2.1 Preliminaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
2.2 Conceptualization of Emotions Across Cultures . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
2.2.1 Emotion Metaphors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
2.2.2 Conceptualization of Emotions Across Languages. . . . . 30
2.3 Conceptualization of the Natural Landscape . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

xi
xii Contents

2.4 Folk Conceptualizations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ......... 34

2.4.1 Folk Conceptualizations Across Languages
and Cultures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ......... 34
2.4.2 Hungarian Folk Conceptualizations . . . . . . . ......... 35
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ......... 39
3 Spatial Metaphors in Nature Imagery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
3.1 Understanding Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
3.2 Spatial Representation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
3.3 Metaphor in Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
3.4 Spatial Dimension of Nature Imagery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

Part II Cultural Metaphors in Folksongs

4 Cultural Metaphors Related to FOREST . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
4.1 Preliminaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
4.1.1 Etymology and Ethnographic Background . . . . . . . . . . . 62
4.1.2 Linguistic Reference to FOREST . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
4.2 Cultural Conceptualizations of FOREST . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
4.2.1 LODGING/DOMICILE Domain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
4.2.2 SHELTER Domain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
4.2.3 EMOTIONAL SPHERE Domain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
4.2.4 LOCUS OF RENDEZVOUS/SEXUAL ACT Domain . . . . . . . . . . 71
4.2.5 PLACE OF DEATH Domain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
4.3 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
5 Cultural Metaphors Related to RIVER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
5.1 Preliminaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
5.2 Cultural Conceptualizations of RIVER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
5.3 The EMOTION AS RIVER WATER Cultural Metaphor . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
5.3.1 Sub-metaphors of EMOTION AS RIVER
WATER Metaphor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ......... 85
5.3.2 Image Schemas Related to EMOTION
AS RIVER WATER Cultural Metaphor . . . . . . . ......... 91
5.4 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ......... 96
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ......... 97
6 Cultural Metaphors Related to WEATHER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
6.1 Preliminaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
6.2 Weather Phenomena in Nature Imagery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
6.3 Cultural Conceptualizations of WIND . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
Contents xiii

6.3.1 Spring and Autumn Wind . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .... 102

6.3.2 Physical Impacts of the Wind: Displacement,
Fluttering and Physical Connection . . . . . . . . . . . . .... 105
6.4 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .... 110
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .... 113
7 Orientational Metaphors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
7.1 Preliminaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
7.2 Orientational Metaphors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
7.3 Orientational Metaphors in Folksongs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
7.3.1 Horizontal Metaphors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
7.3.2 Vertical Metaphors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
7.3.3 Downward Tendency and Movement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
7.4 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131

Part II Cultural Metaphors In Folksongs

Part III Cultural Schemas of Construal

8 Mental Spaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
8.1 Preliminaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
8.2 The Theory of Mental Spaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
8.3 Mental Spaces in Folksongs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
8.3.1 Frequent Mental Spaces in Folksongs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
8.3.2 Space Builders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
8.3.3 Opacity in Identifying Mental Spaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
8.3.4 Space Connectors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
8.3.5 Blending of Mental Spaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
8.4 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
9 Spatial Grounding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
9.1 Preliminaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
9.2 Spatial Grounding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
9.2.1 Deixis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
9.2.2 Nominal Grounding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
9.3 Grounding in Folksongs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
9.3.1 Distal Deixis in a Stanza-Initial Position . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
9.3.2 Distal Deixis Referring to a Nature Entity
or Scene . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
9.3.3 Distal Deixis ‘Beyond’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
9.3.4 Proximal Deixis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
9.3.5 Summary on Deixis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
xiv Contents

9.4 Definite Nominal Phrases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174

9.5 Proper Nouns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
9.6 Absence of Grounding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
9.7 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186
10 Reference Point Constructions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
10.1 Preliminaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
10.2 Cognitive Reference Point and Subjective Motion . . . . . . . . . . . 190
10.3 CRP Constructions in Folksongs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
10.4 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
11 Perspectivisation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
11.1 Preliminaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
11.2 The Notion of Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204
11.3 Collective Versus Individual Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206
11.4 Linguistic Expressions of Double Interpretation . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209
11.4.1 Adjectives Implying Multiple Reference Points . . . . . . . 209
11.4.2 Definite Nominal Phrases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212
11.4.3 Temporal and Spatial Expressions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213
11.5 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215

Part III Cultural Schemas of Construal

Part IV Conclusion
12 Cultural Conceptualizations in Folksongs: A Synthesis . . . . . . . . . . 221
12.1 Overview of Hungarian Folksongs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221
12.2 Cultural Metaphors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222
12.3 Cultural Construal Schemas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225
12.4 The Cultural Schema RESERVEDNESS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229
List of Figures

Fig. 4.1 The cultural conceptualizations of FOREST

in the folksongs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Fig. 5.1 The cultural metaphors of RIVER in the folksongs . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
Fig. 6.1 The cultural conceptualizations of WIND in the folksongs . . . . . . 112
Fig. 8.1 The construction of mental spaces in folksong (22) . . . . . . . . . . 151
Fig. 8.2 The construction of mental spaces in folksong (23) . . . . . . . . . . 152
Fig. 8.3 The construction of mental spaces in folksong (24) . . . . . . . . . . 153
Fig. 8.4 The integration of spaces in folksong (25) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
Fig. 8.5 The integration of spaces in folksong (26) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
Fig. 8.6 The integration of spaces in folksong (5) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
Fig. 9.1 The construal schema of stanza-initial distal deixis . . . . . . . . . . . 167
Fig. 9.2 The construal schema of distal deixis referring
to a nature entity or scene . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
Fig. 9.3 The construal schema of the distal deixis “beyond” . . . . . . . . . . 171
Fig. 9.4 The construal schema of proximal deixis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
Fig. 10.1 Reference point construction (Langacker 2001: 21) . . . . . . . . . . 192
Fig. 10.2 The network of reference point constructions
of the first stanza in folksong (Langacker 1990: 1) . . . . . . . . . . . 195
Fig. 10.3 Reference point constructions related to the crown-tree . . . . . . . 195
Fig. 10.4 The network of reference point constructions
in folksong (4) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
Fig. 10.5 Reference point constructions and spatial divisions
in folksong (5) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198
Fig. 12.1 The cultural conceptualizations and their representations
as instantiations of the cultural schema RESERVEDNESS . . . . . . . . . 227

xv
List of Tables

Table 1.1 The differences of old style and new style folksongs . . . . . . . .. 13
Table 3.1 Basic spatial properties represented by nature entities
in folksongs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 53
Table 4.1 The representation of FOREST in the Hungarian folksongs
with reference to thematic subtypes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 64
Table 5.1 The representation of RIVER in the nature imagery
of Hungarian folksongs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 82
Table 6.1 The occurrence of weather elements in love songs . . . . . . . . . . 101
Table 6.2 The conceptualizations of WIND, its attributions
and the corresponding metaphorical meanings . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
Table 9.1 Proper names in the thematic subtypes of folksongs . . . . . . . . . 177
Table 9.2 The proper noun versus common noun reference to RIVER
and the frequency of stanza-initial representation . . . . . . . . . . . 178
Table 11.1 The distinctions of collective and individual perspectives
in folksongs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208
Table 11.2 The components of collective and individual perspective
in folksongs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209

xvii
Author’s Reference

While some parts of the monograph have not been published, the following articles and chapters
were used in a revised form as the main basis for writing this book. I am grateful for the publishers
of these articles and chapters for providing permission to use them in writing this monograph.
Baranyiné Kóczy, Judit. 2017. Cultural conceptualizations of RIVER in Hungarian folksongs. In
Advances in cultural linguistics, ed. F. Sharifian, 223–245. Berlin, New York: Springer-Verlag.
Baranyiné Kóczy, Judit. (in press). Cross-cultural variation of metaphors in Hungarian and
Slovakian folksongs. In Cross-cultural perspectives in literature and language, eds. J. Stolarek
and J. Wiliński. 1st ed, ed. San Diego, California: Æ Academic Publishing.
Baranyiné Kóczy, Judit. (in press). Construal and perspectivisation in Hungarian folksongs. In
PCLA conference issue.
Baranyiné Kóczy, Judit. 2016a. Népdalok kölcsönhatása: metaforizáció a magyar és a szlovák
népköltészetben (Interaction of folksongs: metaphors in Hungarian and Slovakian folk poetry).
In Nyelvelmélet és kontaktológia 3, eds. É. Kiss, Katalin et al., 178–201. Budapest/Piliscsaba:
Szent István Társulat.
Baranyiné Kóczy, Judit. 2016b. Reference point constructions in the meaning construal of
Hungarian folksongs. Cognitive Linguistic Studies 3(1): 113–133.
Baranyiné Kóczy, Judit. 2015. Közösségi vagy személyes? Perspektivizáció a magyar népdalban
(Collective or individual? Perspectivisation in Hungarian folksongs). Jelentés és
nyelvhasználat 2: 31–44.
Baranyiné Kóczy, Judit. 2014a. The metaphorical potential of space in Hungarian folksongs.
Studia Linguistica Hungarica 29: 51–68.
Baranyiné Kóczy, Judit. 2014b. Referenciapont, -szerkezet és -lánc a népdalok térszemantikai
konstrukciójában (Reference points, constructions and sequences in the spatial semantic
construction of folksongs). Magyar Nyelvőr 138: 83–99.
Baranyiné Kóczy, Judit. 2014c. A magyar népdal térszemantikai megközelítése (A spatial semantic
approach to Hungarian folksongs). Doctoral dissertation. Budapest: Eötvös Lóránd
University.
Baranyiné Kóczy, Judit. 2013. A referenciapont-szerkezet műveletének térszemantikai
vonatkozásai egy népdalban (The spatial semantic aspects of reference point constructions
on the example of a folksong). In Félúton 8. A nyolcadik Félúton konferencia (2012)
kiadványa, ed. Drávucz, Fanni, 251–266. http://linguistics.elte.hu/studies/fuk/fuk12/ Accessed
13 March 2016.
Baranyiné Kóczy, Judit. 2012. Térdeixis a népdalban (Spatial deixis in folksongs). In Nyelv és
kultúra – Kulturális nyelvészet, ed. Balázs, Géza and Veszelszki, Ágnes, 131–135. Budapest:
Inter Kultúra-, Nyelv-és Médiakutató Központ Kht., Magyar Szemiotikai Társaság, PRAE.HU
Kft., Palimpszeszt Kulturális Alapítvány.

