The weight of spoken words, or connections between language and moral education based on Hungarian and German examples

Abstract

In the public mind, morality is a religious, legal, philosophical and social category. We rarely talk openly about morality, yet our language reflects our concept of morality. The concept is crucial to our decisions in all areas of life, both in our linguistic and non-linguistic behaviour. According to the cognitive paradigm, a close relationship can be assumed between thinking and language: thinking is manifested in language, but language also affects the process of thinking itself. In exploring the links between language, thought and culture, Lakoff-Johnson (1999) introduced the notion of thinking relativism, which argues that different metaphor use causes differences in thinking. Based on this, the question arises as to whether representatives of various nations think differently about a concept - in our case, morality - and how this manifests itself in their language. Thinking about this further, how can culture-specific differences in language affect the conceptualisation process? In this study, we seek to answer these questions. The analysis draws on the concept of morality constructed by Lakoff (1996, 2002) and Lakoff-Johnson (1999), which describes the interpretative process of American society, but some parts of it can be said to be near-universal, and therefore can provide useful insights for the study of other languages. The formation of the concept of morality begins through family education and linguistic and non-linguistic interactions within the family. Lakoff (1996), examining Western political morality, concludes that there are basically two family models, and thus two different conceptions of morality. Conservatives are characterized by the strict father model, while liberals are characterized by the caring parent model. In both models, diverse concepts of morality enjoy priority and treat the concept of 'morality' differently. In the course of our research, we mainly examined metaphorical conceptualization on the basis of Hungarian and German examples of living language, comparing them with the conceptions of morality constructed on the basis of English examples. We have found that the linguistic examples we have examined do not provide a complete metaphor system as outlined by Lakoff (ibid.), but certain elements of it clearly exemplify the similarities and differences between the family morals found in the two languages.