Beszédészlelési jellemzők egynyelvű és kétnyelvű gyermekeknél

Balázs, Boróka (2026) Beszédészlelési jellemzők egynyelvű és kétnyelvű gyermekeknél. ALKALMAZOTT NYELVTUDOMÁNY, 26 (1). pp. 1-21. ISSN 1587-1061

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Abstract

Proper functioning of the speech processing mechanism is important for both a properly developed L1 and L2 speech comprehension. Being different types of languages, there are enormous phonetic, morpho-syntactic, and pragmatic differences between Romanian and Hungarian languages. The present research is related to phonological awareness, which is an important prerequisite for literacy acquisition, as it plays a role in the proper development of vocabulary and also writing and reading skills. Its development takes place in the process of mother tongue acquisition and requires the proper acquisition and functioning of the native language phonological perception and perception mechanism. It depends on the properties of the speech perception mechanism, which plays a role not only in native language acquisition, but also in foreign language learning. According to Second Language Acquisition research, as learners acquire second languages, already knowing a native language plays a role in second language acquisition. Brown (1997) considers that to successfully acquire an L2, the learner must be able to discriminate sounds perceptually. She proposes the theory of phonological interference, according to which, in language learning research, it is important to examine the interrelation between speech perception, phonological acquisition, and the native phonological system. Therefore, starting from the literature finding that the smooth functioning of the so-called speech perception mechanism developed during mother tongue acquisition greatly helps the acquisition of the second language, we planned research in which we specifically examined different functions of the speech processing process in native and foreign languages. Our aim was to investigate different levels of speech perception in L1 compared to L2, the acousticphonetic, the morpho-phonological, and serial perception. We examined Hungarian–Romanian bilingual children’s phonetic and phonological perception performance compared to that of age-matched monolingual Romanian children. 10-11-year-old Hungarian- and Romanian-speaking children from urban and rural educational units participated in this research. Experimental groups were formed according to mother tongue and place of residence. In this research, Hungarian and Romanian children from Romania. Romanian children were monolingual, while the Hungarian children were bilinguals who learned Romanian at school. We examined 119 4th graders aged 10-11 years. 67 were Hungarian bilinguals, 34 attending urban, and 33 rural schools. 52 were Romanian children, 27 from urban and 25 from rural schools. We recorded 186 tests, 67 in Hungarian and 119 in Romanian. During the research, we administered three tests of the GMP-diagnostics (GMP2, GMP5, and GMP10), respectively, the adapted version of these tests to the Romanian language. The first test measured participants’ acoustic-phonetic perception by repeating 10 noisy sentences, while the second test measured their non-word identification abilities based on phonetic and serial perception. In the third test, the participants had to repeat phonologically complex sentences. We hypothesized poorer results in bilinguals in all measured tasks. Nevertheless, compared to monolinguals’ performance, Hungarian-speaking children living in a minority did not show major differences in phonetic serial speech perception, thus, our hypothesis in this respect was not confirmed. However, in acoustic-phonetic and in phonological perception, their results were significantly poorer, confirming our hypothesis. In addition, the rural Hungarian-speaking participants showed the poorest results in all the examined L2 speech perception processes. These findings show that the perceptual performance of the examined children living in a homogeneous mother tongue environment weakens with the increase of the complexity of perceptual units in L2. This can be explained by their greater isolation from the L2, as they encounter Romanian mostly at school. During the research, place of residence proved to be an influential factor in foreign language learning, moreover, the high level of functioning of serial perception suggests that the examined Hungarian children are in the process of becoming bilingual, even if in one of its quite rudimentary, yet essential stages of language acquisition. The results might prompt teachers to rethink their language teaching method, and lay greater emphasis on developing speech perception skills, especially in kindergarten and early school age, pay attention to perceptual testing also in children with intact speech and typical development, or improve speech perception skills purposefully, if necessary.

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