Kindergarten and preschool age children vocabulary diversity

Usvajanje jezika počinje još i prije nego smo se rodili. Slušajući jezik i govor u majčinoj utrobi, dakako na nesvjesnoj razini, stvara se podloga za sve kasnije učenje i usvajanje jezika. Razvoj govora se odvija spontano, odnosno motivirano što lakšom komunikacijom s okolinom. Dakle, roditelji su nam primarni govorni uzor, i taj govor će nam kroz život uvijek biti najbliži. Utjecajem okoline i polaskom u odgojno obrazovnu instituciju naš govor se mijenja, od učenja novih riječi do korištenja drugačijih naglasaka. Istraživanjem za ovaj završni rad htjela sam ispitati rječničku raznolikost kod djece vrtićke i predškolske dobi, odnosno cilj je bio vidjeti koliki postotak djece se koristi standardnim književnim izrazima, a koliki postotak njih koristi dijalektalne izraze u svom govoru s obzirom na njihovu dob i spol. Istraživanje je provedeno pomoću kartice na kojoj je bio niz od 12 predmeta s kojima se djeca svakodnevno susreću, te je njihov zadatak bio prepoznati i imenovati ponuđene slike bez ikakve pripreme ili dodatnih poticaja. Bili su prikazani sljedeći pojmovi: rajčica, lonac, tanjur, podbradak, zaimača, slavina, tenisica, ručnik, vezice, pas, stube i remen. Prema dobivenim podacima mogu zaključiti da djeca u dosta velikom broju koriste zavičajne izraze. Što se tiče dobi, nema značajnije razlike u odgovorima, odnosno podjednako raspoznaju predmete, dok gledajući po odrednici spola jedinu konkretniju razliku vidimo kod riječi pas koju djevojčice izgovaraju točnije. Osvrtom na istraživanje mogu zaključiti da je kod djece vrtićke i predškolske dobi još uvijek dosta velika prisutnost zavičajnog govora, ali da su ujedno zastupljeni i standardni izrazi, što je dokaz višejezičnosti kod hrvatskih govornika.The adoption of language begins even before we are born. Listening to language and speech in mothers womb creates the base for all subsequent leaning and acquisition of language, on unconscious level, of course. Speech development takes place spontaneously, that is, it is motivated by the easiest possible way of communication with the environment. Therefore, our primary speech role models are our parents and throughout life, that speech will always be the closest to us. Our speech changes with the influence of the environment and setting out to educational institution, from learning new words to using different accents. Through research for this final paper, I wanted to examine vocabular diversity in children of kindergarten and preschool age, that is, the goal was to see what percentage of children uses standard literary expressions, and what percentage uses dialect expressions, considering their age and gender. The research was carried out by using a card that contained 12 items that children encounter in their everyday life, and their task was to identify and name each item without previous preparation or additional encouragement. The items that were presented were: tomato, pot, plate, bib, ladle, faucet, sneaker, towel, laces, dog, stairs and belt. According to the obtained data, I can conclude that a big number of children uses their native expressions. As for age, there is no significant difference in the answers, that is, they recognize objects equally, while looking by gender we can see the only one concrete difference in the pronunciation of the word dog, which girls pronounce more accurately. Looking at the research, I can conclude that the native language is still quite present among children of kindergarten and preschool age, but standard expressions are also present, which is the proof of multilingualism among Croatian speakers