PSYCHOLINGUISTIC AND SOCIOLINGUISTIC FACTORS OF THE SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT IN THE FORMATION OF CHILDREN'S LEXICON

This article analyses the psycholinguistic and sociolinguistic factors of the social environment that affect the formation of children's lexicon. The study comparatively examines language development in family and institutional (orphanage) settings. Drawing on the theoretical frameworks of L.S. Vygotsky, B. Bernstein, R. Hart and T. Risley, the article substantiates the role of vocabulary richness, quality of lexical input, and communicative interaction in shaping children's word knowledge. Based on speech samples of English- and Uzbek-speaking children aged 5 to 12 (family group n=60, institutional group n=60), the study identifies statistically significant differences in lexical density, Type-Token Ratio (TTR) and the ratio of referential to expressive vocabulary. The findings have practical implications for linguopedagogical and speech-language therapy practice.