The Acquisition of the Communicative Act of Greeting: Language Parallels between Hungarian and Bulgarian

The acquisition of linguo-cultural competence in foreign language learning has its share in the overall process of acquiring the language. In the inter-language contact situation, the speaker has to overcome not only the language but also the cultural barrier. The present paper examines the acquisition of greetings by Hungarian native speakers in the process of learning Bulgarian language, as a result of acquiring linguo-cultural competence. The question of the nation-specific aspect of the communicative act carries an important role in foreign language acquisition, undoubtedly due to the fact that it reveals language-specific features. Furthermore, the “strangeness” of the foreign language seems to be best demonstrated within the frames of a typological analysis of the two - native and foreign - languages.