Profesorius Kazimieras Romualdas Župerka – lietuvių kalbos stilistikos kūrėjas

BENDRINĖ KALBA 90 (2017) www.bendrinekalba.lt ISSN 2351-7204 VAIDA KNABIKAITĖ PROFESSOR KAZIMIERAS ROMUALDAS ŽUPERKA – THE CREATIONIST OF LITHUANIAN LANGUAGE STYLISTICS This year the famous Lithuanian linguist and stylist Kazimieras Župerka celebrates his 80th anniversary. On various occasions, the researcher emphasizes: “Stylistics was destined for me.” Kazimieras Župerka’s scientific horizon is very broad. The problems of scientific research include general theory of stylistics, functional and practical stylistics, competition of language tools, stylistics of coding and decoding, metallinguistics, non-professional linguistics, didactics of stylistics, text and ethnic stylistics. This problem is reflected in K. Župerka’s dissertations, books, articles, conference reports and their theses, supervised scientific works. Since the 75th issue, K. Župerka has been a member of the editorial board of the scientific journal Kalbos kultūra (since 2014 – Bendra kalba), where he has published numerous articles. As a researcher, K. Župerkas was particularly interested in his postgraduate studies at the Department of Lithuanian Language of Vilnius University (1966–1969). The scientific supervisor, Professor Juozas Pikčilingis, the pioneer of Lithuanian linguistic stylistics, together with the talented aspirant laid the foundations of this new field of linguistics. J. Pikčilingis invited K. Župerkas to help him write the book Lexical and Grammatical Synonymy (1969). K. Župerka became the co-author of this scientific work and perhaps the most outstanding student of J. Pikčilingas. In 1969, he successfully defended his doctoral dissertation (then a candidate of philological sciences) on the synonymy of lateral sentences and constructs of participants, semi-participants and participants in contemporary language, where he refined the subject of stylistics. Using the syntax equivalent, discussed the meaning of syntactic synonyms Vaida Knabikaite. Professor Kazimieras Romualdas Župerka – the creator of Lithuanian language BENDRINĖ KALBA 90 (2017) www.bendrinekalba.lt ISSN 2351-7204 stylistics | 2 syntactic stylistics, showed their stylistic differences in functional styles. In 1971, K. Župerka was awarded the title of docent. From 1974 to 1975, Župerka studied at the University of Brno in the Czech Republic. He studied Czech and Slovak, and became interested in the theory of competition of language means by Milan Jelínek, a professor at the University of Brno. From now on, it can be said that K. Župerka is developing his own concept of stylistics, like a connecting link between the theories of J. Pikčilingis and M. Jelinek. He expands the subject of Lithuanian linguistic stylistics by studying the competition of language means. For the first time in Lithuanian linguistics, K. Župerka terminologically legitimizes the concept of competition of means of language expression in the book Praktinė stilistika (Synonimai) (Practical Stylistics (Synonyms)) (1978), qualifiedly helping to create a general Lithuanian synonymic theory, because the concept of synonyms (not only in Lithuanian linguistics) was not yet uniform, established in the 1980s. The aspect of competition is also widely applied in Lithuanian language stylistics (1983). The author describes the essence of the term competition, defines the characteristic features of this concept. According to K. Župerka, style is the ability to choose. Therefore, the book mainly writes about the resources and capabilities of language. The section of stylistic resources includes competing units (variants, synonyms, stylistic figures). The functions of synonymous means of expression are newly discussed. With this book K. Župerka turned the descriptive and practical stylistics of Lithuanian language more obviously towards functional stylistics. In 1985, Župerkas summarized his research activities in his habilitation thesis “The Competition of Language Means as an Object of Lithuanian Language Stylistics”, which was defended at Vilnius University in 1996. Furthermore, the professor investigated the expression of the metalingvistic function in non-linguistic texts. Publications written in the 1980s and 1990s explain the terms metalinguistic commentary and metalinguistic unit, investigate metalinguistic commentaries in non-linguistic texts in detail, show how the public understands the style norms, which new language phenomena are most noticed. The relevance of the research is based both theoretically and practically. Especially valuable are those metalinguistic units in which the metalinguistic commentaries draw attention not to some new word, but to the tendencies of modern speech. From numerous articles and presentations at conferences