Ranko Bugarski

Serbian linguist, academic and author (1933–2024)

Ranko Bugarski
Ранко Бугарски
Bugarski in 2014
Born	(1933-01-01)1 January 1933 Sarajevo, Yugoslavia (now Bosnia and Herzegovina)
Died	13 August 2024(2024-08-13) (aged 91)
Relatives	Vesna Bugarski (sister)

Academic background
Alma mater	University of Sarajevo University of Belgrade (PhD)
Academic work
Discipline	Linguist
Institutions	University of Belgrade

Ranko Bugarski (Serbian Cyrillic: Ранко Бугарски; 1 January 1933 – 13 August 2024) was a Serbian linguist, academic and author.

Life and career

Bugarski was born on 1 January 1933 in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia, where he completed his secondary education and graduated in English and German languages and literatures at the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Sarajevo (1957). After working for three years as a teacher of English at the Institute of Foreign Languages in his hometown, he was appointed by the Department of English, Faculty of Philology, University of Belgrade as a teaching assistant (1961), to progress through the academic hierarchy to the rank of Professor of English (1980). In 1988 he also became Professor of General Linguistics in the same institution, in a new department which he was instrumental in setting up. He retired in 2000 but remained academically active in different ways for many years thereafter.

He did postgraduate research at University College London with Professor Randolph Quirk as his adviser (1962/63) and was a visiting scholar at Columbia University, New York on a Ford Foundation scholarship (1966/67). After obtaining his Ph.D. degree from the University of Belgrade (1969) by defending a dissertation on a subsystem of English prepositions, he spent the academic year 1969/70 as a Fulbright lecturer at the University of Chicago and a visiting professor of linguistics at Northeastern Illinois State College, Chicago. In addition to courses or individual lectures at nearly all the universities of the former Yugoslavia, he was a guest lecturer at 24 other universities in Europe, the US and Australia (London, Oxford, Paris-Sorbonne, Leiden, Kraków, Vienna, Munich, Barcelona, New York-Columbia, California-Berkeley, Chicago, Cornell, Sydney-Macquarie, Melbourne-Monash, etc.).

Bugarski died on 13 August 2024, at the age of 91.

Works and reception

As a researcher, lecturer and author he has been active in the fields of English and general linguistics, contrastive and applied linguistics, sociolinguistics, language policy and planning, language in relation to identity, culture, ethnicity and nationalism, language attitudes, written language and literacy, terminology and bibliography, translation theory, history of linguistics, the status of Serbo-Croatian, political manipulations of language and wartime hate speech, current Serbian slang, etc. He is the author of some twenty books, ten edited volumes, and scores of articles, book chapters and reviews in international journals, congress proceedings and other collective volumes, mostly in English or Serbo-Croatian but some in German, French, Spanish and several other languages. (For a selective list see below). Among his noted contributions are his early research on English prepositions, acknowledged as a thematic and methodological precursor of cognitive linguistics, his notion of graphic relativity as an extension of the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis of linguistic relativity, his role in defining and organising applied linguistics as an academic discipline in Yugoslavia and internationally, the conception of Serbo-Croatian as one polycentric standard language linguistically but several national languages politically, and his recent pioneering work on lexical blends in Serbian.

He has participated in several dozen Yugoslav, European and world congresses, symposia and other conferences, often also as an organiser or invited plenary speaker. He was the academic organiser of two international conferences at the University of London and editor (with Celia Hawkesworth) of their proceedings: Language Planning in Yugoslavia (Columbus, OH: Slavica, 1992. Pp. 233. ISBN 0-89357-232-2) and Language in the Former Yugoslav Lands (Bloomington, IN: Slavica, 2004. Pp. 325. ISBN 0-89357-298-5). He has edited scholarly journals and, as translator and editor, introduced to the Yugoslav public the works of some leading linguists (Chomsky, Sapir, Whorf) and modern linguistic disciplines (transformational-generative grammar, sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics). At the same time, he has kept international audiences informed about the changing language situation in Yugoslavia and its successor states, with a special focus on the official dissolution of Serbo-Croatian. In 2017, he has signed the Declaration on the Common Language of the Croats, Serbs, Bosniaks and Montenegrins.

Notable positions

Co-founder and first president, Yugoslav Association of Applied Linguistics; Vice President, Association Internationale de Linguistique Appliquée (AILA); President, Societas Linguistica Europaea (SLE); corresponding member, Research Centre on Multilingualism (Brussels); national correspondent, Soziolinguistische Bibliographie Europäischer Länder, in the yearbook Sociolinguistica (Tübingen/Berlin); Council of Europe Expert on Regional or Minority Languages (Strasbourg); advisory board member, the journals Multilingua (Berlin/New York) and Historiographia Linguistica, with the associated book series Studies in the History of Linguistics (Amsterdam/Philadelphia); Yugoslav Board member, European Society for the Study of English (ESSE).