xix
xx Author’s Reference

Baranyiné Kóczy, Judit. 2011a. Az erdő konceptualizációja a magyar népdalokban (The

conceptualizations of ‘forest’ in Hungarian folksongs). Magyar Nyelv 107: 318–325, 398–406.
Baranyiné Kóczy, Judit. 2011b. Szövegtípus és deixis: a térdeixis funkciója a magyar népdalban
(Text type and deixis: The function of spatial deixis in Hungarian folksongs). Magyar Nyelvőr
135: 36–47.
Baranyiné Kóczy, Judit. 2011c. Az időjárás mint szemantikai összetevő a magyar népdalokban
(Weather as a semantic element in Hungarian folksongs). In Félúton 6. A hatodik Félúton
konferencia (2010) kiadványa, ed. Parapatics, Andrea. Budapest: ELTE BTK Nyelvtudományi
Doktori Iskola. http://linguistics.elte.hu/studies/fuk/fuk10/ Accessed 13 March 2016.
Baranyiné Kóczy, Judit. 2010. A folklór szövegek kognitív megközelítésű vizsgálatának
tanulságai (The assets of the cognitive linguistic approach to folklore texts). In Félúton 5.,
eds. Illés-Molnár, Márta et al., 5–14. Budapest: ELTE BTK Nyelvtudományi Doktori Iskola.
Baranyiné Kóczy, Judit. 2008. Orientációs metaforák a magyar népdalok természeti
kezdőképeiben (Orientational metaphors in the nature imagery of Hungarian folksongs).
Magyar Nyelvőr 132: 302–325.
 Part I
Introduction to the Study of Hungarian
Folksongs
Chapter 1
Folksongs in Cultural Linguistics

Abstract This chapter introduces folksongs and their characteristics from a

Cultural Linguistic perspective. They are examined in several different contexts,
namely, cultural, conceptual-cognitive, discourse-pragmatic, and historical contexts
in which they are embedded. The folklore discourses are deeply grounded in cul-
tural conceptualizations and represent them in a rather cohesive form. Within folk
literature folksongs are unique artifacts, which are distinguished by their display of
a relatively personalized, i.e., lyrical, form of communication. This aspect is per-
haps even more punctuated in Hungarian songs than in songs found in other cul-
tures. For example, the expression of personalized emotions through nature imagery
in which spatial terms often have relevant metaphorical implications is unam-
biguously a major characteristic of Hungarian folksongs. An important claim made
in the book is that folksongs reflect the underlying schema RESERVEDNESS.
Understanding folksongs in a holistic way requires extensive and in-depth empirical
study (in this case it is done based on a rich collection, which includes over 2500
texts), so that the typical construal patterns recognized in the texts shape the frame
of the methodology. The aim of the book is to show that the characteristics of
folksongs related to the metaphors and construal schemas defined in subsequent
chapters are culturally rooted and form a culture-specific system.

Keywords Cultural context Cultural Linguistics Cultural metaphor Cultural





schema Discourse context Folk cultural conceptualization Folksong Nature

imagery

1.1 Introduction

Folksongs were created in traditional peasant communities and reflect those com-
munities’ own specific ideas and beliefs regarding their life and the world that
surrounds them. The fragments of their worldview apparent in folksongs, however,
are not displayed in a direct manner but are hidden in complex and often ambiguous

© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2018 3

J. Baranyiné Kóczy, Nature, metaphor, culture, Cultural Linguistics,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-5753-3_1
4 1 Folksongs in Cultural Linguistics

metaphorical imagery, which is often based on their perceptions of their immediate

natural environment. The imagery of nature seems to form a coherent system,
where the source and target domains and their mappings, respectively, equally
represent the Hungarian folk communities’ cultural conceptualizations.
Folk literature of various cultures within Hungary has certainly been collected
and studied by ethnographers in the past century; the Hungarians Béla Bartók and
Zoltán Kodály are just two of the central figures in this attempt. Still, folk texts in
general have been rather out of the sight in linguistics until recent times. The reason
is many-fold: one resides in the adjective folk, which immediately delegates these
discourses to the interest of ethnographers and anthropologists. The second is
perhaps in their ambiguous position within other discourse types, namely, they are
collective and oral products, and feature high variability. These properties deter-
mined a kind of disadvantaged and peripheral state of folksongs within the scope of
academic research. A further obvious reason was (and still is) the lack of adequate
corpus. Finally and most importantly, there has been an inevitable demand for
appropriate methodology and theoretical framework, which was not introduced for
a considerable time.
Folksongs and folk literature in general call for a multidisciplinary kind of
research, which emphasizes that they are deeply grounded in cultural conceptual-
izations and represent them in a cohesive form; a methodology which takes into
account cultural, cognitive-semantic, grammatical and even discursive aspects of
language. This integrative perspective on discourses has been proposed by Cultural
Linguistics, which seems to form an appropriate framework for the study of folk
literature. Furthermore, Cultural Linguistics does not only aim to explore the
conceptual characteristics of folksongs but, more importantly, the underlying cul-
tural motivations behind their specific conceptualizations.
Folksongs are unique artifacts, which are distinguished by their display of a
relatively personalized, lyrical form of communication. This aspect is perhaps even
more punctuated in Hungarian songs than in songs found in other cultures. For
example, the expression of personalized emotions and mental states through nature
imagery, in which spatial terms often have relevant metaphorical implications, is
unambiguously a major characteristic of Hungarian folksongs. Although the
so-called initial nature image has long been a matter of academic dispute, not much
has been revealed about their conceptualizations, even since ethnographer Gyula
Ortutay’s statement “we haven’t even covered the first steps towards a comparative
research of nature image” (Ortutay 1975: 9). An important assertion of this book is
that understanding folksongs in their complexity requires extensive and in-depth
empirical study, which advocates a bottom-up method in shaping the frame of the
methodology. In this case it is done based on a rich collection, which includes over
2400 texts (Ortutay and Katona 1975). The aim of the book is to show that the
characteristics of folksongs related to the conceptualizations, including cultural
1.1 Introduction 5

metaphors and construal1 schemas, form a culture-specific system and in the dif-
ferent dimensions of representation the peasant people’s distinctive attitude to
emotions can be captured.

1.2 Main Goal of the Research

An essential characteristic identified in Hungarian folksongs, which brings together

the various linguistic phenomena discussed throughout the book, could be framed
as the complex cultural schema RESERVEDNESS. The notion is used here to mean a
non-direct way of speaking of emotions, which is most obviously evidenced by the
metaphorical images, and further, the conceptualizer’s self-concealing (latent)
attitude in bringing forward his private feelings. Metaphorical representation is one
crucial form of indirectness, yet the proposition made here is that it governs many
kinds of aspects of the compositional path, semantic ones as well as grammatical
ones. Strongly related to indirectness is the notion ambiguity, which refers to
semantically opaque meaning making process, due to undefined epistemic cir-
cumstances of the scenarios by which, in many cases, the nature images can be
interpreted in more ways than one. This is also realized as a form of the concep-
tualizer’s ‘hiding’ attitude in folksongs.
Hence, bringing the imagery of folksongs into the limelight, the aim of the study
is to unfold how we can interpret nature images in their complexity and what
cultural models determine their specific representation. In regards to the main goal
of the research, some further particular questions are proposed:
• What is the function of nature images in Hungarian folksongs from a cultural,
conceptual-cognitive and discursive perspective?
• What is the relation between the cultural conceptualizations of emotions in
folksongs and the view on emotions in traditional Hungarian peasant
communities?
• What cultural metaphors of nature can be identified in folksongs?
• What is the relation of cultural metaphors of folksongs to conceptual metaphors?
• Do the images of nature have a central dimension of metaphoricity?
• Are there any strategies in construal that are recurrently employed in interpreting
nature images?
• Relevant to construal schemas, what semantic and grammatical aspects are in
focus of the interpretation of images?
• Is there a palpable relation between the construal schemas of folksongs and
peasant’s attitudes to emotions?

