SOCIODEMOGRAPHIC DETERMINANTS OF LEXICAL PRODUCTIVITY IN RUSSIAN AMONG BILINGUAL AND MONOLINGUAL PRIMARY SCHOOL CHILDREN: A PSYCHOLINGUISTIC STUDY

Abstract

The article is devoted to the analysis of the results of a psycholinguistic experiment aimed at assessing the lexical productivity of speech in Russian among younger bilingual and monolingual schoolchildren. The relevance of the study is to study the influence of socio-age factors on the linguistic development of bilingual schoolchildren. The scientific novelty of the study consists in a comprehensive empirical analysis of the lexical productivity of bilingual and monolingual primary school students in Northern Kazakhstan. The study involved 153 pupils of grades 1-4 in schools of Akmola and North Kazakhstan regions, including 75 Russian-Kazakh bilinguals and 78 Russian-speaking monolinguals. The aim of the work is to identify the specifics of children's linguistic consciousness based on the analysis of the processes of lexical nomination of nouns and verbs in the Russian language, as well as to determine the influence of socio-age factors on the parameters of lexical production and lexical productivity. The leading research method is the empirical level method - the psycholinguistic experiment. For the first time, it has been shown that bilingual children with a comparable level of language competence are not inferior to monolingual peers in the accuracy and speed of lexical nomination in Russian. A statistically significant influence of a number of socio–age factors has been established-primarily the language of instruction, age and level of education of parents – on the parameters of lexical productivity. The results obtained reflect the regional specifics of Kazakh bilingualism and contribute to understanding the mechanisms of formation of linguistic consciousness in multilingual education. The theoretical significance of the research lies in the development of ideas about children's bilingualism. The practical significance is determined by the possibility of using the data obtained in the development of teaching methods that contribute to the development of lexical productivity of bilingual schoolchildren.