A Contribution to Understanding Bilingualism

U radu je analiziran oblik dvojezičnosti koji nastaje u uvjetima ekonomskih migracija i tipičan je upravo za migrantsku djecu. Kako se ova djeca ne školuju na materinskom jeziku i žive u stranoj sredini, njihov je jezični razvitak veoma specifičan. U uvodu rada iznose se Cumminsove hipoteze kao teorijski okvir za razumijevanje lingvističkih i kognitivnih teškoća, odnosno prednosti kod dvojezičnoga govornog razvoja. Uzorak ispitanika sastavljen je od tridesetoro djece koja od ranog djetinjstva neprestano žive u SR Njemačkoj te paralelno usvajaju dva jezika: materinski, hrvatski ili eventualno srpski, i jezik šire društvene zajednice: njemački. Svi su oni bili redoviti polaznici trećeg razreda jugoslavenske dopunske škole u Mannheimu i trećeg razreda redovite njemačke osnovne škole. U trenutku ispitivanja bilo im je od 9 do 10 godina. Ispitanici su na materinski jezik trebali s njemačkog pismeno prevesti kratku priču. Analiziran je pristup zadatku te greške u pisanju. Djeca su (uz tri iznimke) zadatku pristupila tako što su prevodila doslovno, čak preslikavajući red riječi iz njemačkoga u hrvatski. Iako su redovito pohađala dopunsku nastavu na materinskom jeziku, rezultati su pisanja na materinskom jeziku porazni. Najbrojnije su greške koje se ne mogu svrstati u greške interferencije, već ukazuju na nisku razinu jezičnog znanja, na manjak u rječniku, ali i u sposobnosti gramatičkog oblikovanja poruke.The paper analyses a form of bilingualism which appears in conditions of economic migration and is typical for migrant children. Since these children are not schooled in the mother tongue and live in foreign surroundings, their linguistic development is very specific. In the introductory part of the paper the author reviews Cummins\u27 hypothesis as a theoretic framework for understanding linguistic and cognitive difficulties, or else advantages in a bilingual educational development. The survey sample was composed of thirty children who had lived from their early childhood in the FR of Germany and had acquired parallely two languages: their mother tongue (Croatian or else Serbian), and the language of the wider social community (German). All the children surveyed were pupils of the third grade in the Yugoslav supplementary school in Mannheim and the third grade of regular German elementary school. At the time of the survey they were 9 to 10 years of age. The examinees had to translate into their mother tongue a short text written in German. The approach to the task and the writing errors were examined. The children (with three exceptions) approached the task in such a way that they literally translated into Croatian, even copying the word order. Although they had regularly frequented supplementary classes in the mother tongue, the results of the writing were crushing. Most common were errors which could not be listed as interference errors, but which rather indicate a low level of linguistic knowledge, a lack of vocabulary, and also a lack of the capability to grammatically formulate messages