Language ability and speech competence of schoolchildren: analysis of cognitive mechanisms development

The article shows the psycholinguistic description of native speakers' language ability and speech competence, based on the analysis of 6-7 grade pupils' essays written on free topics in the cognitive, communicative, semantic aspects. The author takes into account changes in the consciousness and behavior of native Russian speakers due to the early inclusion of children in communicative events on a global scale via the Internet, changes in the nature of leisure and leisure discourse. Language ability and speech competence were interpreted in the cognitive aspect that allowed to describe the written language as an activity which manifests the presence / absence of the necessary operations, performance level of cognitive mechanisms, conscious / unconscious application of language / speech rules. This description is based on the understanding of language ability (following V. Pishchalnikova and E. Yakovchenko) as a set of operationally-effective mental mechanisms engaged in the verbalization of knowledge and skills; speech competence as the availability of operational structures and skills necessary for implementing a particular activity. The author concludes that the volume of the texts corresponds to the normal development of language skills according to student's age; low variability of vocabulary and grammar is an indication of the average level of speech competence; egocentric orientation of text is the result of the orientation of modern academic discourse on the update of pupils' reflection and meta-reflection; presence of stereotypical cognitive, communicative, semantic strategies on the text design stage, formation of the current sense and their implementation; limited composition of concepts and their components are represented by a steady verbal sets, and it is also represented by the advertising speech strategy formed in the mind and actively used in the pupils' speech under the influence of popular communication formats.