Features of the expression of instrumental meaning in the speech of Russian children and Chinese students studying Russian as a foreign language.

The subject of the research is the peculiarities of expressing instrumental meaning in the speech of Russian children and Chinese students learning Russian as a foreign language. The article examines prepositional-case constructions with instrumental meaning and the specifics of their acquisition during language learning as both a first and second language. The main aim is to identify the features of expressing instrumental meaning in children's speech and the speech of Chinese language speakers learning Russian as a foreign language. The article analyzes the responses chosen by native speakers of Chinese and Russian during a linguistic experiment in the context of a task to describe a picture. The material was obtained during an experiment in which participants (25 Russian-speaking children aged 4-8 and 25 native Chinese speakers) described pictures using designated words. In the analysis of the experimental data obtained, a comparative and descriptive method was employed. Those learning Russian as a first and second language implicitly formulate internal rules for choosing forms to express instrumental meaning and make errors due to the specifics of this fragment of the language system. In the initial stages, language speakers and non-native speakers resort to a simplification strategy, using the accusative case without a preposition in a general object meaning. Then, the main means become the forms of the instrumental case: for children without a preposition, and for non-native speakers – both without a preposition and with the preposition "с." In later stages, differentiation occurs in ways of expressing instruments, means, and transport. The scientific novelty of the proposed work lies in the analysis of strategies for mastering case meanings, which helps to uncover similarities and differences in the process of acquiring Russian as a native and as a foreign language, and to clarify understandings of access routes to the mental lexicon at the initial levels of proficiency. The results obtained can be used for preparing students in the fields of "Linguistics" and "Methodology" as well as in the practice of teaching Russian as a foreign language.