Polish Learners Research Articles

Word boundaries in L2 speech: Evidence from Polish learners of English

Acoustic and perceptual studies investgate B2-level Polish learners’ acquisition of second language (L2) English word-boundaries involving word-initial vowels. In production, participants were less likely to produce glottalization of phrase-medial initial vowels in L2 English than in first language (L1) Polish. Perception studies employing word monitoring and word counting tasks found that glottalization of word-initial vowels had a negligible impact on the processing of L2 word boundaries. Taken together, these experiments suggest that B2-level learners are relatively successful in acquiring word-boundary linking processes that are for the most part absent from L1 Polish, and challenge the notion of an L2 ‘Word Integrity’ constraint. The cross-language interactions observed in these experiments are compatible with the claim that the realization of word-initial vowels is governed by a representational parameter, which may be derived in the Onset Prominence framework.

Spectral dynamics in L1 and L2 vowel perception

This paper presents a study of L1 and L2 vowel perception by Polish learners of English. Employing the Silent Center paradigm (e.g. Strange et al. 1983), by which listeners are presented with different portions of a vowel, a force choice identification task was carried out. Due to differences in the vowel systems of the two languages, it was hypothesized that stimulus type should have minimal effects for L1 Polish vowel perception since Polish vowels are relatively stable in quality. In L2 English, depending on proficiency level, listeners were expected to adopt a more dynamic approach to vowel identification and show higher accuracy rates on the SC tokens. That is, listeners were expected to attend more to dynamic formant cues, or vowel inherent spectral change (VISC; see e.g. Morrison and Assmann 2013) in vowel perception. Results for identification accuracy for the most part were consistent with these hypotheses. Implications of VISC for the notion of cross-language phonetic similarity, crucial to models of L2 speech acquisition, are also discussed.

CLIL instruction in online interactive multimedia: a case study of Polish middle school learners of English

Integration of foreign language instruction and content learning has become the reality of a number of learning contexts. The phenomenon of content and language-integrated learning (CLIL) is becoming more and more widespread, though, at the same time, it finds its different realisations. However, there is still a need for language teaching materials that would be designed according to sound pedagogical principles, be appealing to adolescent learners and effective in terms of the integration of language and content. The aim of the present paper is to discuss the application of e-learning materials development in addressing diverse competences of middle school learners. After the literature review into the characteristics of CLIL and the elaboration on possible models of designing content-rich e-learning sequences, evaluation data of E-Academy of the Future, an innovative multimedia-assisted learning project, will be provided to substantiate the claims made.

Lacunarity, lexicography and beyond: integration of the introduction of a linguo-cultural concept and the development of L2 learners’ dictionary skills

The paper discusses the integration of presenting theoretical linguo- cultural knowledge and developing dictionary skills in advanced students of a foreign language. The proposed approach allows showing students the interdisci- plinary character of various issues, one of which is cross-linguistic lacunarity. It is given as an example of a phenomenon, whose introduction can be combined with the development of students' dictionary use abilities. Lacunarity consists in the lack of some source language elements in the target language. Two main kinds of lacunae are distinguished: linguistic and referential ones. The focal issue of the paper is how the information on the lacunary character of words can be presented to advanced students of English as a foreign language, in this paper Polish learners, so that they could consider the phenomenon in terms of bilingual lexicography: first, becoming aware of the specifics of their description; second, practising their dic- tionary skills by analysing entries for selected lacunary lexical and phraseological units; third, combining the information and skills in doing creative tasks, related to lacunarity and its bilingual lexicographic descriptions. Furthermore, additional activities are proposed for revising the acquired knowledge on lacunarity and advancing dictionary use. Offering students tasks, which require them to adopt a different perspective, aims to increase their involvement in the learning process and to foster their autonomy as learners. Encouraging learners to reflect on lacunae and their lexicographic description is expected to familiarize them with the phenomenon and simultaneously to develop their dictionary skills by doing especially designed activities.

