Price, Virginia (2026) Language Learning in the Migration Narratives of Hungarian Emigrants. Bachelor thesis, Global Responsibility & Leadership (GRL).
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Abstract
This thesis explores how Hungarian emigrants narrate the role of language learning in their decision to leave Hungary. While quantitative research has established that language proficiency matters for migration, the voluntary, self-driven process of language learning before migration has received little to no attention, and Hungarian-specific studies focus mainly on macro-level patterns of migration, leaving individual narratives unexplored. The Hungarian case is particularly interesting since Hungarian is linguistically distant from English and German, yet the majority of Hungarian emigrants still migrate to countries where these languages are spoken. To address this gap, seven semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted with Hungarian emigrants living in five different destination countries, with participants varying in age and in the length of time spent abroad. The interviews were analysed through thematic analysis, allowing themes and sub-themes to emerge across the participants' narratives. The findings showed that language did not operate as a single factor in the participants' migration journeys, but rather across four intersecting dimensions: as a form of capital whose value shifted depending on context; as a force in migration decision-making, acting for some participants as a direct enabler prepared intentionally before migration and for others as a shaper of their destination; as a temporal process unfolding across the pre-migration and post-migration phases; and as an anchor to identity and belonging. Notably, participants retained Hungarian in the most personal and intimate parts of their lives, including with pets, partners and children, even when their professional lives took place in the host language. Therefore, migration emerges not only as the act of crossing a border but as a slow realignment of language, identity and belonging. Thus,this study looks at language learning as a pre-migration driver, and offers a more individual, micro-level perspective on Hungarian migration.
| Item Type: | Thesis (Bachelor) |
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| Name supervisor: | Verkhodanova, V. |
| Date Deposited: | 10 Jun 2026 11:55 |
| Last Modified: | 10 Jun 2026 11:55 |
| URI: | https://campus-fryslan.studenttheses.ub.rug.nl/id/eprint/830 |
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