The Language of Yugoslav Children Living in Sweden: (Preliminary Results of a Sociolinguistic Study)

Daju se preliminarni rezultati sociolingvističkog anketiranja pedesetero djece jugoslavenskog porijekla, govornika hrvatskoga ili srpskoga, u dobi od 10 do 18 godina, koja žive i školuju se u Lundu i Malmöu. Svrha anketiranja jest snimiti jezičnu kompetenciju na materinskom jeziku (pismenim putem), identificirati jezične probleme djece koja žive izvan domovine i istražiti im uzroke. Uz lingvističke metode prikupljanja podataka (npr. test poznavanja L1 na lingvističkim razinama fonologije, morfologije, sintakse, leksika i ortografije, te slobodni sastav), upotrijebljeni su sociološki (sociolingvistički) parametri kako bi se ispitalo (ili ponovno potvrdilo) koji to faktori, jezični i izvanjezični, djeluju na očuvanje, odnosno raslojavanje i zaboravljanje materinskog jezika. Preliminarni rezultati već omogućuju neke zaključke, od kojih iznosimo: 1) Sva su djeca savladala švedski jezik, pohađaju redovite švedske škole i na njima postižu primjeran uspjeh; 2) komunikacijski doseg materinskog jezika veoma je skroman, ograničenost upotrebe L1 samo na neke pojedince (roditelje) i samo na neke situacije (dom) svjedoče o njegovoj marginalizaciji; 3) prepoznavanje jezičnih normi materinskog jezika ima prevagu nad upotrebom tih znanja u pismenom izražavanju. Pismeno je izražavanje na materinskom jeziku uglavnom siromašno, s malim fondom korištenih riječi i visokim stupnjem stereotipnosti rečenične konstrukcije.Presented are some preliminary results of a socio-linguistic survey performed on fifty children of Yugoslav origin, speakers of the Croato-Serbian language aged 10–18 years, who have been living and receiving their education in Lund and Malmö. The purpose of the survey was to examine the children\u27s competence in their mother tongue (in writing), to identify the language problems of the children living outside their home country, and to ascertain their causes. In addition to some linguistic methods of data collection (i.e. testing L1 at the levels of phonology, morphology, syntax, vocabulary, and orthography, and a composition), some sociological (socio-linguistic) parameters were also applied to ascertain (or, to reconfirm) which factors, linguistic and extralinguistic, affect the maintenance or the loss of a mother tongue. The preliminary results obtained already make some conclusions possible, i.e. (1) all the children have mastered the Swedish language; they attend Swedish school regularly and are very successful pupils; (2) the communication range of their mother tongue is poor and their L1 usage restricted to a few individuals (i.e. the parents) and a few situations (i.e. in the home circle), reflecting its marginality; (3) the children\u27s recognition of the language norms of the mother tongue prevails over an active application of their skills in writing. Their mother-tongue writing skill is, on average, deficient, with a very limited vocabulary and a highly stereotypic sentence structure