FROM THE NATIVE LANGUAGE TO THE SECOND LANGUAGE: UKRAINIAN LANGUAGE OF UKRAINIAN CHILDREN AFTER THREE MONTHS’ STUDY IN POLISH SCHOOLS

Abstract

This article is devoted to the process of changing of the Ukrainian language status in the life of elementary school pupils after some weeks’ study in Polish schools with Polish language studies. The process of changing a teaching language from Ukrainian language to Polish one has a negative influence on pupils’ native language. Ukrainian becomes functionally the second or even the third language after Russian. The author presents three case studies which explain three different situations with Ukrainian language before coming to Poland and changes after the beginning of studying the third Slavic languages. Each of three case studies has a particular sociolinguistic situation. The first one, before coming to Poland, shows the dominating monolinguality, the Russian language is used very rarely. The second one – Russian language is dominating, Ukrainian language is used exclusively in passive way. The third one shows non-stabilized bilinguality, the mixed code, where the dominating language is hard to define. This situation demonstrates that migration of the Ukrainians to Europe may not influence the power of language, as migrants do not use the Ukrainian language in daily life and children know exclusively oral version of language. To conclude, the author presents his proposition to the means of keeping the Ukrainian language in the lives of children who have come to the foreign language environment.