The role of a family in language acquisition of emigrated children

Abstract

The experience of studying the role of a family in language acquisition through the example of studying 60 dyads of junior preschoolers and their mothers who were German Kazakhstanis emigrated to Germany is presented. It was supposed that both German and Russian languages acquisition in junior preschoolers in situation of living in receiving country was due to development of child-parental generality of a collective subject type that realized core mediator and compensatory functions in relation to various socio-cultural influences on language development in children. The methodological complex allowing to investigate features of child-parental generality as a collective subject is proposed. It is shown that high level of both languages acquisition is characteristic for children from families in which: parents are guided by bicultural-educational motives; interconnection / interdependence between a parent and a child and a parent’s reflective relation to joint activity are observed; high moral responsibility is a leading component in the structure of parental relation.