TARTU ÜLIKOOLI ÜLIÕPILASTE KEELETEADLIKKUS NENDE KEELEKESKKONNA JA TEISTE KEELTEGA KOKKUPUUDETE NÄITEL
LANGUAGE AWARENESS AMONG THE STUDENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF TARTU IN RELATION TO THEIR LANGUAGE ENVIRONMENT AND CONTACTS WITH OTHER LANGUAGES

Summary/Abstract: In the course “Introduction to Linguistics” held at the University of Tartu, students write their linguistic autobiography as their exam paper (see e.g., Tragel, Komissarov 2022). The main task is to connect their personal language experiences with the knowledge gained from lectures and scientific sources. Among other tasks, students are asked to describe the language environment in which they acquired one or more languages and to reflect on whether they consider themselves monolingual or multilingual. In this article, we first analyze the students’ responses to these questions and then provide an overview of how they described their first contacts with other languages. In the linguistic autobiographies written between 2021 and 2024, 870 students described their language acquisition experiences with the help of various sources. More than 80% of the students considered themselves monolingual; the majority of them had Estonian as their first language. About 15% of them characterized their language environment as multilingual, with two students considering themselves even trilingual. The most frequently mentioned first languages were Estonian and Russian, but students also referred to other languages spoken in Europe (e.g., German, Finnish, Norwegian) and beyond (e.g., Japanese). The second topic we address is students’ (first) contacts with another language. The most frequently recalled experiences involved learning a language in an educational institution, followed by exposure to foreign-language films and series, and interactions with relatives who speak other languages. This outcome can be considered logical, as these are the types of contacts that tend to be longer-lasting. In addition, other points of contact such as travelling or living abroad, music, internet and media were mentioned.

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