Other honours

Member, Academia Scientiarum et Artium Europaea (Salzburg); Honorary President, English-Speaking Union of Serbia; Honorary President, Applied Linguistics Association of Serbia; Honorary member, Association of Serbian Anglicists. He has been honoured with three festschrifts: (1) History and Perspectives of Language Study: Papers in Honor of Ranko Bugarski (eds O.Mišeska Tomić, M.Radovanović), Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2000. Pp. 305. ISBN 90-272-3692-5; (2) Jezik, društvo, saznanje - Profesoru Ranku Bugarskom od njegovih studenata (eds D.Klikovac, K.Rasulić), Beograd: Filološki fakultet, 2003. Pp. 300. ISBN 86-80267-67-8; (3) Jezik u upotrebi - primenjena lingvistika u čast Ranku Bugarskom/Language in Use: Applied Linguistics in Honour of Ranko Bugarski (ed. V.Vasić), Novi Sad/Beograd: Društvo za primenjenu lingvistiku Srbije, etc., 2011. Pp. 382. ISBN 978-86-6065-068-1 (bilingual Serbian/Croatian and English volume). His books Jezik i lingvistika (1972) and Jezik u društvu (1986) have won annual prizes, and in 2011 he was awarded the title "Vitez poziva" by the NGO League of Experts-LEX.

Publications

Books

Most of the first twelve originally published by different publishing houses, thereafter all brought together in the edition of Ranko Bugarski's Selected Works (Belgrade: Čigoja štampa/XX vek, 1996–1997):

Predlozi over, under, above, below i beneath u savremenom engleskom jeziku (1969, 2nd ed. 1996). Pp. vi+331. ID=47287308. /Ph.D. dissertation, with an English summary/.
Jezik i lingvistika (1972, 4th ed. 2003). Pp. 301. ID=49205772.
Lingvistika o čoveku (1975, 3rd ed. 1996). Pp. 218. ID=48322828.
Jezik u društvu (1986, 3rd ed. 2004). Pp. 261. ID=49207052.
Lingvistika u primeni (1986, 3rd ed. 2007). Pp. 216. ID=48473612.
Uvod u opštu lingvistiku (1989, 8th ed. 2013). Pp. 269. ID=48323084.
Ka jedinstvu lingvistike (1997). Pp. 284. ID=56979468.
Jezik u kontekstu (1997). Pp. 298. ID=57560588.
Jezici (1993, 6th ed. 2010). Pp. 144. ISBN 978-86-7558-757-6. /Macedonian translation, Skopje, 2001/.
Pismo (1996, 3rd ed. 2010). Pp. 190. ISBN 978-86-7558-641-8. /Macedonian translation, Skopje, 2001/.
Jezik od mira do rata (1994, 3rd ed. 1997). Pp. 142. ID=52929292. /Greek translation, Athens, 2011/.
Jezik u društvenoj krizi (1997). Pp. 168. ID=57789708.

This set was followed by nine further books, all except the last on the list published by Biblioteka XX vek of Belgrade:

Lica jezika – sociolingvističke teme (2001, 2nd ed. 2002). Pp. 246. ISBN 86-81493-80-9.
Nova lica jezika – sociolingvističke teme (2002, 2nd ed. 2009). Pp. 262. ISBN 978-86-7562-014-3.
Žargon – lingvistička studija (2003, 2nd ed. 2006). Pp. 295. ISBN 86-7562-056-X.
Jezik i kultura (2005). Pp. 288. ISBN 86-7562-040-3.
Evropa u jeziku (2009). Pp. 246. ISBN 978-86-7562-085-3.
Jezik i identitet (2010). Pp. 279. ISBN 978-86-7562-093-8.
Portret jednog jezika (2012). Pp. 278. ISBN 978-86-7562-103-4.
Sarmagedon u Mesopotamaniji – leksičke skrivalice (2013). Pp. 207. ISBN 978-86-7562-110-2.
Selektivna sociolingvistička bibliografija: SFRJ/SRJ-SCG/Srbija, 1967–2007 (2009). Beograd: Narodna biblioteka Srbije. Pp. 124. ISBN 978-86-7035-203-2.