The Relationship Between English and Polish Rhythm Measures in Polish Learners of English

This paper investigates native and non-native speech rhythm in the speech of Polish learners of English at an intermediate/upper-intermediate level. More specifically, it attempts to explore the relationship between rhythm measures scores in L1 Polish and L2 English within individual speakers. Phonological vowel reduction in terms of duration is present in English and crucial for the perception and acoustic measurements of linguistic rhythm. Polish, on the other hand, has no phonological reduction of that kind. The acquisition of L2 vowel reduction is highly determined by the level of language proficiency and influences non-native rhythmic patterns. The study tests six speech rhythm measures: %V, DV, DC, VarcoV, VarcoC and nPVI-V in two tempos: normal and fast. The results show that most of these measures are positively and significantly correlated with each other between L1 Polish and L2 English across the subjects and for two tempos, although to a different degree. Highly significantly correlation has been noted for %V and ΔC in fast tempo. Moderate significant correlations between the two languages are observed for ΔV, ΔC (normal tempo), VarcoV and nPVI in fast tempo.

Production of L3 Vowels: Is it Possible to Separate Them From L1 and L2 Sounds?

It is incontrovertible that acquisition of a sound system of a second language is always a complex phenomenon and presents a great challenge for L2 learners (e.g. Rojczyk, 2010a). There are numerous studies (e.g. Nowacka, 2010; Flege, 1991) which show that L2 learners whose first language has a scarce number of sounds, have problems to distinguish L2 sound categories and tend to apply their L1 segments to new contexts. It may be easily detectable in the case of vowels. There is abundance of studies examining L2 learners’ successes and failures in production of L1 and L2 vowels (e.g. Flege, 1992; Nowacka, 2010; Rojczyk, 2010a). Usually such projects show how difficult it is for L2 learners to separate “old” and “new” vowel categories. However, the situation becomes much more complicated when we think of third language (L3) production. While in the case of L2 segmental production the number of factors affecting L2 sounds is rather limited (either interference from learners’ L1 or some kind of L2 intralingual influence), in the case of L3 segmental production we may encounter L1®L3, L2®L3 or L3 intralingual interference. This makes separation of L3 sounds a much more complex process. The aim of this study is to examine whether speakers of L1 Polish, L2 English and L3 German are able to separate new, L3 vowel categories from their native and L2 categories. Being a part of a larger project, this time the focus is on German /oe/. This vowel was chosen since it is regarded as especially difficult for Polish learners of German and it is frequently substituted with some other sounds. A group of English philology (Polish-English-German translation and interpretation programme) students was chosen to participate in this project. They were advanced speakers of English who did not encounter any difficulties in communication with native speakers of this language and upperintermediate users of German. They had been taught both English and German pronunciation/practical phonetics during their studies at the University of Silesia. The subjects were asked to produce words containing analysed vowels, namely: P /u/, P /ɔ/, P /ɛ/, E /uː/, E /ɔː/ and G /oe/. All examined vowels were embedded in a /bVt/ context. The target /bVt/ words were then embedded in carrier sentences I said /bVt/ this time in English, Ich sag’ /bVt/ diesmal in German and Mówię /bVt/ teraz in Polish, in a non-final position. The sentences were presented to subjects on a computer screen and the produced chunks were stored in a notebook’s memory as .wav files ready for inspection. The Praat 5.3.12 speech-analysis software package (Boersma, 2001) was used to scroll through the audio files in order to locate an onset and offset of target vowels, measure the F1 and F2 frequencies and plot vowels on the plane. All analyses were also performed using Praat. The obtained results shed new light on L3 segmental production and L1 and L2 interference.

Monitoring English Sandhi Linking – A Study of Polish Listeners’ L2 Perception

This paper presents a set of word monitoring experiments with Polish learners of English. Listeners heard short recordings of native English speech, and were instructed to respond when they recognized an English target word that had been presented on a computer screen. Owing to phonological considerations, we compared reaction times to two types of vowel-initial words, which had been produced either with glottalization, or had been joined via sandhi linking processes to the preceding word. Results showed that the effects of the glottalization as a boundary cue were less robust than expected. Implications of these findings for models of L2 speech are discussed. It is suggested that the prevalence of glottalization in L1 production makes listeners less sensitive to its effects as a boundary cue in L2.

