LINGUISTIC CHARACTERISTICS OF SPEECH BEHAVIOR OF MODERN GERMAN- AND RUSSIAN-SPEAKING CHILDREN OF OLDER PRESCHOOL AGE

Ksenz M.I.¹, Lomova O.E.²

Ksenz M.I.

Secondary comprehensive school No. 12
e-mail: mksenz@sfedu.ru

Lomova O.E.

Southern Federal University
e-mail: oelomova@sfedu.ru

Introduction

Every period of history is unique in its own way, and the times we live in now are no exception. Most remarkable, of course, is the current pace of development, encompassing both technology and everyday life. Time is becoming a valuable resource, and people are increasingly interested in anything that reduces wait times, whether it's fast transportation or high-speed global internet access.

The modern pace of development of society also influences children's education; parents strive to give their children as much basic knowledge as possible at an early age. According to their idea, the faster children learn the basics, the sooner they will be able to step into the future. Thus, knowledge intended for a later age is introduced earlier, in preschool and pre-school age. This, however, does more harm than good: deliberate interference harms the gradual development of the child's brain structures, which leads to subsequent problems with reading and understanding of the material, difficulties with pronunciation and confusion in words. But it is speech that «has a certain influence on the mental development of the child, getting involved in the process of forming his thinking. ... Formulating a thought in words leads to the fact that the child ultimately understands better than he understood before the verbal formulation of his thought: by being formulated, the thought is formed» [10, p. 480]. Often, it is by the level of speech development that one can judge the child's readiness for learning, his cognitive maturity. Against this background, relevance ontolinguistics, because by tracing the general paths of speech development, this science offers information about the importance of the step-by-step development of a child's speech abilities.

Child speech linguistics as a science emerged at the end of the 19th century and was characterized by three stages of studying child speech in the West. Period of diary entries (1876-1926) is characterized by systematic recording of observations (W. and K. Stern) [22]. Cross-sectional research period (1926-1957) was marked by the comparison of samples of children's speech (H. Idelberger, E. Meimann, J. Piaget, V. Preyer) [9]. And the development of sound and video recordings gave a new impetus to the development of longitudinal studies (1957 - present) (R. Eibauer, F. Kainz, H. Hornstein).

In Russia, the first studies of children's speech date back to the late 19th century, and the name of I.A. Sikorsky is associated with them. He examined the characteristics of children's consciousness with the aim of developing pedagogy and pointed out the need for an in-depth study of children with articulation disorders and developmental disabilities [12]. In the early history of Russian linguistics, this science did not receive widespread development and was characterized by isolated works, for example, by A.N. Gvozdev or N.A. Rybnikov [4; 2].

At the end of the 20th century, interest in the linguistics of children's speech was renewed. Two approaches emerged: a psychological approach (studying the theory of language acquisition and the pathologies of children's speech development) and a linguistic approach (characterized by attempts to describe children's speech), which is used in this study.

In recent years, the study of many aspects of children's speech has been greatly aided by highly developed technical means. At the present stage, scientists are interested in the pragmalinguistic aspect of children's speech [7], the study of speech acts of preschool children, as well as the social aspect of speech, which has long been ignored in favor of psycholinguistics (O.V. Akulova, N.V. Drozdova, V.N. Seliverstova, and others). The issues of linguocreativity of children's linguistic personality continue to be studied (G.R. Dobrova, A.I. Melnikova; O.A. Mikhailova; N.A. Solomka) [8; 13], features of the process of mastering speech ability by children with disabilities (S.V. Andreeva; A.Yu. Guseva; I.B. Karelina; V.V. Kisova, E.A. Semenova; E.S. Titlyanova, E.V. Khmelkova) [15] and others.. Among the important centers for the study of children's speech, one can name the Department of Children's Speech at the Russian State Pedagogical University in St. Petersburg (1991-2011), headed by S.N. Zeitlin, the Institute of Linguistics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Perm School of "Children's Lexicology" under the direction of I.G. Ovchinnikova, and the Voronezh School of "Age Linguistics" of I.A. Sternin.

Ontolinguistics, as a branch of linguistics that studies children's speech, emerged in Russia at the end of the last century thanks to the work of L.I. Garayeva, A.G. Tambovtseva, S.N. Zeitlin, A.M. Shakhnarovich, and N.M. Yuryeva [3; 14; 16; 17, p. 63; 18; 19; 21]. This science is based on research into the linguistics of children's speech. It is a relatively young science, so the boundaries of its research are still rather vague and overlap with many other scientific disciplines: psychology, philosophy, sociology, and medicine. The connections between ontolinguistics and psycholinguistics and pedagogy are also clearly visible.

