Apostrophic patterns in Hungarian contemporary popular music lyrics

Abstract

There is a decades-long tradition of linguistic and literary research into Hungarian-language song lyrics, in which the systematic work of the ELTE DiAGram Stylistic Research Group has been a key factor. In this context, the present research aims to investigate contemporary Hungarian popular music lyrics with the aim of providing a more comprehensive picture of contemporary music lyrics as lyrical discourses through the apostrophic patterns found in these lyrics and the socio-cultural relations and attitudes represented in the apostrophic discourses. The qualitative study, which analyses 27 Hungarian-language popular music lyrics, also attempts to identify possible genre schemas along the characteristics of the apostrophic patterns. By characterising the sample, the analytical procedure also highlights subtle distinctive features of different genres of lyrical texts, thus providing a perspective beyond the investigation of popular music lyrics.