On how Happy Polish Advanced EFL Learners Are With HappY-Tensing

This paper aims at investigating the production of happY vowel by advanced Polish learners of English. Although happY tensing has become a regular feature of mainstream RP, it is not explicitly taught at English philologies in Poland. There are few studies that deal with the analysis of the phonetic quality of happY by native speakers of English (Fabricius, 2002; Harrington, 2006), and we know of no published studies aimed at EFL learners. The study presented in this paper included 34 Polish students of English philology. Spectral and durational data on FLEECE, KIT and happY in three contexts (prevocalic, preconsonatal and prepausal) were obtained. The results showed that Polish advanced EFL learners produced happY that is spectrally similar to FLEECE in the prevocalic and prepausal contexts but not in the preconsonantal one. Moreover, the participants did not use duration to make up for the spectral properties of happY. Preconsonantal and prevocalic happY were shorter than FLEECE, whereas prepausal happY was longer than FLEECE due to phrase-final lengthening effects.

Zasób leksykalny obcojęzycznych użytkowników polszczyzny w świetle badań ilościowych

Assessing lexical resources of Polish language learners using lexical frequency profile
 Polish is learnt by two types of learners; namely, heritage language learners (HLLs) and foreign language learners (FLLs). HLLs are of Polish origin and have gained their partial knowledge of language in a natural environment unlike FLLs who learn Polish in a formal institutional setting and have no Polish roots whatsoever. Lexical resources of HLLs and FLLs and their access to mental lexicon language data, even when their overall level of language proficiency is similar, seem to differ. HLLs speak more fluently, particularly when talking about everyday matters, and their production sounds more native like, being more formulaic. FLLs on the other hand, when speaking, “look for words” with more difficulty and sentences they build often sound odd. The aim of the project is to find out whether the lexical resources of HLLs are really, qualitatively and quantitatively, different to that of FLLs and if so, to what extent. In order to estimate the vocabulary size of the two groups samples of HLLs’ and FLLs’ writing at B2 level were analyzed with the use of various indices such as lexical variation, density, sophistication and Lexical Frequency Profile.

THE ATTRITION OF PORTUGUESE AS A THIRD OR ADDITIONAL LANGUAGE OVER THE SUMMER HOLIDAYS

The present study aims to investigate the attrition of Portuguese as a third or additional language (L3, L4, etc., cf. de Angelis, 2007) over the summer holidays. The research questions concern the correctness of the participants’ responses, the language areas in which attrition is observed, the ways in which it manifests itself and the students’ perception of their own attrition. Since multilingual systems are dynamic and the languages are in constant interaction, when a language is not used, attrition sets in (Herdina & Jessner, 2002). However, some elements of linguistic knowledge are more prone to attrition than others (Sharwood-Smith, 1989). The study was carried out with 42 Polish (L1) learners of Portuguese, 30 of whom were second-year students of Portuguese philology, and 12 were students of other Romance philologies who followed a Portuguese language course. After the summer holidays, they completed a vocabulary and grammar test and participated in oral interviews, followed by a questionnaire. In general, they produced more incorrect and partly correct (e.g. the right verb in the wrong form) than correct responses. Attrition could be observed in various language areas, from speaking fluency to grammar and vocabulary, though the subjunctive, which they had only started to study before the holidays, caused them the most difficulty. The attrition of Portuguese manifested itself in various forms, from avoidance and the inability to retrieve certain items, through the confusion of Portuguese forms, to interference from other languages. As the questionnaire indicates, the students were aware of the areas in which attrition occurred. It can be concluded that attrition is connected mainly with a decrease in the activation of a language. Given the interference from other Romance languages, it can be supposed that, as the activation of Portuguese items is lower, Spanish, French and Italian items compete for selection.

The role of input flood and input enhancement in EFL learners' acquisition of collocations

The study investigated L2 learners' acquisition of verb‐noun and adjective‐noun collocations following two kinds of instruction: input flood only and input flood plus input enhancement (in the form of underlining). L1 Polish learners of English as a foreign language were exposed to infrequent collocations embedded in stories that were read during three consecutive weeks. Their collocational competence was subsequently assessed in a battery of delayed tests tapping into productive and receptive levels of collocational mastery. Input flood plus input enhancement resulted in the acquisition of collocations but only at the level of form recall and form recognition. The findings are discussed with reference to the complexity of acquiring and measuring L2 collocational knowledge. The article concludes with implications for instructed second language acquisition.