Methodology

For a significant period after its formation and development, ontolinguistics focused primarily on the general patterns of child speech development, identifying universal features that distinguish children's speech from adult speech. This field is still considered relevant and has not lost its significance. However, recently, researchers have also focused on dividing children's speech characteristics into those inherent to all children and those specific to certain children or groups of children. These groups are distinguished based on gender, age, social status, and so on.

In our study, the reference group is senior preschool children aged 5 to 7 years.

There are numerous periodizations, but the one based on the stages of a child's upbringing seems to us the most comprehensive, as it is directly linked to the processes of child development. We based our approach on D.B. Elkonin's [20] periodization, which is based on L.S. Vygotsky's periodization of age-related development. According to this, senior preschool age is a subperiod of preschool age characterized by the acquisition of basic grammatical rules, the development of correct pronunciation, and the expansion of a child's vocabulary to 3,500,000-4,000 words.

The aim of the study The aim was to identify the characteristics of the speech behavior of modern German- and Russian-speaking children in specific speech situations determined by the format of the analyzed television programs.

To achieve this goal, it seems necessary to solve the following tasksTo analyze the history of the emergence of child speech linguistics in Europe and Russia and to consider existing approaches to the study of child speech; to define the boundaries of the senior preschool age stage; to analyze the collected empirical research material in order to identify the lexical, phonetic, and grammatical features of the speech behavior of German-speaking and Russian-speaking senior preschool children and to conduct a comparative analysis of the obtained data in order to identify similarities and differences in the speech behavior of German-speaking and Russian-speaking children of the studied age.

The material for the study was episodes of the German television programs "Dingsda" (2018) and "Dingsda: Müller" (2021-22), episodes of the Russian-language program "Out of the Mouths of Babes" (2022), as well as a number of videos on similar topics ("Children Try to Guess Things from the USSR" (2017), "Old Things and Modern Children" (2017)), 68 and 88 minutes long, respectively, published on the YouTube platform.

The criteria for selecting the material were a similar format of the programs, the same age of the participants, and the modernity of the material.

The following were used in this work: methods research: observation (this method was needed to identify and collect material of interest for the study), hypothetico-inductive method (made it possible to use the presented linguistic material to confirm the conclusions of earlier linguistic studies), descriptive method (used to present individual concepts of the children's language system).

Results

The analysis of speech behavior was carried out in four aspects: the features of vocabulary and word formation in the speech behavior of older preschool children, as well as grammatical and phonetic features of speech.

It's worth noting that explanatory speech, which children are forced to use, is one of the most complex forms of speech in preschool age, as it requires the child to develop thinking and reflect on cause-and-effect relationships.

During this period, vocabulary is significantly expanded compared to previous stages of speech development. It also includes abstract vocabulary, and the meaning of many words is re-evaluated and perceived more deeply than before. However, when describing unknown objects or phenomena, children rely on basic vocabulary learned earlier to replace more complex concepts. When describing unknown objects or phenomena, children draw on knowledge acquired from their immediate environment and resort to using contemporary realities.

Eine große CD (DINGSDA Folge 6, 1:21), association with the sight of a vinyl record.

I think it is Citroën wheel (Old things and modern children, 0:31), association at the sight of a health disc.

«"The linguistic world of a child in the modern world is shaped by the influence of mass media, namely television, films, computer games, and fiction. Their culture constitutes an important part of a child's linguistic consciousness and an important basis for their background knowledge" [1, p. 23; 11]. Thus, children use names, quotes from fiction, cartoons, films, and children's folklore in their speech.

Das ist ein Pokus-Pokus-Fidibus (DINGSDA Folge 5, 0:04).

Well, for example, like Dim-Dimycha (Out of the mouths of babes, 07/24/2022, 05/30).

Words with the meaning of probability are used, which is explained by the thematic focus of the speech situation and the relatively small vocabulary of the child.

Vielleicht muss man das auch rollen? (DINGSDA Folge 7, 2:31).

Maybe, was this a spinner before? (Old things and modern children, 0:30).

The use of superlatives and hyperbole is also typical in the speech of older preschool-aged children. These words are also associated with the child's evaluative attitude toward the world and lend an expressive tone to speech. The use of tautological devices and simple intensifying particles also emphasizes the expressive nature of speech. Evaluative words play a significant role at this stage of development of children's self-awareness, when they begin to compare themselves with others [6].

Von Make-up und so bin ich nicht der Schlaumeier (DINGSDA Folge 1, 0:01).

