Typical Errors in Russian-Language Speech of Preschool Children in The Situation of Russian-Kyrgyz Bilingualism

What mechanisms are involved in the acquisition of the Russian language by bilingual children? This question is widely studied on the speech of bilinguals. Most of the research is based on the data of bilingual children’s speech acquiring Russian as a native language, however not the dominant one. In this study, we consider a situation in which Russian is one of the two official languages of the country and the most relevant (dominant) one for the child. The aim of the paper is to analyze speech features of preschool children permanently residing in Kyrgyzstan (Bishkek), to identify speech errors most typical of Russian-Kyrgyz bilingual children, to classify and compare them with those, characteristic of other groups of Russian learners. The material includes children’s oral picture-based narratives collected using the MAIN instrument. The narratives were audio recorded, then transcribed and analyzed. The main method of analysis was functional analysis of speech and language data. The analysis of the material shows that our informants used the same speech strategies as bilingual children acquiring Russian as a non-dominant language. The types of errors arising from the use of bilingual strategies are: non-distinguishing grammar gender due to the interference of the second language, use of original forms instead of oblique ones as well as a tendency to use “frozen” forms and constructions, both due to the strategy of simplification. Along with this, we have noted numerous innovations that are characteristic of Russian-speaking monolingual children of earlier age, as well as errors usual in children with atypical speech development. The errors were of similar nature, while the Russian input had different quantity and quality. This indicates the desire of both bilingual and monolingual children to simplify linguistic phenomena, which is probably an optimal cognitive strategy in the situation of parallel learning several languages.