Abstract:

In spite of many studies tackling different kinds of second language errors, there are fewer studies done on errors of preschool children and so few probing the sources of such errors. The aim of the present study is to investigate error production in Russian-Latvian bilingual children acquiring Latvian as the second language (L2) through formal L2 instruction, provide an evidence for the possible sources L2 errors could be ascribed to, and develop some recommendations for dealing with problematic aspects. The data of erroneous utterances of 5-6 year old (44 in total) were collected from the L2 classes in a pre-school educational institution with the Russian language of instruction (PEI), as well as gathered from the experimental study [1], [2] administered to determine the children’s L2 lexical and grammatical competence. Errors were identified, classified and tabulated. The types of errors were compared with the types of errors made by other senior preschoolers in the 2015 study. It has been concluded that it is difficult for children to use the proper forms of nouns, pronouns and verbs to make agree them in gender, number and inflexion. From the errors made in utterances four categories were formed – phonological errors, lexico-semantic errors, morpho-syntactic errors, and change of code errors. From the point of view of how the surface structures of L2 are deviated, it was found out that omission and misformation errors are typical for the early stages of L2 acquisition. Concerning the sources of errors the findings illustrate three categories of errors: interlingual (mother tongue (L1) influence), intralingual (L2-influence) and mutual (both L1- and L2-influence). The results imply that children learning L2 use mother tongue knowledge (e.g., borrowing, coinage) to cope with difficulties. Erroneous production can be based on a variety of factors, such as, insufficient knowledge of words and language structures, as well as individual characteristics and learning context, which is not always authentic. In future, the process of teaching L2 in PEI should be more closely linked to the Latvian environment. It is recommended to raise children’s consciousness to those problematic areas that hinder communication.

Keywords:

Pre-school education, second language (L2-Latvian), formal L2 instruction, types of errors, sources of error, interlingual / intralingual errors.