Dzimtās un otrās latviešu valodas prasme pirmsskolas vecumā: vārdu krājums

The study has been carried out within the subproject No. 8 “Latvian Language Acquisition” framework of the National Research Programme “Latvian Language”. The aim of this article is to analyse the results of Latvian language skills of the minority pre-school children who attend pre-school groups with Russian as the everyday communication language, the minority pre-school children who attend pre-school groups with Latvian as the everyday language, and Latvian pre-school children. The recordings of children’s speeches were made in Kurzeme pre-school education institu-tions during May and June of 2019 and 2020 before the children started to attend primary school. The findings obtained in this study are illustrated only with the results in vocabulary acquisition, taking into account that one of the most important tasks in learning a second language at pre-school age is vocabulary acquisition. Creating a conviction for beginning a new activity – communication in another language, not in the mother tongue, is of linguodidactic and psychological importance. Knowledge of a larger or smaller vocabulary is the basis for starting to speak a language. The study uses a picture-based conversation, with a maximum of 20 minutes spent in conversation with each child. The criteria proposed by Ingēra Tomme-Jukēvica (Tomme-Jukēvica 2018) have been used; they indicate the level of language skills (0 (insufficient level) – not showing or showing very minimal (<5%) knowledge and skills; 1 (low level) shows minimal (<25%) knowledge and skills; 2 (medium level) shows mediocre (>50%) knowledge and skills; 3 (high level) shows good (>75%) knowledge and skills. The article points out that each individual’s worldview forms with the mother tongue’s help and compares some striking linguistic lexical differences, paying particular attention to the comparative examples of Latvian and Russian languages. By referring to Latvian and Russian examples, the authors demonstrate that it may be necessary to divide the action expressed in one word in one language by creating a word group or even a phrase in another language. The Latvian language proficiency researchers should be aware that children with different native languages (Latvian or Russian) may have different worldviews, demanding additional actions of thinking and speech from the second language speaker. Therefore, second language acquisition at the pre-school age is an essential prerequisite for continuing bilingual studies or studies in Latvian at school. Observations made during the research in the National Research Programme testify that in pre-school education institutions, the process of education usually is interesting for children. However, as the analysis of the recordings of children’s speech in Kurzeme reveals, in those minority children groups where the everyday communication language is Russian and where Latvian is usually taught only two times a week for approximately 30–45 minutes, and also where the visual information in Russian dominates, insufficient skills of the state language and substantially worse experience of the Latvian language use have been observed. At the same time, it should be acknowledged that those minority children who attend groups with Latvian as the everyday language have learned Latvian sufficiently to continue education in the first grade of primary school. These children have not lost their native language, usually Russian, which they use actively at home. Therefore, they have the basis for several language acquisitions when they start learning at school. Learning Latvian as the second language requires optimization of this process in the pre-school education institutions, ensuring regular communication with the child in Latvian, and the use of appropriate methodologies in teaching activities. In this context, not only teaching and practicing Latvian lessons are particularly important, but also communication with other children and the possibility of talking Latvian with the staff of the pre-school educational institution. In accordance with earlier conclusions of linguists, the study conducted in Kurzeme shows that in the speech of pre-school children, independently of their mother tongue, nouns are dominating, but minority children attending groups with the dominant Russian language mostly use nouns in the nominative. Because of the task of preparing minority children for bilingual studies or studies in Latvian in the first grade, the authors of the article recommend ensuring bilingual communication on a day-to-day basis in minority groups of pre-school children.

