The language ability, speech competence, speech activity of Generation Z

Abstract

The paper aims to demonstrate possible approaches to solving problems arising during comprehensive linguistic description of the language ability, speech competence, speech activity of Generation Z. This purpose was achieved with the help of evaluation of speech acts performed in the process of associating and in the course of spontaneous connected written speech activity. Material: the results of free and directed pair by association tests conducted by the author in 2010–2012, 2015–2016, 2019–2021. Additionally, essay texts about the topics «I and the world around me», «If it were not for computers and tablet computers», «My city» («What places in Omsk do I like to visit? Why? «), «Who do I want to resemble?», «An elderly person. What is he / she like?», «Old age. What is it like? «, «In my old age I will…», «Happiness… as I understand it» were used. The essays were written by school students of the 7th, 8th and 9th forms in 2005, 2010, 2015–2016, 2020. Methods: free and directed pair by association experiments, comprehensive text analysis. The latter enabled the author to define the following parameters: communicative (speech strategies and tactics, communication types), cognitive (actualisation of meanings and cognitive structures), semantic (word selection, distribution of object features, identification of predicates and so on), statistical (the number of words per sentence and sentences per text). The results of the study: specific features of speech actions during free and directed pair by association tests were determined. Additionally, the research revealed that Generation Z members use slang verbal and graphic signs; typical scenarios caused by certain cognitive fragments which are present in their linguistic consciousness prevail. Conclusions: I-to-subject communication is the key means for organising narration, and it dominates the communicative organisation of connected texts independent of the topic. Semantic text development is based on the form and contents of the title and virtually follows it in the reactive dialogical mode. Introductions and conclusions in the essays are reduced. At the informational level, conceptual information outweighs factual and directly develops the thesis implied in the title. The variety of semantic, conceptual, cognitive features of the texts is limited; the essays are devoid of conceptual multiple layers. The development level of teenagers’ discursive thinking, in particular, inadequate development of speech activity determines their mastering of the format of a cohesive speech piece. This is shown in organisational simplicity and insufficient text volume; cohesion is achieved with the help of lexical and syntactic repetition. In the process of written speech, the types of performed speech actions aimed to verbalise meanings are connected with the reproduction of cognitive scenarios (temporal, identification, existential) already formed in the mind. The mentioned scenarios are also manifested during free and directed by pair association in the experimental setting.