1
“[…] a meaning consists of both conceptual content and a particular way of construing content.
The term construal refers to our manifest ability to conceive and portray the same situation in
alternate ways” (Langacker 2008: 43).
6 1 Folksongs in Cultural Linguistics

1.3 Methodology

The study of Hungarian folksongs is presented as an issue of language, culture and

conceptualization, consequently, the fundamental theoretical framework of the
research and the key terminology follows the linguistic perspective of Cultural
Linguistics (Sharifian 2008, 2011, 2013, 2015, 2017). As the explicit goal of the
book is to present folksongs from a diversity of perspectives, this theory is com-
plemented by the notions of other disciplines, which highlight some important
aspects of the representation of nature images. The major concern of the study is
metaphorical representation, where there is a focus on the results of emotion
metaphors (Kövecses 2000, 2005, 2015) and references are also made to conceptual
metaphors (Lakoff and Johnson 1980). Furthermore, the conceptual-cognitive
aspects of the research utilize the principals of cognitive semantics, grammar and
cognitive psychology (Fauconnier 1985; Langacker 2008; Rosch 1975; Talmy
2000; Verhagen 2007), employing notions like construal, ground, mental space,
reference point, and attention path. Finally, the ethnographical background of
folksongs is unfolded by taking advantage of the related findings of ethnography
(e.g., Katona 2002; Lükő 1942/2001).
The research employs a rather complex and integrative methodology, which
incorporates an investigation apparatus with both cultural and conceptual-cognitive
foci. The analysis of folksongs draws on a range of aspects of construal, which is an
explicit aim of the book, in line with the premise that “In language, various units—
from morphemes to the structure of discourse—often instantiate conceptualizations
that are ensconced in cultural systems and worldviews” (Sharifian 2011: 112).
Among others, folksongs are cultural, conceptual and discursive artifacts and so, to
present a comprehensive view, there needs to be a multiple approach. Folksongs
bear various definitive discourse typological properties like collective, lyrical,
metaphorical, and oral tradition, which should also be taken into account. The
primary focus of the book, nature image also draws on a number of issues:
nature/landscape representation, perception, experience, space, semantic property,
and metaphor. These theoretical issues are all considered in the understanding of the
complexity of nature imagery. Furthermore, the research aims to analyze the nature
images with reference to their structural as well as dynamic traits, which brings a
special interest to the initial linguistic units of the folksongs.
A major proposal is that authentic and comprehensive observations can be only
made from an extensive and in-depth empirical study. For this reason, the data of
the present research is based on a two-volume collection Hungarian folksongs I–II
(Ortutay and Katona 1975), which includes 2438 texts (and many more stanzas) and
was compiled for the purpose of text-oriented studies.2 This means that the corpus
was selected from tens of thousands of folksongs, which were thematically arranged
and classified to 47 subtypes, giving a wholeness of “historic, geographic and
ethnic interface” (Ortutay 1975: 7). The corpus gives a balanced view on folksongs

References to “the folksongs” in the remainder of the book refer to this collection.
2
1.3 Methodology 7

from various regions of Hungary and with different historical origins. The signif-
icance of nature imagery in folksongs is illustrated by the fact that a central subtype,
love songs, displays nature images in 319 texts out of 445, which is 72%.
Another facet of the empirical approach is that having a rather broad theoretical
framework the sub-questions of the research are determined by the inherent char-
acteristics of folksongs. In other words, there is a dynamic interaction between the
object of the research and the methodology: the linguistic phenomena that are
“marked” (Sharifian 2011: 13) and recognized in the texts frame and reframe the
focused areas and linguistic tools of analysis. This methodology seems to frame
culture-related discussions in general, including ethnographers’ attitude to inquiry:
Ethnographic research is often undirected (at least at first), because it may be impossible to
know in advance which areas will come into focus. The informal, ad hoc quality of
ethnographic research permits flexibility to focus on problems of which the ethnographer
was initially unaware and to constantly revise and adapt techniques of inquiry (Bernstein
2010: 851).

This methodological assumption is also proposed with special emphasis in

Cultural Linguistics:
Generally speaking, identifying cultural conceptualizations requires an ethnographic
approach to the analysis of cultural artefacts, such as discourse. In this approach, the
analysis focuses closely on the identification of conceptualizations that might be specific to
the culture of the speakers. The ethnographic approach adopted towards this end needs to
be informed by both an emic and an etic perspective. The etic perspective would be
required for the identification of conceptualizations that appear to be ‘marked’ for people
outside the culture of the speakers. In discourse, a marked conceptualization may surface as
an unfamiliar vocabulary item, a distinctive pattern of use, a distinctive pattern of associ-
ation, a distinctive frequency of usage, etc. (Sharifian 2011: 12–13).

The identification of distinctive markers in folksongs basically utilizes an etic

perspective, as well. In this approach their cultural conceptualizations are mainly
captured by juxtaposing a range of folksongs, which point out the distinctive
templates in them. The author of the book is not part of the traditional folk com-
munity but acknowledges some cultural understanding of folk culture, as is the case
with all Hungarians. From a present-day perspective folk culture is understood as a
special subculture within the Hungarian cultural context, which survives mostly in
those secondary artifacts that have grown out of them, e.g., clothes designed with
folk motifs, popular music inspired by folk music, or poetry based on folk poetry.
The empirical research on folksongs raises a few methodological problems. One
basic question is: what should be defined as a text unit in the analysis? Folksongs
generally consist of separate stanzas, which are often incidentally combined in one
song, according to the singer’s intuition. This is possible by applying a certain tune
to stanzas that have the same metrics construction (Vargyas 1988: 431). Most of the
folksongs are originally one-stanza texts, as Mona proved in her research (3933 out
of 4120 texts had only one stanza, see Mona 1959), and variation mostly occurs
within the stanzas, by changing lines (Mona 1959: 566; Katona 2002: 160). In line
8 1 Folksongs in Cultural Linguistics

with these arguments, the analyses throughout the book are predominantly
stanza-based, except when the thematic relation of the stanzas is overt. Within
stanzas, lines are meso-level units, as in poems “the line unit is roughly comparable
to the linguistic unit sentence” (Zwicky 1986: 58). The lines of folksongs are
important acoustic units, which have an impact on the nature of the meaning
making process, as it is pointed out at several points of the analysis.
Another term to elucidate is image of nature or nature image. In the related
Hungarian literature the notion initial nature image (meaning stanza-initial) is
employed, which alludes to a frequent pattern involving parallel structure of nature–
emotion lines in folksongs, as in lines 1–2 of folksong (1).3

(1) Megérik a szőllő, mer sok szél The grapes ripen because a lot of wind reaches
találja; them.
Megreped a szívem, mer sok bú My heart cracks because a lot of grief damages
rongálja. it.
Akit a bú rongál fiatal korába, The one who is damaged by grief in his youth,
Ne is várjon az jót éltje világába. Should not expect any good in his life.
(Melancholic song 46)a
a
All songs, unless otherwise indicated, are cited from Ortutay and Katona (1975)

However, the images of nature take form in a range of variants with respect to
nature–emotion representation, e.g., in folksong (2).

(2) Édesanyám rózsafája My mother’s rose-tree

Engem nyitott utoljára. Opened me last.
Bárcsak ki ne nyitott volna, I wish shea hadn’t opened me,
Hej, maradtam volna bimbóba! Hey, and I had stayed in bud!
(Love song 57)
a
In the Hungarian original, the personal pronoun ‘she’ may either refer back to the rose-tree or to
the mother

In the research any form of nature representation is subject to discussion,

regardless of its elaboration. In defining the category of nature, a broad interpre-
tation is employed, which includes patently nature-related elements as well as
peripheral elements of the category (e.g., sky, stars, cloud, forest, river, hill, plants,
fruit, animals, garden, road and phenomena like storm, wind, or rain).

1.4 Theoretical Framework: Cultural Linguistics

Cultural Linguistics, which has its background in various disciplines such as

cognitive psychology, cognitive linguistics, cognitive anthropology, distributed
cognition, complexity science and anthropological linguistics, investigates how

3
For ease, the reference numbers for the folksongs used will restart from 1 in every chapter.
1.4 Theoretical Framework: Cultural Linguistics 9

language, culture, and conceptualization interact with one another (Sharifian 2011,
2015, 2017). “Cultural Linguistics explores, in explicit terms, conceptualizations
that have a cultural basis and are encoded in and communicated through features of
human languages” (Sharifian 2015: 473). The key notion of the discipline is con-
ceptualization, strongly related to meaning, which is both a cultural and individual
phenomenon (Sharifian 2003, 2011: 3). Cultural conceptualization is a broad
inclusive category that involves various types of products of human cognition,
including schemas (Talmy 1983), categories (Rosch 1978), metaphors (Lakoff and
Johnson 1980; Kövecses 2000) and conceptual blends (Fauconnier 1997).
However, Cultural Linguistics emphasizes the fact that they are not only cognitive
processes but also systematic ones, operating mostly at the cultural level of
cognition.
In this context, culture is practically viewed as a notion that characterizes a
group of people who live in a particular social, historical and physical environment,
and make sense of their experiences in a more or less homogenous way.
In line with the current thinking in anthropology, we can think of culture as a set of shared
understandings that characterize smaller or larger groups of people […]. This is not an
exhaustive definition of culture, in that it leaves out real objects, artefacts, institutions,
practices, actions, and so on, that people use and participate in any culture, but it includes a
large portion of it: namely, the shared understandings that people have in connection with
all of these “things” (Kövecses 2005: 1–2).

