East Slavic interference in L2 Polish: state of the art and future perspectives

Abstract

This paper presents an overview of existing research on intercomprehension among Slavic languages and gives a few suggestions for the future development of this field of studies. Particular attention is devoted to the language constellations comprising Polish. After an introduction to the historical and sociological context of present-day Poland, characterized by the massive immigration of speakers of East Slavic languages, the text presents a succinct review of existing research and puts forward a few suggestions to fill knowledge gaps. It is argued that the large-scale acquisition of L2 Polish by speakers of related languages offers great opportunities for the scientific study of intercomprehension. The resulting insights in turn can be usefully applied to the development of efficient language teaching methods aiming to facilitate and accelerate the integration of Slavic-speaking refugees into Polish society.