Some observations on formation of Russian - speaking vocabulary with foreign language speaking children

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Some observations on formation of Russian - speaking vocabulary with foreign language speaking children

Stella Ceytlin

Key words: Language acquisition, lexicon, reference, lexical semantic overgeneralization, thematic groups, paronymy, reflexive verbs, adjectives.

Introduction. This article deals with vocabulary (lexicon) formation of a foreign language speaking child, acquiring the Russian language by immersion into the Russian-language speech environment.

If the formation of the Russian-speaking child's vocabulary is already studied in sufficient detail (see works by R.I. Vodeiko, A.M. Shkhnarovich, I.G. Ovchinnikova, S.V. Plotnikova, E.M. Shamis, T.I. Dotsenko, N.I. Beresneva, M.B. Yeliseeva et al.), the same cannot be said about the formation of the foreign language speaking child's Russian vocabulary. Upon that, there are practically no works dealing with vocabulary mastering by foreign language speaking children who found themselves in the Russian speech environment. In this article we consider some aspects of vocabulary of foreign language speaking children aged four years and older. Children whose speech is in the focus of our study, are those of labour migrants who work in St. Petersburg. The main subjects are Afsana and Rayal Sh. (a brother and a sister), whose spontaneous speech which was being recorded by the author of this article for 3 years. At the beginning of our observations the girl was 7 years old, the boy was 4 years old. Both of them did not practically speak Russian. We also attracted speech records made at school-kindergarten 624 of Admiralty district, St. Petersburg. For those children who already attended school, the lessons of Russian and literature were of some importance, however, these lessons were conducted according to traditional methods not taking into account the foreign language speaking children, present at the lessons, and were focused on the Russian-speaking children.

Thus, the bilingualism being formed with the foreign language speaking children can be considered mainly as natural, not an educational one. All the children are Azerbaijani speakers. Parents talk to each other and to their children their native language, while the children to each other speak both their native and the Russian language. The spontaneous speech records were made with a video camera and then entered into a computer. For comparison, the Russian language speaking children records belonging to the Fund of Russian speech data available in the laboratory of the children's speech of Herzen University were involved.

The aim of our work was to determine the similarities and differences in the formation of vocabulary in children, for whom Russian is the mother tongue, and those for whom it is the second (non-native, foreign) language. Here are some results of our work.

Thematic Groups. The foreign language speaking children's vocabulary analysis shows poverty of those thematic groups which concern household activities and include names of food, pieces of home furniture, various household items. Thus, it turned out that 7-year-old Afsana doesn't know what a casserole, scrambled eggs, pancakes, a pan, etc. are. She also uses the verb delat' (`to make') in relation to preparation of any food, without any attention to the way it is prepared, i.e. she says, `Mama delaet kashu' (`Mom is making porridge'), and when finally the verb varit' (`to boil) appears in her lexicon, it is used with overgeneralization, thus replacing the verbs `to fry', `to bake', `to stew' and others. Similar observations were made with respect to items of furniture, clothes, etc. Explanation of this phenomenon is quite simple: these Russian words used in the family home communication are unknown to the children, because they are not needed and the children use their native language while communicating with their relatives.

In school conditions children begin to develop a special easier version of the scientific vocabulary, containing terms used in the classroom, and present in textbooks, which are new not only to foreign language speaking children but also to their Russian-speaking classmates. Due to the frequency of use in a variety of contexts, they are quite successfully mastered by children, and in this area, as a rule, foreign-language speaking children do not need any special support.

