The author argues the significance of interdisciplinary research and co-operation among the different scientific branches when creating a complex image of scientific research. The author finds the common points with history, ethnology, dialectology, and folkloristics by means of the various examples of onomastic research done in Slovakia. The research results of the aforementioned sciences are a part of the broad pan-Slavonic research and they have become an important part of Slovak slavistics, too.
The linguist Samuel Cambel as a collector of folk narratives from eastern Slovakia. The study offers the first results of research in Samuel Cambel's personal archive. These will serve as a basis for a more comprehensive study dealing with Cambel's scholarly work on the interface between dialectology and folkloristics.
Autor artykułu prezentuje historię gromadzenia dokumentacji dialektologicznej, folklorystycznej i etnograficznej oraz najważniejsze prace z zakresu tych dziedzin opublikowane w Serbii i za granicą. Artykuł zawiera również informacje o instytucjach i periodykach, w pierwszym rzędzie o czasopiśmie naukowym „Kody Kultur Słowiańskich”, a także o serbskiej etnolingwistyce.
EN
The author presents the history of compiling the dialectological, folkloristic and ethnographic archives, as well as of the most important Serbian and foreign publications in these fields. Information is also provided about the relevant institutions and periodicals, in particular about the magazine 'The Codes of Slavic Cultures', and generally about Serbian ethnolinguistics.
Ethnological studies on the Faculty of Arts of Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra have been specific in that they have oriented the graduates towards practice. It is possible to use applied folklore studies for shaping and strengthening the regional identity. Folklore and cultural traditions pose a capital which demands careful treatment. Folkloristic and the regionalistic studies may be applied also in the elementary and secondary schools.
The study deals with both the view of the importance of exempla, and the rarely applied methodological procedure, i.e. the interpretation of contemporary front-page stories telling as a parallel to medieval exempla telling. The incorporation of exempla and folklore tales within the context of culture, level of education and 'everyday life', which features with a rapid rate and new ways in disseminating the information - opposite to the Middle Ages - is of great importance. The co-existences of different social classes, traditions and cultures play an important role. Exempla are understood as a certain type of bridges built between folklore and literature by the activities of medieval preachers. Both the ethic function of exempla and their role in creation of cultural and historical consciousness are pointed-out. Many exempla converted into other folklore kinds during their development. When interpreting the exempla and contemporary front-page stories, the attention is to be turned to the 'narrative situation' and the recipient. The variability of a story is caused by the actualization of place, time and circumstances in which the story is set. A folklorist is to observe this procedure.
Folkloristics has traditionally focused on artistic expressions, which fulfil primarily aesthetic functions. The following paper, however, will be devoted to the genre of conspiracy theories, which I do not consider a folklore genre in the proper sense of the word but rather a narrative genre belonging to the category of rumours. The basic function of conspiracy theories is to mediate and to give a foundation of argument to a certain world-view model based on the motif of a group conspiracy. For the purposes of their genre analysis I have not consider the methods of ´´traditional“ folkloristics as a useful tool, and therefore I have tried to seek other methods proceeding from the distinctive qualities of these communication. As my research field I chose internet discussions, which meant concentrating on the written form of communication. The argumentative character and ideological anchoring of the texts being examined ultimately conditioned the selection of an appropriate research method in the framework of discursive analysis. The paper seeks to represent and offer for discussion the results of this experiment: a genre characterisation of conspiracy theories based on their typical argumentative strategies. My choice of theme in intended at the same time to evoke debate: to what extent is such a thematic and methodological purview acceptable within the bounds of folkloristic? Or if folkloristic paradigms are thus extended, what consequences may follow for Slovak folkloristics in the future?
On an example of a kind of folklore - commemorative narration, the essay is understood as a reflection on the relation of folkloristics to the methodology of multidisciplinarity, interdisciplinarity and especially to the new methodological stream - transdisciplinarity. It substantiates the folklore to reflect the social, cultural, historic, ethnographic and other 'non-folklore' phenomena in which it is performed and actualized, meeting its functions. Therefore, the relation of folkloristics to other disciplines is (and has to be) opened and its methodology is (and has to be) interdisciplinary. The main and crucial criteria for folklore analysis and interpretation cannot be substituted, however, by the methods of 'non-folklore' disciplines. The methodology of transdisciplinarity supposes such an abstracted folklore phenomenon (factum, sign), becoming a part of the problematics ruling over the interdisciplinary approach and representing its common 'keystone', to be applied across the branches. There are applied both the elements of anthropology, culturology, sociology, elements of communication etc. New professional literature is used and annotated in the analysis. The common observations are demonstrated in different versions of commemorative narration. The traditions and experience of Czech folkloristics are emphasized as well.
The article is dedicated to the dialectological research of the linguist Samuel Cambel with a special regard to his collection of original dialectal folk narratives from Eastern and Central Slovakia. The authoress considers Cambel's works as well as other published or archived materials concerning the author and the time in which he worked. She demonstrates the significance of Cambel's dialectological research for establishing the base of collection of the folk oral tradition. Taking into consideration the philosophical, historical and social development in Slovakia, the authoress highlights the scientific qualities of Cambel's collecting activities. She evaluates the qualitative and quantitative aspects of his collection of the dialectal texts and in this way stresses its significance for the modern folkloristics. The paper aims to draw attention to the collecting activities of the several dialectologists that have not been exposed yet. Those scholars who were not folklorists collected numerous folk narratives while making research in the linguistic field.
The author of the study points out the state of research of genres in mythological prose in Slavic scientific discourse, mainly in the field of theoretical issues, the publication of source material, and in the field of classification and ethno-linguistic aspects. She confronts outcomes of non-Slovak research with the situation in Slovak folkloristics. Attention is given especially to the issue of terminology of folk text genre classification. These folk texts shed light on the subject of human contact with the surreal world. The author points to the ambiguity of the genre classification of this type of folklore text, which causes researchers considerable problems beyond the boundaries of folklore research.
The paper focuses on the theoretical perspective of cognitive anthropology applied in study of folklore. The authoress aims to demonstrate that the terms 'folk beliefs' and 'superstitions' used in folkloristics relate to the definition of folklore as a 'survival' peculiar to the earlier anthropological theory of cultural evolution. Cognitive anthropology offers a different approach to study of cultural phenomena. From the cognitive point of view, the so-called superstitions are representations incorporating anti-intuitive concepts. Some of them could have their origin in old pagan beliefs, but this is not the main factor influencing their transmission: the distribution of anti-intuitive concepts is determined by how the human mind works. Narrations containing those concepts are related to a concrete social context and do not necessary refer to the religious feelings or religious faith. On the example of rarasok and zmok - supernatural beings from Slovak folk tales - the autoress demonstrates that the hypothetical religious origin of folklore images does not explain their present 'survival'. Distribution of rarasok and zmok's representations could be explained in terms of Pascal Boyer's theory. Rarasok and zmok appear in tales with interpretation of misfortune in terms of supernatural forces. Long-term reproduction of corresponding narrative schemata could be explained by further cognitive theories dealing with certain aspects of human cognition related to concrete social situations.
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