Cultural conceptualizations, which are the objects of linguistic investigation,

reveal a latent system of cognition, which is a cohesive property of cultural groups.
Cultural cognition is a set of cognitive systems of beliefs and values shared by a
group of people and also characterized by several peculiarities (Sharifian 2008).
One important issue is that it is an emergent system, which means that cognition
results from the interactions of the members of a cultural group across time and
space; hence the diachronic aspect of cultural cognition. Another facet of this
system is that it is heterogeneously distributed, implying that conceptualizations are
negotiated and renegotiated across generations through communicative events,
which are also characterized by distributed control (Frank 2011: 495). In this sense,
cultural cognition is viewed as a dynamic, self-organizing and ever revolving
system, rather than a fixed set of representations. The notion heterogeneity refers to
the diversity of the cultural knowledge of minds within the group, i.e., “some
people know more than others about a given cultural model than some other
members of the cultural group” (Sharifian 2008: 124; see also Borofsky 1994). This
also means that cultural orientation should be imagined as a continuum. A further
notion about cultural cognition is that it is a complex adaptive system in that “an
individual’s cognition does not capture the totality of their cultural group’s cog-
nition” (Sharifian 2008: 116; see also Frank 2011). This also implies that it is an
open system and within that system a circular pattern of cause and effect is
observed: cultural cognition (as a global order) derives from interactions (on a local
level), while on the other hand, these interactions are dependent on and rooted in
cultural cognition.
10 1 Folksongs in Cultural Linguistics

Cultural conceptualizations and cultural cognition, which they are grounded in,
can be viewed as complex dynamic systems. Similarly, cultural groups, i.e., the
community of conceptualizers, can be also defined as a permanently varying group
along various axes: its members, their cultural knowledge, the frequency and type
of interactions and many more. Consequently, cultural groups, whose members are
defined not only by physical proximity but also relative participation in each other’s
conceptual world (Sharifian 2011: 4), are rather different from each other.
A distinctive property of the groups is, e.g., how the conceptualizations are dis-
tributed among participants, as “cultural conceptualizations appear to be more
cohesive in some cultural groups than others” (Sharifian 2011: 6). A further dif-
ference arises from the fact that cultural groups produce their own unique devices to
present their beliefs and ideas with various aims. Each cultural community develops
its own kinds of cultural artifacts, “vehicles,” for the representation of their cultural
conceptualizations (Sharifian 2011: 12). Cultural Linguistics emphasizes an inte-
grative way of the observation of linguistic and non-linguistic phenomena, which
can be differentiated but cannot be separated, acknowledging that they live in
natural coexistence.

1.5 General Characteristics of Hungarian Folksongs

In order to give a comprehensive and coherent view of Hungarian folksongs, they

should be described from various perspectives. This section gives an overview on
folksongs within various contexts in which they are grounded: the folk cultural
context, the discourse-pragmatic context, and the historical context.

1.5.1 Folk Cultural Context

The bulk of Hungarian folk cultural artifacts, including folksongs, are different
instantiations of folk cultural cognition. Whether they are linguistic or
non-linguistic by nature, they compose a set of interdependent artifacts, which are
grounded in folk conceptualizations and have their own role in different occasions
and various domains of life. Folk texts are characteristically different from the rest
of genres; accordingly, their approach requires basically different methods from
both written and oral texts in general.
The various branches of folk art live side by side and are integrated into one network by a
great many overlappings; and due to their constant change and interaction, a flexible frame
of categories needs to be worked out. For example, the bulk of discourse variants raise the
necessity of introducing new poetic terms (type, variant, motif, formula, etc.) […], what-
soever, the issues of individual vs. community, production vs. reception, even the question
of construction itself are raised in a different way (Katona 1998a: 17).
1.5 General Characteristics of Hungarian Folksongs 11

Apart from folk narratives like folk tales or ballads, which are based on story-
telling, folksongs are part of folk poetry, which include several genres like nursery
rhymes, archaic prayers, songs related to special occasions such as wailing songs,
etc. Folksong, in the Hungarian community, is most commonly associated with
folksongs that display emotions and have lyrical traits. They express intimate
thoughts and intentions, most often related to issues of love, and also reflect on
emotions e.g., homesickness, fear of death, which are characteristic of the outlaw
lifestyle, military service or imprisonment. The lyrical aspect of folksongs is
manifested in the brief and concise expression of emotion. While its creator is
unknown, folk poetry is characterized by an inextricable connection of individual
and community: folksongs become collective by wiping off their individual and
incidental marks, and they are passed on to further generations having undergone
the adaptation process (Katona 1998b: 357).
Folksongs express various topics; therefore they are generally classified by
thematic arrangement. The basic thematic subgroups are emotional songs (e.g., love
songs, melancholic songs), amusement songs (e.g., guild rhymes, apprentice and
craftsmen’s songs), occasion songs (e.g., spinning songs, matchmaking songs),
ritual songs, songs of lifestyle and profession (e.g., shepherd songs, fisherman
songs, soldier songs, wanderer songs, fugitive songs, outlaw songs, prison songs),
and historical, social and political songs (Katona 2002: 59). Out of the six groups
the nature images are dominantly present in emotional songs, soldier songs and
occasion songs. These classes, however, should not be taken as rigid categories but
their borders had better be imagined as “fuzzy” and permeable lines. Some songs
may belong to more than one group, or the minimally different variants of a text
each can form different subtypes. The problems of classification are highlighted in
Ortutay’s comment:
The lyrical folksongs can be thematically arranged only in perpetual proportion to one
another, as these texts share so many formulas and formal features and are so open to other
folksongs that a particular song can be conceived as one in a sequence or part of a branch of
texts. Within a single genre it seems many a time that if we juxtapose analogous texts, as if
they had grown out of the other; we get sequences of variants impossible to part from
one another, and they only have unique traits when they are selected from the branch
(Ortutay 1975: 7).

It is clear then that intertextuality has a crucial role in developing and under-
standing folksongs. However, it does not only play within the group of folksongs
but they are also in constant interaction with folk narratives (Ortutay 1975: 45–46)
and proverbs (Nagy Abonyi 2000).

1.5.2 Discourse-Pragmatic Context

Traditionally the situations that folksongs were performed in involved the singer(s)
and the community as the listener. The audience had a rather active role in shaping
the folksong adjusting to their actual needs in terms of local context: spatial,
12 1 Folksongs in Cultural Linguistics

temporal, personal, mental and social-cultural aspects. The process of adapting to

the local context was a common interest of not only the performer but of the
audience as well, taking form in a dynamic interaction between the two. “After all,
folk artifacts are the cooperate product of the individual and the community”
(Katona 1998a: 24). A great number of folksongs evolved in typical situations of
work (e.g., harvest, plowing and spinning) and prominent stages of life and the year
(wedding, birth, burial, St Ivan’s Day), providing evidence that folksongs used to
be embedded in real situations a long time ago. Another notable fact is that they
used to be passed down orally, i.e., in real life situations. These suggest that there
might be traces of markers of a two-party oral communication, which is abundant in
folktales. One such a marker can be deixis, which is frequently used in folksongs,
giving the impression that the conceptualizer brings the entities into the focus of
attention of a second conceptualizer who is also present (see Chap. 9 on deixis).
On the other hand, for some time now, it has been difficult to find correlations
between the meaning of folksongs and the situations they are performed in. It is not
a novel phenomenon that folksongs are sung in circumstances which have no or
little reference to the actual message of the song. An amusing example is when
young children sing enthusiastically about love issues like heartache without giving
some thought into the actual meaning of the song. The constrained effect of the
situation on (at least the performance of) folksongs is evidenced in records where
the performer applies the very same tune to long sequences of thematically irrel-
evant stanzas in which he recalls from his memory at the very moment of speaking.
From the point of view of the present research the major concern is the linguistic
representation of folksongs and the systemic patterns recognized as conceptual-
izations, not the performance of the songs. For this reason, the focus of the analysis
is primarily posited on linguistic phenomena and pragmatic aspects, which can be
directly derived from them.