And Tasya better than me She's doing it right, she jumps rope better than me (Out of the mouths of babes, 07/03/2022, 24:22).

Children's creative word-creation plays a crucial role. This developmental feature of children's speech is based on play with sounds and experiments with grammatical constructions, during which children analyze adult speech and, based on this knowledge, attempt to comprehend the logic of language and identify the patterns of its structure [5, p. 1413]. The morphological system of the German language is characterized by word formation through addition, which is not typical of Russian, where affixal formation and word formation by doubling and transposing syllables are common.

Handyhülletütedingsbumb (DINGSDA Folge 4, 0.01 sec.).

Some breaker (Old Things and Modern Children, 2:30).

Mumimim...mimimum (Out of the mouths of babes, 07/24/2022, 1:06 PM).

Grammar at this age is characterized by a desire to complicate the grammatical structure of a sentence, for example, the use of the construction um..zu or union damit for the German language and the union to For the Russian language. The sentences are mostly affirmative in nature, while indefinite-personal sentences predominate when describing objects or phenomena.

Sentence complexity leads, for example, to disruptions in frame construction and errors in constructing sentences with separable prefixes. Russian-speaking children have difficulty with verb agreement and choice of verb forms.

Ich hab das gesehen zu Hause (DINGSDA Folge 5, 0:25).

Yes sieht kompliziert…Was ist das? (DINGSDA Folge 1, 0:44).

This can be done verbally and by approaching the person, which You want (Out of the mouths of babes, 07/24/2022, 08/34).

How are they fold? (Children try to guess things from the USSR era, 2:05).

The phonetic aspect of speech is characterized by unclear articulation and poorly developed speech breathing, which reduces children's ability to understand. The child's speech is expressive and expressive, with many additional elements, onomatopoeic words, particles, and interjections. (ja, nein» / nö / nee, so, nicht – here, everything, this, even), (ach, ach so, ah – oy, uh-eh, well, ey, hello, hmm). The widespread use of interjections in children's speech is due to their sensitivity to sound form, emotionality, and impulsiveness, as well as their desire to fill gaps in speech. The most common interjections are those associated with emotional expressions (surprise, joy, complaint).

However, the child's phonetic system is still not flawless. In German, difficulties arise with the labial plosive [b] and the lingual trill [r]:

[b]: glaube – glau-e; [r]: аbrasieren – ab-asie-en.

In Russian, these are the lingual explosive [tˈ], the lingual trill [r] and the fricatives [z], [shˈ].

[tˈ], [r]: to work – to dawdle; [z]: eyes - head: [shˈ]: for real – truly.

CONCLUSIONS.

Thus, the analyzed material, reflecting the features of the speech behavior of a German- and Russian-speaking child in a specific speech situation in the sections of vocabulary, grammar and phonetics, made it possible to identify similarities mainly in the section of phonetics, and differences in grammar.

The vocabulary, for the most part, reflects typical linguistic phenomena, explained by the influence of both society (popular culture, contemporary realities), age (evaluativeness), and the specific speech situation (words expressing doubt and uncertainty). However, differences in word formation processes are observed: for a German-speaking child, the most productive method is word formation by addition, while for a Russian-speaking child, it is suffixation.

The differences in grammar are explained by the different types of languages, where analytical German places great emphasis on word order in a sentence, while for synthetic Russian the relationships between words are expressed through word- and form-forming morphemes.

Similarities in the development of phonetics are explained by universal processes characteristic of many languages, for example, the order of consonant acquisition.

Thus, it can be concluded that children's speech is a set of speech features characterized by the child's ongoing process of learning linguistic constructs to express their thoughts and feelings. A distinctive feature of this stage of speech acquisition is the existence of general rules for the formation of language components, but it is also undeniable that different languages also have their own distinctive features specific to this stage.

Debates regarding the status of child speech linguistics and the scope of its research continue. One such question, for example, concerns the specifics of speech development in bilingual children, specifically whether this topic falls within the purview of ontolinguistics. Another concerns the study of the sociocultural environment of child development. The extraordinary diversity of topics and approaches to speech studies requires collaboration among multiple disciplines. Only in this way, according to scientists, will it be possible to fully address all the issues in this field.

The unique characteristics of children's speech have provided material for research for over a century. However, many areas of this discipline still require attention. This study attempted to analyze and compare the language characteristics of older preschool children in German-speaking and Russian-speaking environments, which have only recently attracted scholarly attention.

Thus, there is every reason to assert that ontolinguistics, with its vast research material and wide opportunities for study, will remain in the area of interest of scientists for a long time to come, both in our country and abroad.

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