WHY STANDARD SPOKEN LANGUAGE OF STUDENTS GETS POORER? Cover Image

WHY STANDARD SPOKEN LANGUAGE OF STUDENTS GETS POORER?
WHY STANDARD SPOKEN LANGUAGE OF STUDENTS GETS POORER?

Author(s): Nijolė Petniūnienė, Regina Bartkevičienė
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies
Published by: Kauno Technologijos Universitetas
Keywords: Globalization; language politics; national consciousness; value orientation; language varieties; standard spoken language; lexis; slang; dialect; synonym; barbarism; motivation.

Summary/Abstract: The article is aimed at finding out how the standard spoken language of students is affected by the change of values which is characteristic for the end of 20th century and beginning of the 21st century. The article is based on the research carried out at the beginning of 2010. A part of research data is compared with the research data of 1998. Respondents of both researches are students of the Lithuanian University of Agriculture. Examples of their language will be used to find out if the language of children from countryside - students of countryside-related university – is still vivid, deep, voluble. The hypothesis that the standard spoken language of students gets poorer is raised. This hypothesis is proved by the researches. According to the obtained data, practical function of language gets more important and suppresses the power of aesthetic language. This results in poor vocabulary, lower amount of means of expression, more patterns. The goal of the article is to find out the reasons why standard spoken language of students of the Lithuanian University of Agriculture gets poorer and what are the possibilities to recover the image of this language and to improve its status. Vocabulary resources are investigated deeper. Based on survey data, we have selected and discussed the following main reasons of poorer standard spoken language of students: national language, as well as its varieties, is not a characteristic of professional qualification to employers; progress of opposition between the English and Lithuanian languages, which is a result of globalization, is disadvantageous for the Lithuanian language; influence of the Russian language, especially in spoken language; standardized teaching process.

  • Issue Year: 2010
  • Issue No: 04
  • Page Range: 7-13
  • Page Count: 7
  • Language: English