1.5.3 Historical Context

In the diachronic view of Hungarian folk poetry, the traditional layer of folksongs
was based on epic songs related to various occasions and rites of social-cultural
events up to the Middle Ages. They were typically characterized by two-line
stanzas (couplets) and frequently employed poetic devices like repetition, contra-
diction, climax, exaggeration and alliteration. The origin of nature images is dis-
puted by ethnographers. According to one view, they became prevalent in
folksongs upon the double influence of medieval religious literature and secular
poetry, where the entities of nature (including birds and flowers) were especially
dominant in love songs where their function was to express emotions in symbolic
images. However, there is another group of nature imagery that can be traced back
well before the Middle Ages (Katona 2002). The characteristics and thematic
subtypes of folksongs that are known at present can be traced back to the early 19th
century when the function of folk poetry was reconsidered. The more
1.5 General Characteristics of Hungarian Folksongs 13

Table 1.1 The differences of old style and new style folksongs
Old style folksongs New style folksongs
Related to particular occasions Not related to occasions
Often narrative Lyrical
Impersonal Personal
Short, varied number of lines in a stanza Long lines, four-line stanzas
One, two, or more stanzas in loose coherence One or two stanzas
Alliteration Rhyme
Ornamental and great variety of tune Simple and less diverse tune
Pentatonic scale Pentatonic or heptatonic scale
Parlando, rubato (free rhythm) Tempo giusto

lyrical/personal types of folksongs (such as love songs and soldier songs) started
developing from this period, along with the new style folksongs in the second half
of the 19th century. The shift from old style to new style folksongs pertained to the
tune and the text, both in functional and formal respects, see Table 1.1.
A remarkable feature of the old style Hungarian folksongs is the pentatonic scale
in the tone (a five-note musical scale), which is unique in both the European and the
Finno-Ugric folk musical context. According to Béla Bartók’s folk music research,
its origin can be related back to the 6th Century AD when the Yuruks, a Turkish
ethnic group, and the Hungarian tribes lived in close proximity (Lükő 2001: 328;
Suchoff 1976: 173).

1.5.4 Nature Imagery in Folksongs

While folksongs across cultures may have universal traits, they certainly show a lot
of culture-specific features. A distinctive feature of a large portion of Hungarian
folksongs is a so-called ‘initial image of nature,’ which is employed to commu-
nicate personal matters through metaphors of imagery of nature phenomena. The
meaning of these images is rather ambiguous, partly because they display a range of
metaphors and schemas that have not been sufficiently analyzed from a linguistic
point of view (Baranyiné Kóczy 2008, 2011a, b, c, 2014a, b, 2016b, 2017a, b;
Szelid 2007).
The images of nature are schematic representations of various kinds, ranging
from more elaborated scenarios to some brief reference to natural phenomena.
Employing nature itself as a source domain alludes to the deep entrenchment of the
natural environment in the peasant communities’ cognition. The visual impressions
of nature phenomena are basic and “elementary experiences” of peasants regarding
the world, which fill their imaginations and give rise to attaching associative
meanings to them (Erdélyi 1961: 174). Applying the domain of NATURE to other
abstract domains, such as emotions is not automatic. “There are certain phenomena
that have contradictory impacts on the soul through the very same visual
Another random document with
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lines. Downright fraud is possible, as in the concealment or false
weighing of dutiable articles, the publication of false statements
regarding the financial condition of fiduciary institutions, the covering
up of defects in tenement house building, and so on. Practices of this
character are extremely dangerous, however, as they are subject to
detection and consequent punishment by the first more than
ordinarily inquisitive inspector. Criminal chances are materially
improved by the bribery of officials who are thus bound to
concealment both by money interest and their own fear of exposure.
Vigilant and honest administration of the laws and the infliction of
sufficient penalties, particularly if they involve the imprisonment of
principals, may be trusted to reduce such practices to a minimum.
There are, however, other and more open methods of attack upon
the regulation of business by the state. Appeal may be made to the
courts in the hope that laws of this character may be declared
unconstitutional. Business interests may also seek their repeal or
amendment at the hands of the legislature. No one who accepts the
fundamental principles of our government can quarrel with either of
these two modes of procedure. While doubtless intended to secure
the public interest, attempts to regulate industry by the state may in
given cases really defeat this end. And the latter likelihood would be
increased almost to the point of certainty if legitimate protests from
the businesses affected were stifled. On the other hand attempts
may be made by business interests to influence courts or
legislatures corruptly. Assuming that the honesty of all the
departments of government would be proof against such attempts
there is still another possibility. A business affected by some form of
state regulation may endeavour to call to its aid the influence of
party. This final method of procedure may also be conducted in a
perfectly legitimate fashion. Public sentiment may be honestly
converted to the view that the amendment or repeal of the law, as
demanded by the business interest, is also in the interest of the state
as a whole. On the other hand the effort may be made, either by
large contributions to campaign funds, or by other still more
objectionable means, to enlist the support of party regardless of the
public welfare. Carrying out these various methods of procedure to
their logical conclusion brings us, therefore, face to face with the
question which underlies the whole fabric of political corruption,
namely how shall our party organisations be supported and
financed?
Reserving this issue for subsequent discussion, certain general
features of the reaction of industry against state regulation must be
noted as of immense importance. Black as it is corruption after all is
a mere incident in this struggle. The broad lines of development
which the Republic will follow in the near future would seem to
depend largely upon the outcome of this great process. Certain
social prophets tell us insistently that there are but two possibilities: if
the state wins the upper hand the inevitable result will be socialism; if
on the other hand business triumphs we must resign ourselves to a
more or less benevolent financial oligarchy. Imagination is not
lacking to embellish or render repulsive this pair of alternatives. From
Plato to Herbert George Wells all social prophets have been thus
gifted with the power of depicting finely if not correctly the minutiæ of
the world as it is to be. Time, the remorseless confuter of all earlier
forecasters of this sort, has shown them to be singularly lacking in
the ability to anticipate the great divergent highways of development,
—sympodes in Ward’s phrase,—which have opened up before the
march of human progress and determined the subsequent lines of
movement. So it may well be in the present case. The social futures,
one or the other of which we are bidden by present day prophets to
choose, are like two radii of a circle. They point in very different
directions, it is true, but between them are many possible yet
uncharted goals. And if social development may be likened to
movement in three instead of only two dimensions the lines open to
the future are enormously more divergent than our seers are wont to
conceive. Employing a less mathematical figure, prophecy usually
proceeds from the assumption that cataclysmic changes are
immediately impending. Otherwise, by the way, the prophets would
utterly fail to attract attention. But this presupposes an extremely
plastic condition of society. If social structures, however, really are so
plastic, they may then be remoulded not into one or two forms
merely, but into many other forms conceivable or inconceivable at
the present time. Current and widely accepted forecasts to the
contrary, therefore, one may still venture to doubt that our through
ticket to 1950 or 2000 a.d. is inscribed either “socialism” or “financial
oligarchy,” and stamped “non-transferable.”
Whatever the future may bring forth faith has not yet been lost in
the efficacy of state regulation. It is certainly within the bounds of
possibility that some working balance between government and
industry may be established through this means which will continue
indefinitely. As late as 1870, according to Mr. Dicey, individualistic
opinions dominated English law-making thought.[57] Reaction from
the doctrine of laisser faire was, if anything, even later in the United
States. For a considerable period after the turning point had been
passed measures of state regulation were weakened by survivals of
old habits of thought. Even to-day the period of construction and
extension along the line of state regulation seems far from finished.
Certain inevitable errors have required correction, but no major
portion of the system has been abandoned. Further progress should
be made easier by accumulating experience and precedents.
It is significant of the temper of the American people on this
question that an increasing number of the great successes of our
political life are being made by the men who have shown themselves
strongest and most resourceful in correcting the abuses of business.
Under present conditions no public man suspected of weakness on
this issue has the remotest chance of election to the presidency or to
the governorship of any of our larger states. On the purely
administrative side of the system of state regulation new and more
powerful agencies,—such as the Bureau of Corporations and the
various state Public Service Commissions,—have been devised
recently to grapple with the situation.
Considering the extreme importance of the work which such
agencies have to perform it is improbable that either their position, or
the position of government in general, is as yet sufficiently strong
with reference to corporate interests. Under modern conditions
success in business means very large material rewards. Important
as are industry and commerce, however, certain parts of the work
which the state is now performing are, from the social point of view,
immensely more valuable. The commonweal requires that our best
intellect be applied to these tasks. Any condition which favours the
drafting of our ablest men from the service of the state into the
service of business is a point in favour of the latter wherever the
conflict between them is joined. Yet not infrequently we witness the
promotion of judges to attorneyships for great corporations, the
translation of men who have won their spurs in administrative
supervision of certain kinds of business to high managerial positions
in these same businesses. As long as our morals remain as
mercenary as those of a Captain Dugald Dalgetty there may seem to
be little to criticise in such transactions. Doubtless loyalty is shown
by the men concerned to the government, their original employer,
and to the corporation, their ultimate employer. If, however, there is
to be an exchange of labourers between these fields it would be
vastly better for the state if the man who had succeeded brilliantly in
business should normally expect promotion to high governmental
position. As things are at present the glittering prizes known to be
obtained by ex-government officials who have gone into corporation
service cannot have the most favourable effect upon the minds and
activities of officials remaining in public positions requiring them to
exercise supervision over business activities.
It is high time that there should be a reversal of policy in this
connection. We need urgently greater security of tenure, greater
social esteem, much higher salaries, and ample retiring pensions for
those public officials who are on the fighting line of modern
government. Incomes as large as those of our insurance presidents
or trust magnates are not needed, although in many cases they
would be much more richly deserved. There is recompense which
finer natures will always recognise in the knowledge that they are
performing a vitally important public work. In spite of the loss which
political corruption causes the state it is probably more than made up
by the devoted, and in part unrequited, work of its good servants.
Still the labourer is worthy of his hire. It is both deplorable and
disastrous that the current rewards of good service should be so
meagre while the rewards of betrayal are so large.[58]
But it may be objected that public sentiment in a democracy will
not support high salaries even for the most important public services,
that democracies notoriously remunerate their higher officials very
much less adequately than monarchies. The time is ripe, however,
for challenging this attitude. As long as government work is looked
upon as a dull, soulless, and not extremely useful routine, popular
opposition to high salaries is not only comprehensible but
praiseworthy. Once convinced of the value of certain services,
however (and there is plentiful opportunity to do this), it is doubtful if
self-governing peoples will show themselves less intelligent than
kings. Even now engineers directing great and unusual public
undertakings are frequently paid larger salaries than high officers of
government charged with the execution of ordinary functions.
Recognition of the importance of the work of the specialist is much
more common now than formerly. The development of science and
large scale industry is daily enforcing this lesson. As regards the
unwillingness of democracy to pay well, a change that has recently
come over the policy of certain labour unions is worth noting. Instead
of ordering strikes they have on occasion taken a lesson from the
procedure of their employers, and resorted to the courts for the
redress of grievances. And in doing so they have called in the very
ablest lawyers they could find, paying the latter out of the funds of
the union fees as large as they could have earned on the opposing
side. A similar illustration is afforded by the policy of the Social-
democratic party in Germany which for a considerable period has
recognised and met the necessity of remunerating its leaders in
editorial, parliamentary, and propagandist work at professional rates
far higher than the average wages received by the party rank and
file.[59] Demos may despise aristocracy of birth but he is perhaps not
so incapable of comprehending the aristocracy of service as many of
his critics suppose.