Extension and Narrowing a Word Reference Scope. Extension and Narrowing a Word Reference Scope. The absence of certain semes in the structure of the word meaning leads to extension of its reference scope which doesn't conform the language standard. One can fully master the significative meaning of a lexical item only as a result of individual processing of some speech experience allowing to compare and distinguish various situations, in the description of which one or the other word was involved. Referents of the same type, reducible to a single designatum, are established as a result of generalizing the denotation signs according to a certain parameter (the function of the object, its various properties etc.). At the same time quite often in the course of this activity, cognitive in nature, there is some overlap, when a word in the child's or foreign language speaker's intermediate language system expands the scope of its use, i.e. there is the lexical- semantic overgeneralization. The latter can be explained by the fact that some essential features of the phenomenon referred, fixed in the seme, are not fully acquired. Thus, for example, a child or a foreign language learner can say `a chair' instead of `a stool' not being aware of that a chair must necessarily have a chair back, or, he can say `a chair ' instead of `an armchair ' not taking into account differences in size and presence of elbow rests with armchairs.

Cases of lexical-semantic overgeneralizations in foreign language children's speech are much more common than with Russian-speaking children, not only because they lack speech practice needed for generalization of the same type objects and phenomena, but also because elder foreign language children, especially those who are already in school, realizing lack of lexical resources, often consciously choose some compromise ways of expression, only approximately consistent with purposes of nomination. At the same time they may feel that it is not exactly the word needed, that it doesn't suit the given situation. This is often manifested in an uncertain way of pronouncing words, hesitations, redundant pauses etc. The overgeneralization scope in the speech of foreign language children is much broader than that of Russian children. For example, four-year Azerbaijanian girl uses adjectives `krasivyi' (`beautiful') and `nekrasivyi' (`ill-looking') in a very broad meaning, which can be roughly defined as «having - not having positive qualities»: one of the girls wants to say that it's dangerous to go up or downstairs calling the staircase ill-looking: `Lestnitsa nekrasivaya - upadesh ' (`The staircase is ill-looking, you can fall'). Khadizha calls by the word `korabl' (`ship') not only ships, but also small boats, she also calls all sorts of footwear by the word `botinki' (`high shoes') and a little later the word `tapki' (`slippers') begins to play the same role. 6-year-old Rayal asks permission to fife by saying `May I sing?' instead of `May I play?'. Not only he, but also some foreign language schoolchildren used the word `mirror ' to refer to the window. All these replacements, not typical for a Russianspeaking child are not without logic and indicate that the process of normative reference formation is multi-step and takes quite a long period of time from foreign language speaking children.

Verbs of Motion. A common mistake in the Russian speech of foreign language learners is non-normative use of some of verbs of motion. The difference related to presence or absence of vehicles while traveling, actual for the Russian language, is removed: `Ona ushla v lagh'er'' (`She has gone to the camp') - about a girlfriend, who went to the camp by bus; `Babushka skoro prid'yot iz Baku ` (`Grandma is coming soon from Baku') instead of `priedet' (`will arrive [by some kind of vehicle]'). The very nature of the movement cannot be fixed by linguistic consciousness: `Uchitel 'nitsa nam skazala: Prinesite (instead of `privedite ') svoikh roditelei ' (`The teacher told us: bring (instead of `take') your parents'). The verb `ujti' (`to go', `to leave') can be used in a meaning not typical for it: `to disappear '. While retelling the fairy tale «Kolobok» (similar to «Gingerbread Man») the girl speaks on behalf of her grandmother: `Ushla nash khl'eb' (`Our bread has left' - about Kolobok). In the same statement the word `bread' is used in a very extended meaning instead of an unknown one `kolobok' (`bun').

In the Russian speech of foreign speakers unidirectional action verbs and verbs, neutral to the manifestation of this feature, are often virtually not differentiated. Thus, Kolobok in their retelling is not `rolling' down the road, but he is `riding', Dad doesn't `go to work' (every day), but he `is going to work' (now). If in the first case linear orientation of the movement is not expressed, in the second case - its repeatability is not expressed.

Paronymy and Phonetic Distortions. Some of lexical- semantic innovations can be regarded as paronymy phenomena: lack of speech practice leads to the fact that the phonetic form of some lexical items in the perception of a foreign language child turns out to be vague, blurred, resulting in some words similar in sounding but absolutely different in semantics being confounded. Thus, for example, 4-year old Khadija confounds two words which are only partly similar in sounding `usy' and `ushi' («mustache» and «ears»):

Teacher: A kakoi u tebya papa? (What does your Dad look like?).

