THE ROLE OF THEMENTAL STATE VERBS IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THEORY OF MIND IN BILINGUAL ROMA CHILDREN
Keywords:
Roma, bilingualism, mental state verbs, theory of mindAbstract
The following article deals with the analysis of the process of acquisition of mental
state verbs in Romani and in Bulgarian simultaneously by bilingual Roma children. Two Roma
children from Bulgaria (1 boy and 1 girl) aged 1; 0 – 3; 0 years were audiorecorded longitudinally in
their natural home environment. According to M. Taumoepeau and T. Ruffman (2006), the mental state verbs can be grouped in different categories, showing different states: mental states, physical states,
emotions, perception and cognition. The acquired verbs are analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively.
The results show that the the boy uses 100 % Romani mental state verbs: very high number of verbs
are related to (1) mental states, e. g.: mangav (want), dehav (love), arakhav (care about), džanav
(know); (2) emotions: xavxoli (angry), khanile (feeling bad); (3) physical state, e. g.: dukhal (hurt),
rovav (cry); (4) sense, such as: dikh (look). The girl uses 89 % mental state verbs in Romani and
19 % in Bulgarian language. The learned verbs by her are related to mental state from Romani:
mangav (want), džanav (know), darav (be afraid) and from Bulgarian: obicham (love), znam (know),
iskam (want). The other verbs from the field of emotions, physical state and sense are from Romani.
Mental state verbs are important in the cognitive development of the children because they predict the
understanding of the theory of mind.
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