A theory of second language acquisition within the framework of natural phonology: a Polish \u2013 English contrastive study

[i]Keywords: acquisition of a second language; Natural Phonology; comparative linguistics; Polish \u2013 English contrastive grammar; second language learning/teaching[/i] S\u142owa kluczowe: akwizycja drugiego j\u119zyka; Fonologia Naturalna; j\u119zykoznawstwo por\uf3wnawcze; gramatyka kontrastywna j\u119zyka polskiego i angielskiego; nabywanie/nauczanie drugiego j\u119zyk

A contrastive analysis of verbal inflection classes in Polish and Croatian

The main goals of this contribution are 1) to propose and to illustrate a new model of identifying inflection classes, which is based on inflectional productivity, 2) to show the importance of language contact studies for the identification of productivity, 3) to elaborate on the consequences for contrastive typology, 4) to define and contrast morphological richness of two closely cognate languages: Polish and Croatian

A contrastive analysis of verbal inflection classes in Polish and Croatian

The main goals of this contribution are 1) to propose and to illustrate a new model of identifying inflection classes, which is based on inflectional productivity, 2) to show the importance of language contact studies for the identification of productivity, 3) to elaborate on the consequences for contrastive typology, 4) to define and contrast morphological richness of two closely cognate languages: Polish and Croatian

English or ELFish? A teaching dilemma of the 21st century

Contrary to the predictions of Jan Baudouin de Courtenay (1908), English has become the international auxiliary language worldwide. Not artificial Esperanto, but natural English. Globalization of a natural language, however, inevitably has consequences for the language itself. How English is International English, we may ask. For linguists, this is a question of language change. For teachers, this is a matter of choice between a full-fledged native version of the language vs. the so-called ELF (English as a Lingua Franca, cf. the discussion in Dziubalska-Kołaczyk and Przedlacka 2008). The aim of this paper will be to arrive at a moderate recipe” for teachers and learners

The Influence of Attention to Language Form on the Production of Weak Forms by Polish Learners of English

The paper discusses a study whose aim was to examine the impact of attention to language form and task type on the realisation of English function words by Polish learners of English. An additional goal was to investigate whether style-induced pronunciation shifts may depend on the degree of foreign accent. A large part of the paper concentrates on the issue of defining ‘weakness’ in English weak forms and considers priorities in English pronunciation teaching as far as the realisation of function words is concerned. The participants in the study were 12 advanced Polish learners of English, who were divided into two groups: 6 who were judged to speak with a slight degree of foreign accent and 6 who were judged to speak with a high degree of foreign accent. The subjects’ pronunciation was analysed in three situations in which we assume their attention was increasingly paid to speech form (spontaneous speech, prepared speech, reading). The results of the study suggest that increased attention to language form caused the participants to realise more function words as unstressed, although the effect was small. It was also found that one of the characteristics of English weak forms, the lack of stress, was realised correctly by the participants in the majority of cases. Finally, the results of the study imply that, in the case under investigation, the effect of attention to language form is weakly or not at all related to the degree of foreign accent

Universal phonotactic and morphonotactic preferences in second language acquisition

Phonotactics determines phonological conditions on the co-occurrence of sounds within words or syllables. Morphonotactics is a subcomponent of morphonology concerned with the co-occurrence of sounds at morphological boundaries. Due to the semiotic priority of morphology over phonology, morphonotactics allows us to explain the motivation for those consonant clusters that phonotactics has failed to account for. The aim of the study is to investigate the influence of universal phonotactic and morphonotactic preferences on the acquisition of consonant clusters in the process of second language acquisition. We hypothesize that phonotactically unmarked lexical clusters will be easier to learn and less susceptible to modifications than phonotactically marked ones. Phonotactic markedness will be measured according to the Net Auditory Distance Principle. As for the morphonotactic clusters, it is assumed that in spite of their phonotactically dispreferred status, second language learners will put some effort into their acquisition. The subjects in the study are Korean and Chinese learners of Polish

Predicting phonotactic difficulty in second language acquisition

The aim of the paper is to demonstrate that universal phonotactic preferences guide the acquisition of consonant clusters in a second language. The empirical evidence comes from young learners of English (L2 English) with mother tongues (L1s) from the following families: independent (Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese ), Sino-Tibetan (Chinese), Austronesian (Kosraean, Marshallese, Palauan, Ponapean, Samoan, Tagalog, Trukese, Visayan), Dravidian (Tamil) and Slavic (Polish)