Representative sample of articles and book chapters

On the interrelatedness of grammar and lexis in the structure of English. Lingua 19:3, 1968, 233–263.
Symmetry and asymmetry in prepositional systems. Zbornik radova povodom četrdesetogodišnjice osnivanja Katedre za engleski jezik i književnost. Beograd: Filološki fakultet, 1969, 57–69.
Writing systems and phonological insights. Papers from the Sixth Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society. University of Chicago: Department of Linguistics, 1970, 453–458.
A system of English prepositions and their Serbo-Croatian equivalents. The Yugoslav Serbo-Croatian-English Contrastive Project (ed. R.Filipović), Zagreb: Institute of Linguistics/Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics. Reports 8, 1973, 3–20.
The object of linguistics in historical perspective. In: History of Linguistic Thought and Contemporary Linguistics (ed. H.Parret), Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1976, 1–12.
The interdisciplinary relevance of folk linguistics. In: Progress in Linguistic Historiography (ed. K.Koerner), Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 1980, 381–393.
Some thoughts on the structure and applications of linguistics. In: Models of Grammar, Descriptive Linguistics and Pedagogical Grammar (eds G.Nickel, D.Nehls), Heidelberg: Julius Groos, 1980, 22–45.
Sociolinguistic issues in standardizing linguistic terminology. Language in Society 12:1, 1983, 65–70.
Sociolinguistics and language universals. Studia Linguistica 37:1, 1983, 1–8.
Language universals and linguistic relativity. Acta Linguistica Hafniensia 19:2, 1985, 45–55.
(with Melanie Mikes) Types and methods in multilingual research in Yugoslavia. In: Methoden der Kontaktlinguistik/Methods in Contact Linguistic Research (ed. P.H.Nelde), Bonn:Dümmler, 1985, 145–154.
Translation across cultures: Some problems with terminologies. In: Scientific and Humanistic Dimensions of Language. Festschrift for Robert Lado (ed. K.R.Jankowsky), Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 1985, 159–163.
Politique et aménagement linguistiques en Yougoslavie. In: Politique et Aménagement Linguistiques (ed. J.Maurais), Québec: Conseil de la Langue Française/Paris: Le Robert, 1987, 417–452.
Language planning in Yugoslavia. In: Actes du Colloque International sur l'Aménagement Linguistique/Proceedings of the International Colloquium on Language Planning (ed. L.Laforge), Québec: Les Presses de l'Université Laval, 1987, 133–141.
Applied linguistics as linguistics applied. In: The Relation of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics (eds O. Mišeska Tomić, R.W.Shuy), New York/London: Plenum Press, 1987, 3–19.
Multilingualism and markedness in language use: The Yugoslav case. Grazer Linguistische Studien 28, 1987, 5–11.
Soziolinguistische Aspekte der heutigen serbokroatischen Standardsprache. Die Welt der Slaven 34:2, 1989, 259–273.
Generative structuralism. In: Yugoslav General Linguistics (ed. M.Radovanović), Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 1989, 33–46.
The social basis of language conflict and language attitudes. In: Language Attitudes and Language Conflict/Spracheinstellungen und Sprachkonflikte (ed. P.H.Nelde), Bonn:Dümmler, 1990, 41–47.
Contrastive analysis of terminology and the terminology of contrastive analysis. In: Languages in Contact and Conflict (eds V.Ivir, D.Kalogjera), Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 1991, 73–92.
Graphic relativity and linguistic constructs. In: Literacy and Language Analysis (ed. R.J.Scholes), Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1993, 5–18.
Language and languages: A retrospect. In: History of Linguistics 1993 (ed. K.R.Jankowsky), Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 1995, 321–326.
A problem of language identity: The comparative linguistics of Serbo-Croatian. In: Dán do Oide: Essays in Memory of Conn R. Ó Cléirigh (eds A.Ahlqvist, V.Čapková), Dublin: The Linguistics Institute of Ireland, 1997, 67–73.
Language-internal conflict and language dissolution. In: Recent Studies in Contact Linguistics (eds W.Wölck, A. de Houwer), Bonn:Dümmler, 1997, 29–35.
Lengua, nacionalismo y la désintegración de Yugoslavia. Revista de Antropología Social 6, 1997, 13–27.
Discourses of war and peace. Folia Linguistica 34:3–4, 2000, 129–145.
Language, nationalism and war in Yugoslavia. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 151, 2001, 69–87.
Serbo-Croatian and its descendants: A case of Umbau? In: Lexical Norm and National Language – Lexicography and Language Policy in South-Slavic Languages after 1989 (ed. R.Lučić), München: Otto Sagner, 2002, 145–149.
Sprachenpolitik in den Nachfolgestaaten des ehemaligen Jugoslawien. In: Sprache und politischer Wandel (eds H.Gruber, F.Menz, O.Panagl), Frankfurt/Main: Peter Lang, 2003, 51–70.
Serbo-Croatian and English: Some sociolinguistic parallels. In: Germano-Slavistische Beiträge. Festschrift für Peter Rehder zum 65. Geburtstag (eds M.Okuka, U.Schweier), München: Otto Sagner, 2004, 45–52.
Language and boundaries in the Yugoslav context. In: Language, Discourse and Borders in the Yugoslav Successor States (eds B.Busch, H.Kelly-Holmes), Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, 2004, 21–37.
One, two, three, four: It's Serbo-Croatian that counts. In: A Companion in Linguistics: A Festschrift for Anders Ahlqvist on the Occasion of his Sixtieth Birthday (eds B.Smelik et al.), Nijmegen: Stichting Uitgeverij de Keltische Draak/Münster: Nodus, 2005, 310–323.
What English means to us. In: Interkatedarska konferencija anglističkih katedri Niš 2006 (ed. V.Ž.Jovanović), Niš: Filozofski fakultet, 2007, 11–19.
European language policy between diversity and globalisation. In: Jezična politika i jezična stvarnost/Language policy and language reality (ed. J.Granić), Zagreb: Hrvatsko društvo za primijenjenu lingvistiku, 2009, 629–640.
Half a century of linguistics: Some reflections and reminiscences. BAS/British and American Studies 14, 2009, 203–212.
English in European institutions: Some observations. Belgrade English Language & Literature Studies 1, 2009, 109–117.
Multiple language identities in Southeastern Europe (with a focus on Serbo-Croatian). In: Europe-Evropa: Cross-cultural Dialogues between the West, Russia, and Southeastern Europe (eds M.Könönen, J.Nuorluoto), Uppsala: Studia Multiethnica Upsaliensia 18, 2010, 34–49.
Who are you? Profiling individual identities. In: English Language and Literature Studies: Image, Identity, Reality (eds N.Tomović, J.Vujić), Belgrade: Faculty of Philology, vol. I, 2011, 11–17.
Language, identity and borders in the former Serbo-Croatian area. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 33:3, 2012, 219–235.
What happened to Serbo-Croatian? In: After Yugoslavia: The Cultural Spaces of a Vanished Land (ed. R.Gorup), Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2013, 160–168.

