Linda Dégh

Career

Linda Dégh began her academic journey at Péter Pázmány University in Hungary, where she earned her degree. She then joined the folklore department at Eötvös Loránd University as a teacher. In 1965, she moved to the United States to teach at Indiana University Bloomington’s Folklore Institute, eventually becoming a Distinguished Professor of Folklore and Ethnomusicology there in 1982. While at Indiana, Dégh launched the journal Indiana Folklore in 1968, serving as its editor until it ceased publication in 1980; it was the official publication of the Hoosier Folklore Society.

She also led that society as its president in 1967 and 1968. The American Folklore Society named her a Fellow in 1971, recognizing her outstanding contributions to the field. She later served as the society’s president in 1982 and received its Lifetime Scholarly Achievement Award in 2004. Over her career, Dégh authored 18 books and more than 200 articles and essays.

She is especially noted for her research on legends and for introducing the idea of ostention to the study of contemporary legends. In 1983, with Andrew Vázsonyi, she published "Does the Word 'Dog' Bite? Ostensive Action: A Means of Legend Telling," which proposed that legends can be performed as well as narrated. Drawing on the semiotic theories of Ivo Osolsobě, Umberto Eco, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and Bertrand Russell, they outlined five types of ostention in folklore: ostention, pseudo-ostention, quasi-ostention, false ostention, and proto-ostention.