Aims and Objectives/Purpose/Research Questions: The research study presented in this paper aims to describe some aspects of the maintenance of Russian as a heritage language among bilingual/multilingual children in Saskatchewan, Canada. The study focuses on the relationship between parents’ language attitudes and children’s language exposure on the one hand and child language proficiency on the other hand. The research questions are as follows. What are the language attitudes of Russian-speaking parents in minority settings? Is there a connection between parents’ language attitudes and children’s language proficiency? What is the scope of Russian language exposure of bilingual/multilingual children within and outside of the family? Is there a connection between this exposure and children’s language proficiency? Design/Methodology/Approach: The study was conducted within a Variationist Sociolinguistics framework. The following methods were employed in the study: a questionnaire study of parents’ language attitudes and of language use within and outside the family; an assessment of children’s speech production based on narratives elicited from children with the help of pictures (language proficiency parameters). Data and Analysis: Thirty parents (aged 31–43) and children (aged 5–7) participated in the study. The questionnaire addressed to parents included 52 demographic and research questions. A statistical analysis of parents’ language attitudes and language use by parents and their children as measured against language proficiency parameters was conducted with the help of correlation analysis. Findings/Conclusions: Study results indicate that Russian-speaking parents in Saskatchewan are interested in passing Russian to their children. The study also suggests that language exposure parameters, as well as language attitudes held by parents, correlate with children’s heritage language fluency. Originality: The study indicates that even in environments unfavorable for heritage language maintenance, a child can still successfully acquire Russian as a heritage language. Significance/Implications: The study clarifies the set of parameters relevant for heritage language maintenance among bilingual/multilingual children. It also suggests the importance of bilingualism/multilingualism for some groups of the immigrant population in Canada.

The significance of this paper is in its contribution to the innovative and rapidly developing research area of Russian as a heritage language (RHL) around the world. The purpose of the reported study is to explore Russian vocabulary development by bi-/multilingual children acquiring Russian as a heritage language in Canada. The materials come from vocabulary development and non-canonical lexical forms (NCF, earlier known as errors) in the speech of 29 bi-/multilingual children (between the ages of 5 and 6) from immigrant families in Saskatchewan, Canada (RHL group) as well as of 13 monolinguals from Russia (MR group). The study employs a method of a comparative analysis of vocabulary in picture-prompted narratives by children from the above two groups. The results demonstrate that bi-/multilingual RHL speaking children produced significantly more lexical NCFs as compared to their monolingual peers (MR), whereas narrative length in words, speech rate in wpm and vocabulary size did not differ across the two groups. Most NCFs in the RHL sample related to the use of verbs, followed by NCFs in the use of nouns. Unlike the speech of MR speakers, RHL participants language use exhibits some slight impact of dialectal forms, a few borrowings from English and code-switches to English. The study has applications for the theory of bi-/multilingualism as well as for teaching RHL to children of immigrants in North American and other contexts.

This paper reports the results of a study investigating the Russian-language proficiency of bi/multilingual (Russian-English [+additional language]) children in Saskatchewan, Canada, as compared to monolingual children in Russia. Very few studies of Russo-English bilingual children's language performance are available in the Canadian context, and no studies have ever been conducted in Saskatchewan, where input is severely restricted compared to other contexts due to demographic reasons. The major impetus for the study was therefore to determine if in these settings, bi/multilingual children can develop minority language proficiency comparable to that of their monolingual peers in Russia. The methodology employed in the study focuses on the linguistic analysis of audio recordings of a picture description task performed by participants. Oral language proficiency parameters (including vocabulary, fluency, and syntactical complexity) in the speech of the 5-6-year-old bi/multilingual children were compared with the ones produced by a control group (monolingual children) from Russia. The results demonstrate that the oral language proficiency in the bilingual group is on a par with that of the monolingual group. However, reading and writing skills of the bi/multilingual group are less developed than in the control group. OLBI WORKING PAPERS canadien, et aucune étude n'a été menée en Saskatchewan, où l'exposition langagière est drastiquement limitée comparée à d'autres contextes, dû à des motifs démographiques. Par conséquent, la principale motivation de notre étude était de déterminer si, dans de tels contextes, les enfants bi-ou plurilingues étaient en mesure d'acquérir des compétences langagières similaires à leurs pairs monolingues en Russie. La méthodologie employée consiste en l'analyse linguistique des enregistrements auditifs d'une description d'images effectuée par les participants. Les paramètres de la performance de la langue orale (incluant le vocabulaire, l'aisance langagière, et la complexité syntaxique) des enfants bi/multilingues âgés de 5 à 6 ans, sont comparés à ceux d'un groupe témoin (enfants monolingues) de Russie. Les résultats démontrent que la performance en langue orale du groupe bilingue est similaire à celle du groupe monolingue. Cependant, les compétences en lecture et en écriture du groupe bi/multilingue sont moins développées que celles du groupe témoin.

This article addresses the development of some features of morphology and syntax in the speech of bi/multilingual children in Saskatchewan, Canada, who are heritage speakers of Russian. The article reports on the results of a descriptive study examining some morpho-syntactic characteristics of the Russian speech of 29 children between 5 and 6 years old from immigrant families. These results are compared with a sample of speech data produced by Russian monolingual children (ML). This comparison demonstrates that child RHL speakers produce more morpho-syntactic non-canonical forms than their ML peers, but that the development of noun cases and verbal forms overall is similar to what is observed among ML speakers.