Textual Concepts and Textological Practices in Hungarian Folkloristics

Abstract

Focusing on the concept of ‘folklore text,’ the study surveys the textological dilemmas that a researcher faces during the collection, transcription, publication, and interpretation of folk poetry. Behind the development and implementation of strategies for text editing procedures lie complex cultural processes, which can be interpreted within the framework of the given discipline or placed within a broader cultural and technological historical context. The paper examines the methodological history of Hungarian folklore collections not only according to the theoretical concepts that define the research subject and research aspects but also based on the objective, technological conditions of the collection. The author proposes a folklore textological approach to the publication of texts that is much more conscious of the historicity and origin of folklore texts and considers their own philological-textological tradition. A new, process-based, and transcriber-centered concept of text would provide an intriguing direction for solving numerous folklore textological problems, which might show the role collectors and transcribers play in the creation of a text in a sharper and more nuanced light. The findings of the study are based on investigations carried out in the field of historical folklore text research, primarily on the examination of the methodological history of the collection and transcription of folktales; with certain restrictions, their applicability might be extended in terms of subject matter (to other genres) and time (even to the latest folklore phenomena arising in the digital medium), and they may also provide useful perspectives for representatives of other disciplines that study orality.