Formation of the child's lexico-semantic speech system

The first thing to be said, characterizing the formation of the child's lexico-semantic system, is that the development of active speech is somewhat delayed compared to passive speech. In other words, children start to understand speech earlier, rather than acquire the ability to transmit information verbally.

The first words that the child utters are pseudowords that have arisen during the babble stage of vocal development. We have already shown the nature of their occurrence and functioning.

Involuntary doubling of the syllables like "ma-ma" and "pa-pa" conditionally-reflexively unite in the awakening consciousness of the child with the images of the parents. Adults will contribute to this: they often repeat these syllables, biologically reinforcing weak connections in the child (weasel, feeding). Even when the child is already initiative to say “mom”, “dad”, “woman”, “uncle” and smile in response to a recognizable face and voice, these are not yet formed words.

In addition to the words of babble of origin, the baby’s vocabulary includes sound- picking elements , which are sometimes called “nanny language”: “ woof-woof ” - dog, “ bi-bi ” - machine, “ boo-boo ” - fell, “ mnyam-mshsh ” - eat, etc. These words, as shown by the studies of the well-known domestic specialist in children's speech, A. M. Shakhnarovich, reflect the fundamental property of the first names - the desire to bring the sound form closer to the designated object or phenomenon. In the word, the little child seeks a literal reflection of reality. Therefore, in his nominations he unconsciously uses the laws of phonosemantics, which we have already discussed in the first chapter. Sound words appear in the speech of children somewhere after a year (for girls, as a rule, earlier, for boys, usually, later). By their nature, these words are divided into onomatopoeia and sound gestures.

Onomatopoeia - words, the sound envelopes of which in one degree or another resemble the objects or phenomena called: woof-woof (dog), mu-mu (cow), qua-kwa (frog), bi-bi (machine).

Sound gestures (figurative words) - designate actions. Here the form of the word is associated with the meaning more difficult. In their function, these words resemble (and often accompany) gestures (hence the name is a sound gesture); fyut, hedgehog, boo, bang, tsap-zarap, chiki etc.

Sound elements help the child to move to word signs, the form of which, as a rule, is not directly connected with meaning. However, their fate in the further speech formation is different: if onomatopoeia will leave the children's vocabulary, completely replaced by the words of an adult language, the sound gestures from speech do not disappear. They will move to the periphery of speech use and will be used in oral everyday communication to enhance visual expressiveness.

the story. This can be confirmed by the conversational speech of adolescents (at least in the stories about films). An interesting property of sound gestures is the ability to acquire grammatical form, to put on morphological clothes (bang, bang, trus, crack, bang, slam, etc.).

In addition to sound-visual elements, every child in childhood has a whole set of quasi-words, that is, “as if words”, the sound composition of which is motivated by random consonances “reinforced from the outside” in a given meaning. This happens if a child does not know how to pronounce the word he needs, but with a gesture points to some object, utters a certain sound combination, and adults close to the child, repeating this quasi word, give the child the corresponding object - they agree to the new (non-standard) name . NI Zhinkin once shared memories of such a set of words that functioned in his family and after all the children became adults and even the elderly. A part of this set is familiar to many, if not all: “bloop” (“paw” of “light bulb”) as a proper name; “Kut” - “food” (probably from “eat”); "dark" - "that", "there", "from there"; "byce" - "cat" (probably from "scampering"), but also "puppy" and in general "shaggy animal", etc.

The growth of the active dictionary is observed from the second year of a child’s life. If one-year-old children have 9 words, one and a half years - 39, then by 2 years the dictionary reaches 300, and 4 - almost 2000 words (according to E. A. Arkin). However, the development of the dictionary is expressed not only in increasing its volume. In the early stages of mastering a language, the word is woven into a situation; it, as we have said, is associated with gesture, facial expression, intonation, and only in these conditions acquires a substantive relation. For a long time, the word retains a strong connection with the practical activities of the child and carries a diffuse, expansive meaning. Thus, the word tpru in a baby at the beginning of the second year of life means both a horse and a cart, and the process of movement of a cart drawn by a horse. Zvukokopleks gav-gav - this is a dog, and a dog barking, and a danger of being bitten, etc. Only in the subsequent stages of a child’s development do his words acquire stable connections with specific objects of reality.

The meanings that the baby puts into his first tokens develop simultaneously with the development of his thinking. Associating a word with an object or phenomenon, the child at first cannot

highlight the essential features of the designated concept. In the case when an adult asks a child to “bring a bird”, the child without hesitation brings both a toy bird and a porcelain ball with a sharp protrusion resembling a bird's nose. If at first the word “gav-gav” means in the mind of a baby one dog (and this one) that was accidentally seen on the street, then soon the child starts to call all dogs, cats, all fluffy objects: toys, pieces of wool, etc.

Actions with objects contribute to the formation in the child's mind of the generalizing function of the word . From a concretely-effective child moves to concrete-figurative thinking. Along with this, he comprehends the generalizing significance of various denominations. For example, the baby first saw the Christmas tree. He feels its resinous smell, pricking her with needles, etc. At first, the tree is the designation of only this one object, which is an attribute of a merry holiday. Gradually, the child becomes acquainted with other Christmas trees: small and large, toy and natural, Christmas trees in the forest, etc. - all these objects are called in one word - Christmas tree. The word begins to take on an ever wider meaning. So the child rises to a new level of generalization.

