Landscape, Paysage, Landschaft, Táj: The Cultural Background of Landscape Perceptions in England, France, Germany, and Hungary

Abstract

Drexler / Landscape Perceptions in Europe 85 mEtHoDs AND mEAsuREs Two linguistic methods were combined in order to indicate the existing differences of the examined countries' current words for landscape or its rough equivalent-landscape, paysage, Landschaft, and táj. The two methods are word-field theory (Trier 1931) and language comparison (Wandruszka 1969). The word-field theory is a classic method for identifying a word's content. According to Trier's (1931) original idea, the conceptually related single words build a word-field, like mosaic tiles. A word-field is thus defined by the correlation of its content-related single words. At the same time, the single words acquire their meanings by distanc-ABstRACt This research explores the historic cultural backgrounds of landscape perceptions in England, France, Germany, and Hungary, which use the words landscape, paysage, Landschaft, and táj, respectively. The German and Hungarian landscape words can be traced back to the early 19th century landscape perceptions of the counter-Enlightenment and the national Romanticism. The English and French landscape words focus on the visual-aesthetic experience of nature and correlate with the late 18th, early 19th century interpretations of landscape as a symbol of the liberal British state and the democratic French state.