Valodniecības pētījumu nozīmīgums logopēda profesijā

The study has been carried out within the subproject No. 8 “Latvian Language Acquisition” framework of the National Research Programme “Latvian Language”. The aim of the study is to research and describe the importance of linguistic research results to speech and language therapists. In the course of studying children’s speech in 2019 and 2020 in different cities of Latvia, it was found that children of pre-school age, regardless of their mother tongue, have widespread sound pronunciation disorders, e.g. elision of the sound r (bukāns, tīs) or substitution of the sound with another sound (klāsas, klūze, gjiež). However, minority children speaking in Latvian have additional difficulties pronouncing the sounds that are not present in their native Russian. Frequently, long vowels are pronounced as short vowels, e.g. when asked what it is/they are? (ābols, krūze, šķēres, grāmata, burkāns) and what it does/they do? (ēd) the children answer abols, kruze, šķeres, gramata, burkans ed, etc., because, in their native language, there are only short vowels. The substitution of broad vowel e [ae] with the narrow e, e.g. ed [ed], is caused by the same reason. Pronunciation of the diphthong o [uo] as a long vowel has also been observed, e.g. pōgas (pogas). When children are not sure of the proper ending of a word, they do not pronounce it, e.g. abol (ābols), putn (putni), žiraf (žirafe). The speech studies of minority children also showed a large number of grammatical and vocabulary errors, which affect the development of their language and may, in the future, lead to difficulties and disruptions in the learning of the language, which, in more severe cases, lead to a disruption in the learning of subjects at school. The study results showed that in Latvia, the bilingualism of the minority pre-school children is relative. In general, only children whose families are bilingual or who attend the pre-school education groups with Latvian as the communication language speak well both their native language and Latvian. Observations during the National Research Programme show that speech therapists increasingly face the demand for minority children to learn Latvian as the second language; however, speech therapists do not have information about implementing corrections in such cases. Therefore, research on the characteristics of bilingualism and results of language studies are useful for speech therapists in diagnosing, correcting, and preventing disorders. The speaking and language skills of many minority children of pre-school age are still insufficient to continue successful learning in Latvian or bilingually. There are many phonetical and grammatical errors in their speech, while a poor vocabulary interferes with expressing thoughts and engaging in conversation. Both teachers and speech therapists need modern theoretical and practical training to raise their qualifications and implement a common understanding of the problems. The lessons learned from this project are incorporated into the bachelor’s theses of Marta Jakušina, Valērija Krasovska, and Alise Valtere.

Latviešu mācībvalodas un mazākumtautību izglītības iestāžu vidusskolēnu latviešu valodas kompetence: salīdzinošais pētījums

The topicality of the research is related to the State policy of education to strengthen the role of the Latvian language as a national language by enabling the integration of society and intercultural dialogue. The aim of the study is to analyse the level of language competence of Grade 12 students of Latvian language of instruction in comparison with minority schools. The results of the empirical research are obtained from 468 texts written by students with the Latvian language of instruction and minority secondary education institutions in different regions of Latvia. The texts used are systematised in the balanced corpus of modern Latvian language. The research was conducted within the framework of the National Research Programme “Latvian Language” (No VPP-IZM-2018/2-0002). An analysis of essays’ content, sentences, contextual binding of their sets, language style, orthography, and punctuation has been carried out. Data from the study shows no significant difference between the skills of Latvian language of instruction and minority secondary education institutions’ students to form text according to the topic. Approximately 57% of respondents follow the proportions among different parts of the text, the binding of sentences to create the text as a whole, the principle of completion of the text; 29% of respondents use language features exactly according to language style. The most common language errors in the self-created texts of students from both types of schools are punctuation errors, the spelling of short and long vowels and consonants in words, words written together and separately, and the spelling of foreign names. Students from minority secondary schools make simpler sentence syntactic structures and by 9% fewer punctuation errors. Still, they have 32% more errors in spelling words and the use of words in sentences. In the didactic of the Latvian language, we have to think more about learning of language based on discourse, in which the text has a social context at first, only then a linguistic form. We have to develop a sense of language for students, improve a methodology for learning linguistics terminology, cooperation between teachers of all subjects, and the attitude of each teacher to their own language and speech in the learning and teaching process.

A note on native and non-native accentedness judgements

Talkers in a second language can readily be identified as speaking with a foreign accent, characterized by both specific and more general deviations from the phonology of a target language. In this study, we examined the identifications of native and non-native talkers by listeners with various amounts of knowledge of the target language. Native and non-native speakers of Latvian provided materials. All the non-native talkers spoke Russian as their first language and were long-term residents of Latvia. We used Latvian as the target second language and speech samples produced either by native speakers or by ethnic Russians for whom Latvian is a second language. The text for reading was identical, talkers could not be distinguished by lexical selection or morphological and syntactic errors. A listening test, consisting of identical sentences excerpted from a short recorded passage, was presented to three groups of listeners: native speakers of Latvian, Russians for whom Latvian was a second language, and Americans with no knowledge of either language. The listeners were asked to judge whether each utterance was produced by a native or non-native talker and then evaluate the talker’s proficiency. The Latvians identified the non-native talkers accurately (88%) while the Russians were somewhat less accurate (79%). The American listeners were least accurate but still identified the non-native talkers at above chance levels, 63%. Sentence durations correlated with the judgments provided by the American listeners but not with the judgments provided by the native or L2 listeners. Interesting that there were no significant correlations between utterance duration and correct identification for Russian and Latvian listeners. Because these listeners knew the target language, they had many sources of information available to them rather than a relatively obvious characteristic such as fluency or speech rate. Research for portions of this project was provided by a grant from the International Research & Exchanges Board, with funds provided by the US Department of State (Title VII program) and the National Endowment for the Humanities. The final conclusions of the study, organisation and publication of the article were supported by the National Research Programme “Latvian language” Nr. VPP-IZM-2018/2-0002.