By the system of regulation, as we have seen, government is

brought into close contact with business along many lines. But the
state is also one of the largest sellers and buyers in the markets of
the world, and as such has many other intimate points of contact
with economic affairs. Like any individual or corporation under the
same circumstances it is liable to be victimised by practices
designed fundamentally to make it sell cheaply or buy dearly,—both
to the advantage of corrupt outside interests. Franchise grabbing is
perhaps the most magnificent single example of the difficulties the
state encounters when it appears as a vendor. Popular ignorance of
the real nature of such valuable rights has been responsible for
enormous losses on this score. A city which for any reason had to
dispose of a parcel of land would find itself safeguarded in some
measure by the fact that a large number of its citizens were familiar
with real estate values and methods. Knowledge of intangible
property is very much less common. There has been a great deal of
effective educational work along this line, however, and that
community is indeed backward which at the present time does not
understand perfectly that perpetual franchises without proper
safeguards of public interests are fraudulent on their face.
Administrative agencies such as were referred to in connection with
business regulation, and particularly public service commissions, are
doing extremely valuable work in cutting down the possibilities of
franchise corruption. The grabbing of alleys, the seizure of water
fronts, and the occupation of sidewalks are minor forms of the same
sort of evil which can no longer be practised with the impunity
characteristic of the good old free and easy days of popular
ignorance and carelessness.
In disposing of its public domain, although here, of course, the
price obtained was not the major consideration on the part of the
government, notorious cases of corruption were of common
occurrence. Recent developments, particularly in connection with
timber, mineral, and oil lands, reveal the stiffer attitude which the
public and the government are taking on this question. Time was
also when deposits of public funds yielded little or no interest to cities
and counties. At bottom such loan transactions were sales, i.e., the
sale of the temporary use of public monies. Quite commonly
treasurers were in the habit of considering themselves responsible
for the return of capital sums only, and any interest received was
regarded as a perquisite of office. The system had all the support of
tradition and general usage; it was frequently practised with no effort
at concealment and without protest on moral or business grounds.
Nowadays its existence would be regarded as a sign of political
barbarism, and would furnish opportunity for charges of corruption
about which effective reform effort would speedily gather.
The element of selling is not of major importance in many services
performed by the state which nevertheless require constant watching
in order to prevent corrupt misuse. Efforts to use the mails
improperly are continually being made by get-rich-quick schemes,
swindlers, gamblers, and touts of all descriptions. Crop reports are
furnished without charge, but extraordinary precautions are
necessary to prevent them from leaking out.
Instances such as the foregoing also serve to illustrate the point
that any extension of the functions of government results in an
enlargement of the opportunities for political corruption. Government
railways, for example, would afford venal public officials many
crooked opportunities (as e.g., for false billing, charges, and
discrimination) which do not now exist as direct menaces to public
administrative integrity. Private management of railways, however,
has not been so free from such evils as to be able to use this
argument effectively against nationalisation. Municipalities selling
water, gas, or electricity, are notoriously victimised on a large scale
by citizens whose self-interest as consumers overcomes all thought
of civic duty or common honesty.[60] There is one other closely
related phenomenon connected with the extension of the economic
functions of government which will perhaps not so readily be thought
of as corrupt, and which yet deserves consideration from that point
of view. Public service enterprises under government ownership and
management are always exposed to what some writers stigmatise as
“democratic finance,”—that is strong popular pressure to reduce
rates. Cost of production and the general financial condition of a
given city may make the reduction of the prices charged for water,
electricity, or gas, frankly contrary to public policy. Yet the self-
interest of the consumer suggests the use of his vote and political
influence to compel such reductions. Of course his action is not
consciously corrupt, but it has every other characteristic feature of
this evil.
 The state is a much larger buyer than seller, and manifold are the
possibilities of malpractice in connection with its enormous
purchases of land, materials, supplies, and labour. Yet nothing in our
contemporary political life is more marvellous than the light-hearted
indifference with which the public regards the voting and expenditure
of sums running into the millions. We recall vaguely that the great
constitutional issues of English history were fought out on fiscal
grounds, but we find the budget of our own city a deadly bore. We
rise in heated protest whenever the tax rate is advanced by a
fraction of a mill, but we regard with indifference the new forms either
of necessary expenditure or needless extravagance which make
such increases inevitable. There is one general advantage which
state buying has over state selling, however. A great many of the
purchases of government are made in competitive markets where
fair price rates are ascertainable with comparative ease. Even large
public contracts such as for erecting public buildings or for road
construction are usually resolvable into a number of comparatively
simple processes and purchases. Of course there are exceptions, as
for example government contracts with railroad companies for
carrying mail. But as a rule the ordinary purchasing operations of the
state are simpler and more easily comprehensible than such acts of
sale as franchise grants,—to mention the one of most importance
from the view point of possible corruption. It is precisely at this
vulnerable point on the buying side of governmental operations that
the New York Bureau of Municipal Research has struck home. With
a skill that amounts to positive genius this voluntary agency has
placed before the people the ruling market prices and the
enormously higher prices actually paid by officials for public supplies.
Taking the purchasing departments of our best organised private
corporations as a model it has drawn practical plans for the
installation of similar methods as part of our municipal machinery.
Equipped with field glasses and mechanical registering devices its
agents have kept tab upon the flaccid activities of labourers in the
public service and have contrasted the long distance results thus
obtained with the suddenly energised performances of the same
men when they knew themselves to be under observation. It has co-
operated quietly and effectively with all willing officials in improving
the methods of work in their offices, in installing more logical
accounting systems and better methods of recording work done; and
it has fought effectively, with the penalty of discharge by the
Governor in two cases, those officials who were not amenable to
proper corrective influences. And finally the Bureau has attacked the
city budget and has even succeeded in making that dry and
formidable document the object of active and intelligent public
interest. Yet the cost of the Bureau’s work has been out of all
proportion small in comparison with the benefits obtained. “Less than
$30,000 was spent in 1908 in securing for four million people the
beginnings of a method of recording work done when done, and
money spent when spent, which will henceforth make inefficiency
harder than efficiency, and corruption more difficult than honesty.”[61]
It is extremely gratifying to note the widespread interest which this
work is arousing. Philadelphia and Cincinnati have established
bureaus under the supervision of the parent organisation, and other
cities are earnestly considering similar action. There would seem to
be ample opportunity for the employment of the same sort of agency
in connection with our state governments, and possibly in certain
fields of national administration. Altogether it is by far the most
noteworthy recent effort to stamp out governmental inefficiency and
corruption. Other efforts are being made to the same end,
particularly where extravagance is concerned. In many cities
business men’s clubs, improvement associations, and taxpayers’
leagues, are watching expenditure as it has never been watched
before. Public officials have co-operated loyally in a number of
cases. Occasional discoveries have been made of safeguards and
powers in the law which had been long forgotten or unused. The
progress of uniform bookkeeping is rapid and highly significant in this
connection. Aided largely by the latter development census reports,
particularly the special issues dealing with statistics of cities of over
30,000 inhabitants, are making it possible to compare municipalities
on strictly quantitative lines as to the cost and efficiency of various
services. Altogether we are developing a new financial alertness and
intelligence that should materially cut down various forms of political
inefficiency and corruption, particularly on the purchasing side of
governmental operations. It is not too much to say that the methods
by which these results are to be effected are either at hand or
capable of being worked out on demand. The question now is simply
one of funds and the training of specialists to do the work.

