Abstract:

It is indicated, that language acquisition in pre-school age has been a fascinating research object more than 200 years and majority of previous research has been based on the diary analysis, but more detailed and systematic analysis of child language acquisition has begun in the middle of 20th century by using tapes (Dabašinskiene, Kaledaite, 2012, 151). Language spoken by Latvian children for many years was investigated by Latvian professor Velta Rūķe-Draviņa residing in Sweden. In 1973 the first article was published under the editorship of USA psycholinguistics Ferguson and Slobin in the collection of scientific papers Studies of Child Language Development (Rūķe-Draviņa, 1973), but in 1982 was published the most famous monograph “No 5 mēnešiem līdz 5 gadiem” [From 5 months to 5 years] (Rūķe-Draviņa 1982), which is significant contribution in the research of Baltic languages and famous progress in promoting Latvian language and linguistics. Child language research in Latvia has been of particular interest for speech therapists and some linguists. In 2003 Dace Markus has written a monograph „Bērna valoda: no pirmā kliedziena līdz pasakai” [Child Language: From the First Cry to Fairy-tale] (Markus, 2003), and in 2007 a monograph “Bērns runā kultūras pasaulē” [A Child Speaks in the Culture World] ( Markus, 2007). Focused child language research began late. In 2007 officially was registered Child Language Research Centre in Riga Teacher Training and Educational Management Academy which was operating exactly for 10 years. During that time a group of researchers in 1 March, 2015 began language investigation of monolingual and bilingual children residing in Latvia. The most extensive project in this field is Norway grants research activity ”Latvian language in monolingual and bilingual acquisition: theories, tools and application” (LAMBA). The project is implemented by Riga Teacher Training and Education Management Academy in consortium with Agency of the University of Latvia „Institute of Mathematics and Computer Science University of Latvia”, University of Latvia, Faculty of Humanities,The Arctic University of Norway, Faculty of Humanities, Social Sciences and Education and University of Oslo, Department of Linguistics and Scandinavian Studies. Project research manager is professor Dace Markus.

As we have indicated before (Markus, Zirina, 2015), the weakest stage in Latvian language acquisition is pre-school age, and speech-therapists observe a rise of speech problems, too (Trinīte 2015, Tūbele, S. 2015). Project LAMBA comprises many tasks, the aim of this article is to introduce with the results of this project by reflecting only two research aspects – 1. As the developed methodology in sound pronunciation and implemented work in diagnosing of sound pronunciation of children aged 3 to 6 years provide possibility to evaluate also vocabulary, we will analyze changes in children vocabulary in sociolinguistic perspective, for example, how children vocabulary (denominations of birds, clothes etc.) changes from generation to generation due to changes in child’s linguistic environment which is influenced by changes in family traditions.2. We will make comparison in term’s application in Latvian children speech nowadays and 40 years ago.

Keywords:

Child language, language acquisition, international project.