WP1: Data collection for CDI I and CDI II has been completed with 718 questionnaires filled-out. Norm development and creation of the CDI user handbook is now in progress.

WP2: The phoneme accuracy tests (Latvian and Russian) administration in the kindergartens is finished, 1100 recordings are evaluated and responses entered into the database, analysis of the results is published in scientific articles and user manual and developmental norms are created.

WP3: The collection of longitudinal corpora of monolingual (Latvian speaking) and bilingual (Russian and Latvian speaking) children’s speech was completed.  About 134 hours of recordings have beencollected and partially orthographically transcribed. Orthographically transcribed data have been morphologically annotated.  To search in the morphologically and orthographically annotated data, the experimental search interface was developed.

WP4: Data analysis for the experiment on gender agreement is completed, work on publications is in progress. Data reflecting acquisition of definiteness category in Latvian monolingual andbilingual children has been transcribed, coded and analysed, work on publications is in progress. Phonemic transcription & coding of child production data has been completed, analysis and work on publications is underway.

On February 15-16 the meeting of Cooperation Committee and Project Committee of EEA/Norway Grants 2009-2014 program LV05 “Scholarships and Research” took place in Norway. On the first day of the meeting, 4 research projects that have the University of Oslo as a partner presented their interim results. The results of LAMBA project were presented by professor Hanne Gram Simonsen from UiO and researcher Olga Urek from UiT. Professor Dace Markus also attended the meeting as a delegate of Latvian Rectors Council. 

On the second day, the meeting participants got acquainted with the program progress, funding and publicity, and discussed the results achieved so far as well as plans for the future. Latvian-Norwegian research cooperation was assessed as valuable and mutually enriching. It was decided to continue the program, focusing on the synergy between research, education and innovation. It was also decided to work on joint applications to Horizon 2020.  

Many thanks for enthusiasm and impressive interim results to all LAMBA project participants from RPIVA, LUMII, LU HZF, UiT and UiO! 

Presentation of the results: LAMBA_Oslo_150216.pdf

On December 4, the principal investigator of LAMBA project, Dace Markus, gave a lecture on Latvian language acquisition research at the seminar for Latvian language teachers organized by the Latvian Language Agency. On December 7, she presented an open talk on “Systematicity in child language” at the seminar organized by the Latvian Language Advancement Group of the Riga Latvian Society. Further information about the event. 

On November 16-18, LAMBA researcher Tija Zīriņa took part in the International Conference of Education, Research and Innovation (ICERI) held in Seville, which gathered participants from more than 75 countries. She presented a talk (co-authored with Dace Markus) on “Developing an Inclusive Society Promoting Minority Bilingualism in Pre-school Education in Latvia” based on the results of the Latvian and Russian phoneme accuracy tests developed in the project.

On 12.11.2015, the principal investigator of LAMBA project, Dace Markus, had a meeting with the colleagues at the University of Tartu to explore the cooperation prospects in the area of linguistics. D. Markus presented the methodology, goals and the first results of LAMBA project, and discussed the possibilities for future collaborative research in language acquisition involving researchers working on Baltic and Finno-Ugric languages.

LAMBA researchers presented two talks based on the project results at the 1st International Conference on Cross-disciplinary approaches to Language Development held on 06.11.2015 in Riga. Dace Markus presented the talk on “Predictable unpredictability in the child language”, and Agrita Tauriņa spoke about the “Methods for the enhancement and diagnostics of child vocabulary".

LAMBA researchers Dace Markus, Solveiga Čeirane and Rasma Purmale took part in the 12th International Congress of Balticists held on October 28-30, 2015, in Vilnius, where they presented a co-authored talk on “Phonemic development of Latvian-speaking children aged 3-4 y.” based on the pilot project results. The main focus of the talk was cluster reduction patterns in the speech of monolingual learners of Latvian, as well as methodological issues in developing and administering phoneme accuracy tests.

Several LAMBA project researchers were among the presenters at the VI Letonika Congress, held on 11.09.2015 in Riga. At the very well-attended session on monolingual and bilingual acquisition of Latvian, the following talks based on the project research results were presented: “Phonological basis of Latvian language acquisition tests” (by Dace Markus, Solveiga Čeirane (RTTEMA), Martin Kræmer, Olga Urek (UiT)); “Child speech transcription and related problems” (by Ilze Auziņa, Guna Rābante, Roberts Darģis (IMCS)); “The use of parental report tools in mapping child vocabulary” (by Tija Zīriņa, Agrita Tauriņa, Anna Vulāne (RTTEMA)); and “Native language acquisition in the third year of life: linguistic and educational perspective” (by Inese Freiberga (RTTEMA)).