“I will tell it to you in first person singular”

The role of Hungarian first person singular and plural verbal utterances in the construal of an intersubjective relationship in slam poetry

Abstract

This paper focuses on person-marking constructions in Hungarian slam poetry in a functional cognitive framework. With the help of the Slam Poetry subcorpus elaborated by ELTE’s Research Group in Stylistics, person-marking constructions for expressing the speakers in the texts (first person singular and plural verbs) are annotated in the subcorpus. We assume that based on the phenomenon of foregrounding (van Peer–Hakemulder 2006), the role of intersubjectivity increases as these 1st person singular and plural forms help
focus on the protagonist, the slammer (Holt–Groeben 2005, Langacker 2008). The utterances are analysed according to speech act theory, based on the functions of social actions (Tátrai 2011: 89–90). The research question aims to determine the types of prototypical semantic and communicative patterns which can be identified in the analysed texts. The results of the analysis 1) show the proportion of first person singular and plural verbs in the subcorpus, 2) help observe those linguistic tools, grammatical, pragmatic and semantic patterns and socio-cultural factors which can play a role in the direction of listeners’ attention, as well as the typical topics on which attention is focused.