Efforts by the state to regulate or suppress vice and crime bring

about reactions on the part of the interests affected not unlike those
which follow from the attempt to regulate legitimate business.[62] The
corrupt practices thus occasioned are among the commonest and
most objectionable that society has to contend with. Very large
money returns in the aggregate are obtainable by political
organisations which protect vice. It is doubtful, however, whether
such sources of income are ordinarily so productive financially as the
various corrupt relationships between business and politics
described above. On the other hand the alliance between politics
and the underworld has the advantage, from an unmoral point of
view, that it yields not only money but also strong support at the
polls. And as some of the voters whose support is thus secured may
be depended upon for work as repeaters, ballot-box staffers, and
thugs, the net political power which they wield is much greater than
their number alone would indicate. There is one other important
difference between the corruption arising from the attempt to
regulate legitimate business and that which arises from the
regulation of vice. In the former case a “deal” can frequently be
consummated between two principals, the leader of a centralised
business interest on the one hand and the leader of a centralised
political organisation on the other. Something of the secrecy and the
binding personal obligation of a “gentleman’s agreement” are thus
obtained. Of course to carry out the compact the political leader must
control the action of his dependents in public office, but the latter,
whatever they may suspect, know nothing definite about the
agreement into which the boss has entered. The protection of vice
cannot be managed by so small a number of conspirators.
Compliance by the whole police force with orders from the “front” is
necessary. Every patrolman knows what is going on when he is told
that he must not molest dives, gambling hells, or brothels. Members
of the force may or may not be used to collect protection money and
pass it “higher up,” but since there are many establishments which
must pay tribute the employment of a considerable corps of
collectors is necessary. In any event the number of those who have
knowledge amounting to legal evidence is likely to be much larger in
the case of the protection of vice than in the case, for example, of a
corrupt franchise grant. Exposure either by some disgruntled police
officer or by some overtaxed purveyor of vice is likely to come at any
moment.
When revelations of this kind are made the moral uprising which
follows seldom lacks force. Cynics may sneer at such popular
manifestations as paroxysms of virtue, but practical political leaders
are not likely to underestimate the damage which they are capable of
inflicting. Even if the machine emerges comparatively unharmed
from such a period of attack the heads of some of the leaders are
likely to fall before the popular fury. Remembering Fernando Wood’s
caution about the necessity of “pandering a little to the moral
element in the community,” farsighted bosses are therefore more
and more inclined to limit their operations in the field of vice
protection and to seek support from their relations with legitimate
business interests. If this process is carried on further, as now seems
likely, the general problem we are considering will be simplified by
the reduction to a minimum of corruption by the vicious element,
although, of course, we would still have on our hands the large
question of corruption in the interests of otherwise legitimate
business.
With all their mistakes and wasted energy moral uprisings will help
this development materially. After a “spasm” things seldom fall back
into the lowest depths of their former state. We need more frequent
spasms, at least until we shall have learned to live continuously and
steadily on a higher plane. The gravest evil of the present
intermittent situation would seem to be that in our occasional fits of
indignation we write requirements into the law which, considering the
prevalence of minor vicious habits among large masses of the
people, are impossible of execution. One of the lessons which we
have learned in attempting to regulate business is that legislation of
this sort must be supplemented by special administrative agencies if
it is to have any effect whatever. Admirable child labour laws, for
example, remain absolutely futile without labour commissioners and
a force of inspectors created particularly to see them enforced. Yet in
the regulation of vice we rush on heedlessly piling one new duty after
another upon an already overburdened and underpaid police force.
As a consequence its chiefs become habituated to the idea that they
can exercise discretion as to what laws are to be enforced and what
laws may with impunity be neglected. Usually the police decision of
such questions is that crime must be dealt with vigilantly and
severely, vice, on the other hand, with large tolerance. No better
situation could be devised for the schemes of corruptionists.
Moreover the latter are materially aided in their nefarious work by the
high standards and the severe penalties which the moral element
has written into the law. Using these as clubs the corrupt politician
can extort much larger contributions than would otherwise be
possible. There are only two ways in which this situation may be
met. Either we must reduce our too ambitious programmes for the
regulation of vice, or we must strengthen our police forces until they
are adequate to meet the demands placed upon them.
In whatever way this question may be decided there is ample
ground for demanding the application of the most thoroughgoing civil
service reform rules to our police establishments. It is well known
that the rank and file of our police forces despise the dirty work
forced upon them by the political wretches “higher up.” No man
capable of the heroic deeds which are commonplace in the annals of
the police service rings the doors of bawdy houses and collects a
tithe from the sorrowful wages of shame except under the
compulsion of the sternest bread and butter necessity. Usually it is
necessary to select the yellow dogs of the force for this particular
devil’s work, and the promotion of such creatures for their pliancy is
a stench in the nostrils of their honest comrades. If one doubts that
this is the real spirit of the police force let him consider the character
of the fire departments of nearly all of our cities. The men in the latter
service are chosen from the same class, face dangers of the same
magnitude, and receive wages of about the same amount as
policemen. In the main they deserve and receive high praise for their
efficiency and honesty. It is true that they are not exposed to the
corrupt temptations which surround policemen, and also that their
work is held up to exacting standards by business men and
insurance companies. The fact remains that our police forces are
constructed of the same human material as our fire fighting forces. It
is difficult to avoid the conclusion that if we adapt our requirements in
the regulation of vice to the capacities of our forces, (or vice versa); if
we criticise and appreciate their work in the same way as we do the
work of their sister department; if we place their appointment, tenure,
and promotion, upon grounds of merit and utterly exclude the
influence of the corrupt “higher-ups,” we will have gone a long ways
toward drying up the most despicable of the sources of political
corruption.

Certain of the moral aspects of tax dodging have been dealt with
in an earlier connection.[63] Contrary as it may seem to the principle
of economic interest there is a good deal of carelessness and
stupidity in this field, and cases are occasionally found of property
that has been over-assessed. On the other hand more or less
deliberate dodging is indulged in very largely. So far as this practice
deserves the stigma of corruption it is a stigma which rests to a very
considerable extent upon the so-called class of “good citizens.”
Certain residents of “swell suburbs” who daily thank God that their
government is not so corrupt as that of the neighbouring city are
among the worst offenders of this kind. As directors of corporations
men of the same standing are sometimes responsible for
monumental evasions. Of course what was said with regard to the
reaction of business against state regulation holds good here also.
There are plenty of legitimate methods of protesting against unjust or
oppressive taxes,—before the courts, before legislatures, and by
open propaganda designed to influence party organisations. But the
furtive concealment or misrepresentation of taxable values is a
matter of entirely different moral colour, and it is the latter practice
that we now have to consider.
Tax dodging is so common and so well established that it has built
up an exculpatory system of its own. Instead of bringing his
conscience up to the standards set by the law the ordinary property
owner inquires into the practice of his neighbours, and governs
himself accordingly. Wherever business competition is involved the
threat of possible bankruptcy practically forces him into this course.
Yet withal our citizen is likely to be somewhat troubled in his mind
about his conduct, at least until he learns how shamelessly John
Smith who lives just a little way down the street has behaved. This
information quite restores his equanimity, and at the next
assessment he may outdo Smith himself. Thus the extra legal, if not
frankly illegal, neighbourhood standard tends constantly to become
lower. And not only taxpayers but tax officials themselves are
affected by local feeling and fall into the habit of closing their eyes to
certain kinds of property and expecting only a certain percentage of
the valuation fixed by law to be returned.
Back of such neighbourhood ideas on taxation there are at least
two lines of defence. One is that our present tax system is highly
illogical, bothersome, and burdensome. To a considerable extent,
unfortunately, this is the case, but it does not justify illegal methods
of seeking redress. Not much argument is required to convince the
ordinary property owner that all the inequities of the existing system
fall with cumulative weight upon his devoted head. His pocketbook
affirms this view more strongly perhaps than he would care to admit,
but anyhow the net result is that he feels himself more or less
pardonable for evading the burden as far as he can. The other
common excuse for tax dodging is supplied by the conviction that
much of the money raised by government is wasted or stolen. The
logic based upon this premise is most curiously inverted, but none
the less it sways the action of great multitudes. Politicians are a set
of grafters, says our taxpayer. The more money they get the more
they will waste and steal. I will punish the rascals as they deserve by
dodging my taxes, that is by becoming a grafter myself. Seldom,
however, is the latter clause clearly expressed. Yet the existence of
corruption on one side of the state’s activities is thus made the
excuse for corruption on another side whereby the state is mulcted
of much revenue which it might receive. Of course evasion results in
higher tax rates, which, by the way, fall crushingly upon the citizen
who makes full and honest returns, and thus part of the loss in
income to the government is made up. It seems clear, however, that
in the long run government income is materially reduced by the
feeling prevalent among taxpayers which has just been described
and the procedure based upon it. On the whole this is by far the
most serious single economic consequence of political corruption. It
is bad enough that public money should be stolen, that public work
should be badly done, and that politicians and contractors should
grow rich in consequence, but it is far worse that the state should be
starved of the funds necessary to perform its existing functions
properly and to extend its activities into new fields. In the regulation
of industry, in education, philanthropy, sanitation, and art, American
government is very far from achieving what it should do in the public
interest and what it could do more efficiently and cheaply than any
other agency. Yet our progress toward this goal is perpetually
hindered by the existence of waste and corruption on the one hand,
and the consequent peremptory shutting of the taxpayers’
pocketbooks on the other hand.
Consideration of the theory underlying tax dodging reveals certain
broad lines of correction. In proportion as our tax system
approximates greater justice, the evasion which defends itself on the
ground of the inequities of the present system will tend to disappear.
To show how this may be done is beyond the limits of the present
study. Suffice it to say that the work which reformers and students of
public finance are now doing on inheritance, income, and corporation
taxes, on the taxation of unearned increment, on various applications
of the progressive principle, and so on, should eventuate in the
tapping of much needed new sources of income, and thus facilitate
the correction of present unjust burdens. The introduction of
economical methods and the elimination of the grosser forms of
corruption in the field of government expenditure will weaken the
excuses offered for evasion on the ground of public waste and graft.
There is an overwhelming mass of evidence to show that the
American taxpayer, once convinced of the necessity of a given public
work and further assured that it will be honestly executed, is
generous to the point of munificence. The annals of our cities are full
of the creation of appointive state boards composed of men of the
highest local standing and intrusted with the carrying out of some
great single project,—the erection of a city hall building, the
construction of a water works and filtration plant, or of a park system.
Very few such commissions are grudged the large sums of money
necessary for their undertakings. If every ordinary branch of our
government enjoyed public confidence to a similar degree such
special boards would no longer be needed, and ample funds would
be forthcoming from taxpayers for all our present functions and for
other new and worthy functions which might be undertaken greatly to
the public advantage. Finally our system of tax administration, like
our system of government regulation of business, needs
strengthening. Larger districts and centralised power in the hands of
the assessors will help to lift them above the neighbourhood feeling
which is responsible for so much evasion. Higher salaries will bring
expert talent and backbone sufficient to resist the pressure brought
to bear by large interests. As a matter of fact the first threat of a virile
execution of the laws wipes out a considerable part of the tax
dodging in a community.
There would also seem to be much virtue in the plan for the
reduction of the tax rate advocated by the Ohio State Board of
Commerce.[64] Given a community with a high general tax rate it
may be the case, for example, that only about fifty per cent of true
value is being returned. Everybody knows it; everybody is sneakingly
ashamed of it. Still fundamental honesty is supposed to exist in the
man who does not cut the percentage below say, forty; the really
mean taxpayer is he who risks twenty-five per cent on what he feels
obliged to return and conceals whatever he can into the bargain.
Under such circumstances it is proposed to take the heroic step of
reducing the tax rate to one-half its existing figure or even less.[65] If
this can be done it is hoped that taxpayers can be induced to return
their property at full value, and that much personal property will
come out of the concealment into which it has fled under the menace
of a high general property tax rate. In support of this argument cases
are cited where a reduction of the personal property tax rate alone
has brought in much larger returns and converted into a source of
revenue a form of taxation which everywhere under high rates shows
a tendency to dwindle to practically nothing.
As against the plan it may be said that taxpayers are habitually
suspicious and extremely likely to regard any change whatever as
certain to increase their burdens. Many of them would see nothing in
the proposition beyond a tricky device to screw up their valuations
under the pretext of low rates with the intention of falling upon them
later with rates as high or higher than before. Unless the reform were
fully understood and then backed up by the most vigorous
administration there would be grave danger that revenues would
materially suffer. Given these conditions essential to success,
however, the plan would seem decidedly worth trying. A community
willing to take the plunge, it is pointed out, would enjoy large
advantages over its less enterprising competitors in the advertising
value of a low tax rate, particularly as a means of inducing new
industries to locate in its midst. The reform would probably not
increase revenue, indeed it does not aim to do so, but it would yield
a moral return of immense value. Self respect would be restored to
many otherwise thoroughly good citizens, and public opinion, to the
tone of which the taxpaying class contributes largely, would be lifted
to higher planes. Under the present vicious system there must be a
considerable number who realise secretly and more or less vaguely
the inherent kinship between their conduct and that of the corrupt
political organisation under which they live, and who in consequence
remain inactive and ashamed when movements for better things in
city, state, or nation, are on foot.