Situation: Khadizha shows she has got a moustache as if she were her father.

Teacher: S usikami, da? (Has he got a moustache, yes?).

Khadizha: Da (Yes, he has).

Teacher: Upapy est' usy (Dad has got a moustache).

Khadizha: Ukhi (Distorted form of the word `ears').

Situation: Khadizha points at her ears.

Teacher: Ushki u papy est' (Dad has got ears).

In this case, the girl wants to draw attention to the resemblance of the words which are little-known to her. Both four- year-old Azerbaijani girls say `yabloko ' (`apple') instead of `yagoda' (`berry'), Russian children do not demonstrate such rough paronymic substitutions.

In some cases, the phonetic form of the words is transformed under the influence of random sound analogies. For example, Khadija (4, 2) uses the word `krepka' (`strong') instead of `repka' (`a turnip'). We could give much more examples of lexical items sound envelope distortions due to vagueness of their sound perception. For instance, Samangyul pronounces `krogat'' instead of `trogat'' (`to touch') more than once. Such phenomena are not observed in the speech of Russian-speaking children.

Adjectives. During the initial period of language acquisition a foreign language speaking child is already familiar with basic adjectives denoting color: `red', `blue', `green', `yellow', `white', `black', although the choice is not always correct. However, children already understand it is colour that is spoken about, i.e. adjectives are correctly attributed to a specific thematic group. From dimensional adjectives, children know and use correctly according to the meaning the so-called aggregate size adjectives (`large' and `small'), but as for the adjectives indicating width, height, etc. of an object, they are replaced by aggregate size adjectives. Thus, a high tree is called `big'. Such cases are also typical for the speech activity of Russian children and can be accounted for by an insufficient level of acquisition of differential semes indicating the parameters according to which size is defined. Some of the adjectives that point at the objects' shape, e.g. `round', appear quite early. We also registered a temperature adjective `hot' which appears early in the vocabulary of the Russian-speaking children as it is frequent in adult-children dialogues (in warnings about danger). Perceptual accessibility is certainly an important condition for acquisition of the above mentioned adjectives' meanings. Difficulties arise with adjectives of taste whose semantics is associated with subjective feelings. Children turned out not to know the meanings of adjectives `delicious' - `tasteless', as well as `sweet' and `bitter'.

It is characteristic that all adjectives registered in the speech of the foreign-language children at this stage belong to qualitative ones, they are moreover the empirical ones, i.e. comprehended in the experience of practice. This is explained mainly by situational nature of speech.

Reflexive Verbs. A huge challenge for a foreign language speaking child is the Russian reflexive verbs acquisition. This is primarily due to the multifunctionality of postfix - SYA. Russian is known to have a variety of word-formation models, in which this postfix acts as a formant. Moreover, it is used in in complex formants together with a prefix or a suffix. In some cases a correlate without - SYA in the modern Russian language is missing: `smeyat'sya' (`to laugh'), `ulybat 'sya ' (`to smile'), etc. As long as each verb with - SYA does not firmly establish itself the mental lexicon of a child, a huge number of unnecessary additions of - SYA can be observed: `Yolochka tut stoitsya' (`There is a Christmas tree here'), `Babushka plachetsya' (`Grandma is crying'), `Budem tut zhitsya' (`Let us live here'), `On skoro pridyotsya' (`He is coming soon'); or, which is more rarely droppings of - SYA can occur. Uncertainty of children associated with this linguistic phenomenon is manifested, in particular, by variations in the use of verbs. Thus, Khadizha says about Kolobok: `A potom spryatalas' Kolobok' (`And then Kolobok hid') - only the gender form is distorted, but the reflexive verb is not malformed, and some minutes later the girl says: `Dedushka, babushka igrali. Potom spryatala [instead of `spryatalas ''] ona'.