Latviešu valodas apguve. XIII Starptautiskais baltistu kongress : rakstu krājums

The articles in the internationally and anonymously reviewed collection are based on the papers developed within the subproject No. 8 “Latvian Language Acquisition” framework of the National Research Programme “Latvian Language” Nr. VPP-IZM-2018/2-0002 and presented at the sections of the XIII International Congress of Balticists. The collection is prepared and published with financial support of the National Research Programme “Latvian Language”.

Let us sow the seed of awareness: ideals vs ideologies

This contingent historical period is characterized by a strong dichotomy: the difficulty of programming and planning the future due to the immanence of the pandemic crisis and the impetus towards innovation in the political world that offers effective instruments to think about production sectors in an eco-oriented key. We will ask Filippo de Rossi, responsible for editing the National Research Programme – NRP 2021-2027 of the Ministry of University and Research about his point of view, his recipe, his secret ingredient so that the world of Research in the construction sector can make a real ecological transition thanks to which an effective strategy for the development of new paradigms, a multi-perspective of Research can be implemented.

Transition to a Sustainable and Healthy Agri-Food System

This chapter highlights various challenges and developments related to our current global food production and consumption systems, followed by a number of research and innovation activities that actively support a transition to a sustainable, healthy, and just agri-food system. The first section identifies several important trends that may either limit, support, or influence such a transition (Sect. 6.1). Following this, I will provide an overview of several research and innovation activities that our research group is currently involved in, such as the Dutch national research programme (NWA) ‘Transition to a Sustainable Food System’ (Sect. 6.2), nature-inclusive and regenerative agriculture (Sect. 6.3), closing the gaps between citizens, farmers, and nature (Sect. 6.4), measuring sustainability and health aspects of our food supply chains (Sect. 6.5), and the South Holland Food Family, an open innovation and food transition network (Sect. 6.6). This last section also provides an example of TSEI-framework application to analyze institutional change during initiation, development, and implementation of the South Holland Food Family innovation network (Sect. 6.6).

Increasing the relevance of science for practice and practice for science: Quantitative empirical insights

We present results of a survey conducted with researchers and practitioners involved in a Swiss National Research Programme on steering energy consumption. We analyse what motivates practitioners and researchers to engage in a collaborative research project, their perception of the collaboration intensity in different project phases, and the extent to which the research project provided useful results for practitioners. Our analyses demonstrate that the intensity of collaboration is a key driver of successful collaboration as it fosters trust between researchers and practitioners. Thereby, it increases the usefulness of the research project for practitioners and their perceived contribution to the success of the research project. Research programmes should thus (1) foster trust through incentivising collaboration between research and practice; (2) facilitate the development of a shared understanding of researchers’ and practitioners’ respective roles; and (3) support the inclusion of practitioners in the project development phase through financial support during the proposal-writing phase.

Setting sail and returning home. Research voyaging in Aotearoa

We are drawn to this Talanoa in response to the call from Pacific Health Dialogue for frank and open discussion. Our contribution to the conversation is some reflections about our experience of academic health research as a collective of Māori and Pacific researchers trying to navigate within a large national research programme. Alongside this we will share the voyaging framework we developed to help locate ourselves as a collective, and articulate our needs and aspirations as early to mid-career researchers. Our collective met in the context of working with A Better Start – E tipu e rea, a National Science Challenge created by the New Zealand government.1 Better Start focuses on the health of children and young people across five key areas; healthy weight, resilient teens, successful literacy and learning, big data and Vision Mātauranga. Our team came together as collaborators within the Big Data theme, to explore the Integrated Data Infrastructure (IDI) as an area of possibility and challenge for both Māori and Pacific communities.