In our earlier study of the nature of political corruption an effort

was made to distinguish between bribery and auto-corruption. As
examples of the latter, legislators may employ knowledge gathered
on the floor of the chamber or in committee rooms for the purpose of
speculating to their own advantage on stock or produce exchanges;
administrative officials who by virtue of their position learn in
advance any information which may affect the market (i.e., crop
reports) can do likewise; knowledge of important judicial decisions
before they are handed down may be exploited in a similar fashion;
insiders who have access to plans for projected public improvements
are in a position to acquire quietly the needed real estate for sale at
much advanced prices to the city or state when condemnation
proceedings are actually begun. In addition to large and striking
transactions of this sort there are innumerable smaller possibilities
for auto-corruption which present themselves to public functionaries
ranging in rank from the highest places in the official hierarchy to that
of the policeman on his beat. Logically the practices under
consideration are not separable from the general forms of political
corruption as the term is applied in the present discussion. Instead
they would seem to be a special method of carrying on corrupt
transactions of many different kinds. All cases of auto-corruption,
however, have the common feature that bribery by an outside
interest is excluded, and this absence of bribery has sometimes led
to the assertion that the practices included under this heading are
“honest grafts.” An illusory appearance of innocence is also
conferred by the difficulty of tracing the incidence of the burdens
resulting from such transactions. There is no moral ground for such
favourable distinctions, however. On the contrary, auto-corruption is
clearly worse than bribery in that an entire transaction of this
character must be guiltily designed and executed wholly by one
person, and that person an official charged with knowledge which
should be used only in the public interest. Moreover the profits of his
secret treachery may be turned entirely into his private bank
account. If so he cannot even plead in justification that he has been
acting in behalf of a party organisation by gathering and contributing
the funds necessary to its management. The latter feature of auto-
corruption stands in need of special consideration.
It may be laid down as a principle of fairly general applicability that
political corruption as such is disadvantageous to the party
organisation permitting it. From a purely tactical point of view it would
be the extreme of bad party management to tolerate loose conditions
under which a large number of officials could graft freely on their own
account and place the entire proceeds in their own pockets. Whether
they confined themselves to auto-corruption or accepted bribes
singly or in combinations the case would not be materially altered. A
day of reckoning at the polls would surely come, and it would find the
party treasury unprovided with the means of defence. Yet conditions
of this character prevailed pretty generally prior to the advent of
strongly centralised political machines. Corruption was extremely
diffuse, personal responsibility for it widely scattered, party
responsibility not so clear. Manipulation required whole corps of
lobbyists, “third houses,” “black horse cavalry,” and the like. Under
present conditions the party organisation with strongly centralised
management has a direct interest in limiting corruption and also in
seeing that contributions which arise from such practices as it
tolerates actually flow into the party war chest. Corruption in purely
selfish interest becomes treachery to the party as well as treachery
to the state. Of course even under strong centralised and permanent
party control cases of auto-corruption still occur, and at times officials
receive bribes without turning in their quotas. If so, however, it may
fairly be presumed that they make their peace with the organisation
in other ways. They may be exempt from paying tribute, but they are
nevertheless obliged to deliver votes or influence. Many sins are laid
at the door of the machine. It has at least the advantage of enabling
us to centralise responsibility for all corrupt practices which occur
under its management.
From this point of view one may undertake an outline of the form
of corruption connected with political control. All the preceding forms
of political corruption may be considered the obverse, this is the
reverse of the die. None of the practices earlier considered can be
carried on without danger; the corruption of political control is the
crooked means of avoiding the cumulative effects of these practices.
It is not popular, it is not good politics even in the narrowest practical
acceptance of that term, for a political organisation to grant corrupt
favours to business, to wink at the violation of the law by vice, to
allow its partisans in office to sell government property cheap and
buy government supplies dear. If any of these things are permitted
the organisation, like the common criminal, must take care to lay
aside “fall money” against a day of trial.
One might feel greater confidence in the restraining influence of
party centralisation were it not for the fact that the more dangerous
to party success are the forms of corruption which an organisation
tolerates the more lucrative they are apt to be. Though its sins be as
scarlet still they produce funds sufficient to buy indulgences and to
leave a handsome profit over. In connection with business
regulation, for example, bribery in any considerable amount is not
possible until legislation is enacted or close at hand. And legislation
of this kind is not likely to be passed or threatened unless a strong
public sentiment demands action. Political manipulation which
attempts to frustrate regulation at such a juncture must sooner or
later prepare itself to reckon with the public sentiment which it has
flouted. Vice cannot be tolerated except in contravention of laws
against it, and to do so means to offend the moral sentiment in the
community which placed such laws on the statute books. Franchise
grabbing is not profitable on a large scale until the experience of
earlier public service corporations has impressed upon the public
mind the great value of such grants. If, nevertheless, grabs are
permitted by the machine, the boodle must be sufficient to pay both
for the personal services involved and to repair any resulting
damage to party prestige at the next election. Of course many
citizens are apathetic with regard to such abuses or even ignorant of
their existence, and there are others who are so involved in corrupt
practices, particularly in connection with tax dodging, meter fixing,
and the protection of vice, that they feel themselves allied in interest
with the party organisation and accordingly vote its ticket. Always,
however, there is a contingent, and frequently it is large enough to
hold the balance of power, which is neither ignorant nor apathetic,
and which, although perhaps too quiescent ordinarily, will rise in
revolt against any organisation which grafts too boldly and too
widely.
The situation of the venal machine is, therefore, substantially this:
more money can be obtained at any time if certain practices