on this topic, a comprehensive monograph Metalingvistika has grown. The Untouchables (2012). Vaida Knabikaite. Prof. Kazimieras Romualdas Župerka – the creator of Lithuanian language stylistics | BENDRINĖ KALBA 90 (2017) www.bendrinekalba.lt ISSN 2351-7204 3 K. Župerka uses modern methods of pragmatic linguistics to investigate the interrelationship (competition) of various language tools and functional styles. This is clearly seen in the study Advertising text: pragmatics, style, language (2008). The author emphasizes that looking at advertising from pragmatic positions presupposes not only different analysis, but also other terms. New, original insights are also characteristic of the textbook in Lithuanian for school. Stylistics. 12th edition (2001). In explaining the relationship between style and language units, the author writes not only about language and word, style and word form, but also about style and text. The most important in this textbook is the clarity of teaching, consistency, convincingness, harmony of theory and practice. It is a perfect example of didactic stylistics. Župerka devoted considerable attention to discussing the specificity of artistic style, stylistic analysis of fictional works, poetics and stylistics, followed the development of Lithuanian fictional literature. He was interested in the theory of style as the basis of text analysis. The term artistic style was more often replaced by the general term free styles, which are considered to be the artistic and spoken, as well as the expressive postile of the publicistic style. A completely new approach to free styles is presented in a detailed article in the study “Expression of Regional Identity in Free Style Texts” (2014). In them, the identity of the inhabitants of four ethnographic regions of Lithuania (Aukštaitija, Dzūkija, Suvalkija and Žemaitija) was sought, as well as the expression of their unique worldview. Three elements related to regional identity were selected: space (regional landscape), regional character (thinking, feeling, behaviour) and language. K. Župerka discusses ethnic stylistics as a branch of linguistics in the article “On the object of language ethno-stylistics”, published in the 2013 collection of articles “Modern stylistic directions and problems”. The author’s aim is to define the object of language ethnolinguistics and discuss the research topics of this branch of stylistics. The conclusions of the article describe the themes of ethnology as a branch of linguistics. Thus, K. Župerkas can be considered the pioneer of ethnology in Lithuanian linguistics. In writing about the Lithuanian national mentality, he compares it with the Latvian national character, thus laying the foundations for comparative stylistics in the article “On the comparative stylistics of Latvian and Lithuanian languages” (Linguistica Lettica, 1999), in the theses of the conference “Lithuania–Latvia in the 20th century” in the presentation “Latvians and Lithuanians: correlation of national character and national style” (1998). Vaida Knabikaite. Congratulated on the occasion of his 80th anniversary, Professor Kazimieras BENDRINĖ KALBA 90 (2017) www.bendrinekalba.lt ISSN 2351-7204 Romualdas Župerka emphasized that he would now most like to be called an ethnologist, because for two decades he has been collecting, organizing and systematizing ethnological material, researching how the traits of the Lithuanian nation are reflected in Lithuanian language and texts. It is a work requiring great erudition and knowledge. K. Župerka is also the supervisor of the author of this article’s doctoral dissertation “Development of Lithuanian Linguistic Stylistics in the 20th Century”, which grew into a scientific monograph of the same name (2006). The monograph also contains a chapter summarizing K. Župerka’s scientific works “Development of the theory of language means competition” (154–165 pp.). Congratulating the professor on his beautiful anniversary, I would like to thank him sincerely for the fact that he trusted me and supported me not only as a young scientist, but also as a person in need of help and support. K. Župerka began to develop herself as a professional linguist and from a student article she grew into a mature stylist. The fruitful and meaningful communication with the doctoral student was facilitated not only by the talent, professionalism, erudition and knowledge of the outstanding scientist, but also by his innate sense of humor and optimistic attitude to life. All of this I had to learn from the professor. Today, under the patronage and education of my beloved professor, I feel much stronger in the field of linguistics. After all, I am advised by the most distinguished Lithuanian stylist Kazimieras Župerka. Thank you, Professor. Įteikta 2017 10 27