Language Use Strategies of Children Brought up in Ethnically Mixed Families in Transcarpathia

Abstract

This research focuses on revealing the peculiarities of language use and language strategies of preschool children growing up in ethnically heterogeneous families. In other words, it concentrates on how children choose the language to communicate with their parents, how they behave with unknown adults in various communicative situations, to what extent their language use is influenced by the theme, the situation or other circumstances.  The study was built on the hypothesis that the language use strategy applied in families, as well as the choice of language(s) to be used with parents influence the children’s language use strategy that they apply in everyday situations not only with their parents, but also with unknown people (e.g. fieldworkers)