But at one point, he recognizes the word "tree", the meaning of which is even more broadly: it means all the trees, and all the oaks, and all the birches, etc. The word in the child's mind acquires another level of abstraction. The word "plant" - has an even more generalized meaning; his child will find out much later. This is the most difficult speech-thinking operation for a child. Even using words with a broad generalized meaning (animals, birds, plants, things, fruits), the child often puts in them his own rather specific meaning (animals — tigers, wolves and bears; plants — flowers and grass, etc.).

The sequence that determines the mastery of the degrees of generalization may be different. So, for example, at first the child recognizes the word “bird”, which he uses to refer to all birds (and relatively large insects - butterflies, dragonflies, etc.). Then he learns that every breed of bird has its own name - a sparrow, titmouse, eagle, kite. Along with this, there is an awareness of the generalizing meaning of the word bird, etc.

Great difficulties await the child in mastering the so-called relative words, which do not carry a simple real meaning. As an example, take the lexeme "brother". The meaning of this word is revealed in relation to someone (a brother can only be someone’s brother). A small child can use this token in his speech. However, he understands and applies it differently than an adult or a schoolboy. If the child is asked, “Do you have a brother?”, He can answer in the negative. However, if he points to his brother, the child will say: "This is Kolya." At the next stage in the development of thinking and speaking, the same question (“Do you have a brother?”) Will he respond positively (“This is Kolya”). But if you ask a preschooler: “Does Kolya have a brother?” He will answer: “No, Kolya does not have a brother”. The child himself still does not consider Kolya's brother, because the word “brother" has not relative but absolute meaning for him. In order to master the relative meaning of the words, the child must rise to a sufficiently high level of generalization in his speech-thinking development.

An even higher level of abstraction involves the assimilation of phrases with relative meaning. The child freely learns the phrase "burning house", "red pencil", but if you say "brother of the father" or "father of the brother", then the general meaning of such a phrase does not follow from the sum of the specific meanings of the words included in it. Subject relatedness here does not coincide with the meaning, but is derived from the relationship of two words with each other. These values ​​are particularly difficult for the child and are absorbed already at school age.

The given examples convince us that the meaning of the word in the child’s speech develops. The formation of a lexico-semantic system goes along with the development of consciousness, which changes its semantic and systemic structure. According to A. R. Luria, “at an early stage in the development of a child, consciousness is affective in character, it affectively reflects the world. At the next stage, consciousness begins to have a visual-effective character, and the words through which the world is reflected excite a system of practical visual-effective connections. Only at the final stage does consciousness acquire a verbal-logical character, different from the preceding stages both in its semantic and in its systemic structure,

although at this stage the connections characterizing the previous stages of development remain in a hidden form ”.

Special mention should be made of the child’s mastery of the figurative meaning of words. We remember that in Russian (as in any other language) words can have several meanings. In this case, the transfer of the name from one subject to another can be by contiguity and similarity. The transfer of names on the similarity is called metaphorical. On its basis, a special metaphorical layer of language is formed in the language, which influences the formation of a national language picture of the world. Language metaphors can be erased (the day rises, the lesson goes) and bright (pink dreams, heart fire, forest of hands),

The use of metaphors in speech is a complex set of speech-thinking operations that involve the identification of similarities between signs of two objects or phenomena and the reduction of these signs into a single meaning. The goal of the metaphor is to create a third, qualitatively new, on the basis of the collision of two ideas. The world of metaphor is the world of figurative thinking. Throughout early childhood (up to 3 years) and for quite a long time after the basis of the child’s thinking, visual-effective thinking acts. Therefore, in this period of his speech development, the child is not able to understand even the erased metaphors that adults use without realizing the presence of transference in them. “Why say it rains? Does he have legs? ”,“ How did this morning come? To whom? ”, Questions of this type can be asked by two or three year old children.

Even preschoolers have bright metaphors even more bewilderment. As N. M. Yuryev, a well-known specialist in children's speech, writes, in the speech of preschoolers one can notice “a“ children's revolt ”against the use of metaphorical meanings”, which “is rooted in the phenomenon of interrelation and inseparability of thinking from practical action”. Older preschoolers (6 years old) can reconstruct two subjects of a metaphorical phrase (an analysis operation), but are not able to reveal a common symptom that “tightens” a metaphor.

A storm howls - “A cow howls, not a storm. Dogs howl. Birch trees whispered - “They have no mouth, they only swayed”.

The “alien” sign is revealed, but is assessed as unnecessary, incompatible with the designated object. Our observations

“It is shown that in the perception of bright metaphors certain difficulties are experienced even by younger students.

The same peculiarities of the child’s thinking do not allow him to adequately pester the phraseological turns of the Russian language. Hearing them in the speech of adults, the child either tries to interpret them literally ("Why fool around, he will be dirty"), or try to replace incomprehensible words with clear words (instead of "upside down" - "upside down").

One of the signs of mental retardation (within the framework of defectology) is the lack of knowledge of the meanings of words and idiomatic expressions, the meanings of proverbs and sayings. The same feature is characteristic of some forms of temporary damage to the second signaling system (aphasia).