Listening comprehension in a home language: a case of Russian in Germany.

Abstract

Listening comprehension is central to language learning, yet it remains the least understood and least researched skill. This statement is still relevant today, as there is insufficient research to explore listening comprehension from the perspective of family-related multilingualism and to consider the complete linguistic repertoire of multilingual speakers. Moreover, with regard to home language, listening comprehension is assumed to be a more developed language competence than reading or writing. Based on the mentioned research, the aim of the present study is to investigate listening comprehension and its influencing factors specifically in German-Russian simultaneous bilinguals aged 13-19 (n = 99) by considering the home- and majority language. The study uses quantitative data collection methods such as linguistic tests in Russian and German for the elicitation in different levels of listening and questionnaires for strategy use and background. The research questions are as follows: What does the language proficiency and input in Russian look like? (1) Regarding listening comprehension in Russian as a home language, are there differences between the speakers within comprehension on different levels, e.g., is sound decoding easier than sentence parsing? (2) If there are differences in Russian as a home language, which linguistic and background variables can correlate with the performance of listening comprehension on its different levels? Concerning the first research question, the results show relevant differences between four different levels of listening comprehension (phoneme, word, sentence, and text level), which strengthened the assumed complexity of listening comprehension in the home language. In addition, the results show different connections between the listening comprehension competence and the input from different family members, as well as exposure to film and television in the home and majority language.