| Abstrakt: | PhD thesis entitled Linguistic and communicative skills of Roma children. Multiculturalism and diglossia concerns the Roma ethnic minority, which came to the Polish lands in the 16th century and which, because of their lifestyle, culture and language, attracts attention of the majority societies to this day.
Assuming that language helps to interpret reality as well as it enables - especially young people - to experience the world, to get to know it, and finally to assimilate it to its own actions (Borowiec 2014), I decided to take up this subject with the focus on language and communication skills of children of the Roma ethnic minority.
The dissertation defines the factors that influence the learning of the general variation of Polish by Romani students and also it indicates situations that in a special way determine the process of getting to know, and later improving, the language of the majority. In addition, I examined the phenomenon of diglossia, which is a specific type of bilingualism that requires special attention in the discussion over Romani cultural and linguistic.
The work consists of two main parts: theoretical and research.
The theoretical part of the dissertation consists of two chapters which concern: history, migration and the contemporary situation of Romani families in relation to the dominant culture and socio-linguistic situation of the Roma; the latter sets a comprehensive context for the description of research and the analysis of results.
The issues raised in the analysis are primarily related to the language conditions of Romani children, because the Roma environment - depending on sociolinguistic and pragmatic conditions - uses the Romani language in a wider scope while Polish language is used only in official and general situations.
This is due to the process of learning particular languages – the Romani language at home and in the family environment, and Polish language in the organized way at school.
Such a situation is directly related to the phenomenon of primary socialization where “the individual learns the language and acquires knowledge, but most of all receives a basic axiological axiom, a network of values that shapes its personality, lifestyle, social patterns in the first stage of life, and finally specific cultural identity and attitude towards this identity" (Skudrzyk 2019, in print). It also refers to the secondary socialization, which is the entry of an individual into institutionalized life and official relations, and a transition from the private sphere to the public one that is connected with the process of developing an already acquired language as well as the creation and development of skills of operating "languages" that serve new specialized areas of life (Skudrzyk 2019, in print).
By reviewing the concepts of bilingualism and diglossia, the theoretical part of the thesis emphasizes the influence of the second language on the occurrence of specific linguistic phenomena in expressions of the Roma children.
The research part of the dissertation contains a description of tools used for the research, including the author's Test of language and communication skills, and the Visual Test Vocabulary - Understanding. In addition, the work presents the results of parallel studies on the language of children of the Roma ethnic minority, specifically their way of communicating. The material contains description and systematization of the most common innovations and deviations from the language norm occurring in the speech of Roma students.
The whole work is also guided by a secondary, though equally important, objective - a desire to make both the Roma and the Polish teachers aware of the great role of school, which creates the intellectual culture of the language community (Ożdżyński 1997). It should be remembered that "language skills depend on life experience, mental maturity, internal culture and mental development. It is a development process and you have to work on it throughout your life. At school, we should try to create a solid foundation for its further development and improvement" (Maleszyk 2000: 69). Language education of children in their early school age, should serve" to learn about the ability to use language and learn how to use it efficiently in communication process with the environment to achieve a specific goal" (Maleszyk 2000: 65). The work deals with issues related to the Roma issue and its linguistic aspects, but it also describes the factors that govern the Roma child in the sphere of education, but also in the sphere of language and upbringing. Conclusions and research postulates related to these factors are placed at the end of the dissertation, which is also a summary of the considerations discussed in the entire work. |