The following conversation between 4-year-old girls during clothes change in the kindergarten is of interest:

Samangyul: Ya uzhe zakonchilas ' (`I have already finished myself')

Khadizha: Zakonchilas' ... A ya zakonchila (`I have finished myself ... I have finished').

Khadizha notices the mistake in Samangyul's speech and wants to say that she, Khadizha, speaks more correctly.

Some Aspects of Foreign Language Speaking Children's Speech Behaviour. As it has already been mentioned above, the lack of vocabulary is often compensated by gestures, various motions, by using different objects present in sight, if the latter are being spoken about. It's needless to say, that adult foreign language speakers don't dare to resort to such means in case of linguistic difficulties. Children are much more unselfconscious in this respect, in some cases they act out whole pantomimes designing the needed scenarios on the go.

Situation: the teacher and the child are looking at a cat in the picture.

Teacher: U koshki est' ... (A cat has ...) (The teacher stops suggesting the child to continue the sentence).

Khadizha: Ukhi. (incorrect form, meaning `ears'. The correct form should be `ushi'. An innovation indicating beginning of the inflectional model acquisition).

Situation: Khadizha is showing an imaginary tail on her body.

Teacher: Khvostik. (tail).

Khadzha: Khvostik. (tail)

Teacher: Khvostik, da. I koshka chto delayet? (Tail, yes. And what is the cat doing?).

Situation: Khadizha is making circular motions around her face.

Teacher: Umyvaietsa. Da, pravil'no. I eiyo, koshechku, mozhno pogladit' (Is washing herself. Yes, that's right. And you can stroke her, the cat).

Situation: the teacher is stroking the cat in the picture.

Situation: Khadizha also begins to stroke the cat in the picture.

Khadizha: Pogladit'. (To stroke).

Khadizha: Knizhka (Book. Pronounces pointing at the book).

Teacher: Knizhka, pravil 'no. Ty liubish knizhki? (Book, correct. Do you like books?).

Khadizha: Da. (Yes, I do).

Teacher: A chto s nimi mozhno delat ' ? (And what can you do with them?)

Khadizha: Err.

Teacher.A knizhkami. (With books).

Khadizha: Chitaem. ([We're] reading) (Khadizha is imitating turning the pages with her hands).

Teacher: My knizhku chitaem, da. (We read a book, yes).

During the conversation the girl said only three words on her own: `ears', `book' and `reading', and the two words were repeated after the teacher. But the narrowness of the lexicon was compensated for by all sorts of gestures, which ensured the communication success.

Instead of Afterword. On the whole, our observations on the formation of the Russian language system of foreign language speaking children indicate that the process itself of constructing a secondary language system is no less creative than the process of constructing a primary language systems (native language). The main strategy during the formation of lexicon is in both cases generalization, which in some cases leads to the emergence of lexical semantic overgeneralization on the early stages. At the same time, in some cases, phenomena which are not typical for the children speaking Russian as a mother tongue are fixed: a broader paronymy scope, phonetic distortions of words, instability of reflexive verbs and some other features that could not have been touched upon in this article.

As far as the Russian language is being acquired, the errors of foreign language speaking children become more and more similar to those of Russian speaking children. It is true not only for lexical semantic innovations, but also for all other types. As well as the innovations of the Russian speaking children, they show that: (1) a child has already mastered Russian at its basic level; (2) that he is able to produce words and word combinations in the speech process while relying on the language rules that exist in the Russian language. In general, we support the suggestion of I.M. Rumyantseva to use the term speech ontogenesis in the broad sense of the word in relation to the acquisition of not only the first but also the second language.

vocabulary foreign language speech

Literature

1. Rumyantseva I.M. (2004). Psihologhia rechi i linvopedagogicheskaya psikhologhia. Moskva, PerSe. 313 s. (In Russian).

2. Ceylin S.N. (2013). Rechevyie oshibki i ikh preduprezhdenie. Izd. 4^e, Moskva, URSS. 188 s. (In Russian).

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