References

"Preminuo Ranko Bugarski". Espreso. 13 August 2024. Retrieved 14 August 2024.
^ Krajišnik, Đorđe (9 July 2015). "Jezik je jedna velika i neodoljiva misterija: intervju s Rankom Bugarskim" [Language is a huge and irresistible mystery: Interview with Ranko Bugarski]. Oslobođenje (in Serbo-Croatian). Archived from the original on 12 July 2015. Retrieved 12 July 2015.
Lasić, Igor (10 June 2013). "Jezici ne nastaju niti nestaju političkim dekretom: intervju s Rankom Bugarskim" [Languages do not arise or disappear by a political decree: Interview with Ranko Bugarski]. Novosti (in Serbo-Croatian). Zagreb. Retrieved 7 August 2014.
Bugarski, Ranko (5 April 2017). "Dobronameran apel javnosti (intervju vodila Sonja Ćirić)" [Well-Intentioned Appeal to the Public (interview conducted by Sonja Ćirić)]. Vreme (in Serbo-Croatian). Belgrad. ISSN 0353-8028. Archived from the original on 26 August 2017. Retrieved 18 June 2017.
Bugarski, Ranko (13 April 2017). "Deklaracija nije politička platforma (intervju vodila Mirjana Mitrović)" [Declaration is not a Political Platform (interview conducted by Mirjana Mitrović)]. Ekspres (in Serbo-Croatian). Belgrad. Archived from the original on 12 June 2017. Retrieved 3 July 2017.
Bugarski, Ranko (7 May 2017). "Mali katalog promašaja" [A Small Catalog of Flaws]. Danas (in Serbo-Croatian). Belgrad. ISSN 1450-538X. Archived from the original on 14 May 2017. Retrieved 6 January 2018.
^ Ćirić, Sonja (25 December 2003). "Jezik, žargon i verbalne magle: intervju s Rankom Bugarskim" [Language, jargon and verbal fogs: Interview with Ranko Bugarski]. Vreme (in Serbo-Croatian). Belgrade. Retrieved 25 April 2015.
^ Kordić, Snježana (2003). "Jezik i nacionalizam: recenzija knjige Ranka Bugarskog, Nova lica jezika" [Language and nationalism: Review of Ranko Bugarski's New facets of language] (PDF). Književna republika (in Serbo-Croatian). 1 (9–10). Zagreb: 224–228. ISSN 1334-1057. Retrieved 2 October 2014.