Relation of the codification and the real language in reflection of Ján Bosák
Authors: Ondrejovič Slavomír 
Published: June 2020

In the study, the author analyzes the relation between communication and the real language, as this relation had been reflected by Ján Bosák (1939 – 2019), an important representative of the Slovak linguistics of the second half of the 20th and beginning of the 21st century. The theoretical and methodological coordinates of Ján Bosák’s research evolved from systemic linguistics to studying language in communication and language as a social phenomenon of its own kind. Ján Bosák has contributed to the Slovak linguistic research on the function of standard Slovak by introducing notions of the ordinary Slovak vernacular and the vernacularity, not only in the sense of stylistics, but in the sense that this vernacular represents a newly emerging variety in contemporary language situation. Since the beginning of the 1990s, Ján Bosák has systematically developed, as well as, strictly speaking, initiated the Slovak research in sociolinguistics, while he focused especially on sociolinguistic interpretation of variants and later on an original research into stratification of the Slovak language. Using sociolinguistic perspective as a starting point, Ján Bosák creatively revised the theory of Slovak national/standard language, as well as engaged in the discussion on both the norm(s) and codification of standard Slovak and the issues of language culture and possibilities for its cultivation. He also defined the so-called communication spheres and their relation to functional styles. Willingly or not, he had to leave the view of traditional theory, especially with regard to the issue of how to perceive plurality, diversity and variability within language, given that, as he assumed, the norm can neither be identified with codification nor subsumed under standards of the previous language situation. Ján Bosák undoubtedly deserves credit for the fact that the Slovak linguistics has gradually endorsed a new perspective on standard Slovak and that a diversity of views has been established in this respect. He tied in with the previous research tradition in that he held the notions of norm, codification and common use to be important with respect to the issues of standard Slovak and language culture. He believed, however, that the codification needs to be grounded in meticulous scientific knowledge on the real norm and that it is also inevitable to respect innovations and accept the principle of variety. Ján Bosák also believed that the distance in mutual communication between the norm and codification continues to grow because the “hypostatization” of the notion of system, in the sense that “everything happens in the name of the system and its sustenance” is still a characteristic tendency in Slovak linguistics. In this way, the relation between system and norm on the level of particular speech activity goes missing with regards to the individual user. A certain part of Slovak linguists is severely mistaken in that they identify norm with codification. But, as Ján Bosák argued, the contradictions of norm, common use and codification can best be grasped and interpreted through a symbiosis of systemic approach, communication approach and sociolinguistic strategy.