Gemination Strategies in L1 and English Pronunciation of Polish Learners

Polish is a language where true geminates appear and the occurrence of a double consonant letter in spelling corresponds with double or at least prolonged consonant articulation regardless of the morphological structure of the word. The above principle also concerns most borrowings, such as the English word ‘hobby’, for instance. In English, true geminates do not occur and a morpheme-internal double consonant letter is only a fairly reliable indication of the way the preceding vowel should be pronounced. This discrepancy may lead to negative transfer in Polish learners of English. Our recent research of native Polish speech (Rojczyk and Porzuczek, in press) generally confirmed the results reported by Ladefoged and Maddieson (1996), among others, who found geminates to be 1.5-3 times longer than singletons. In our study we investigate the influence of double consonant letters on L1 and English pronunciation of Polish learners. They read trochaic family names containing intervocalic <nn>. Each name is preceded by a first name suggesting the nationality (Polish, English, German or Italian) of the person mentioned. By placing each tested item in a Polish and an English semantically and rhythmically equivalent sentences (This is .../To jest...), we measure the level of consonant length variation with respect to the language in which the potential geminates appear, the language context and the learning experience of the students. In this way we collect evidence and formulate observations concerning the learners’ awareness of the status of geminates in various languages and the probability of transfer in EFL learning.

The Bold and the Beautiful: How Aspects of Personality Affect Foreign Language Pronunciation

This paper reports on a study into the inter-relationships amongst foreign language pronunciation, mimicry ability and a range of personality and attitudinal factors. It will begin with a brief review of studies into affective influences on pronunciation ability (Arnold 1999, Hu & Reiterer 2009) and research into the importance of mimicry talent (Jilka 2009; Piske, MacKay & Flege 2001). This will be followed by a short description of a pilot study carried out prior to the main experiment. In the main study, a group of Polish learners of English completed a number of mimicry tasks in three languages: Italian, Dutch and Chinese, as well as a narration task in English. Mimicry performance and English pronunciation were then assessed by native speakers and compared. Participants also completed a questionnaire concerning their feelings about the languages they were to mimic and a second questionnaire designed to detect affective factors such as language learning anxiety, as well as attitudes towards the pronunciation of Polish and English. The pilot study suggested that the perceived attractiveness of the foreign language to be mimicked did not affect the performance of most participants, and that mimicry skill was fairly constant across languages. However, those who were particularly concerned about their personal appearance showed greater fluctuation in their ability to mimic and their performance appeared to be influenced by their attitude towards the language. This is referred to by the author as the Cecily effect. That study also confirmed the results of my previous experimental work showing that mimicry skill is correlated to some degree with English language pronunciation and that both pronunciation and mimicry are negatively affected by high levels of anxiety. The main study sets out to investigate whether or not these conclusions hold true for a larger sample population and also seeks to determine the effect of confidence and willingness to take risks on scores for both foreign language pronunciation and mimicry exercises.

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.

Colour word Stroop test in Polish learners of English: No evidence that L2 proficiency matters

Abstract The aim of our study was to test whether and how the proficiency level in L2 affects the amount of within-language interference in Stroop colour word test (Polish as L1, English as L2); as well as to test whether and how the proficiency level in L2 affects colour naming speed in this L2, based on a study on 50 Polish students (age M = 20.8, SD = 1.6) at varying levels of English proficiency and age of acquisition > 7. The English version of Golden et al. (2002) Stroop Colour and Word Test and its Polish counterpart were used. The results show that in late unbalanced bilinguals the within-language interference was smaller in L2 than in L1 and its amount was not affected by L2 proficiency level; and that colour naming was slower in L2 than in L1, and the scores were not affected by L2 proficiency level. The implications of the study are discussed, concerning, among others, L2 processing in late unbalanced bilinguals. The popular claim that the pattern of the interplay between inter- and intra-linguistic interference in Stroop colour word test relates to proficiency level in L2 is challenged.

Stop Release in Polish English — Implications for Prosodic Constituency

Although there is little consensus on the relevance of non-contrastive allophonic processes in L2 speech acquisition, EFL pronunciation textbooks cover the suppression of stop release in coda position. The tendency for held stops in English is in stark opposition to a number of other languages, including Polish, in which plosive release is obligatory. This paper presents phonetic data on the acquisition of English unreleased stops by Polish learners. Results show that in addition to showing a tendency for the target language pattern of unreleased plosives, advanced learners may acquire more native-like VC formant transitions. From the functional perspective, languages with unreleased stops may be expected to have robust formant patterns on the final portion of the preceding vowel, which allow listeners to identify the final consonant when it lacks an audible release burst (see e.g. Wright 2004). From the perspective of syllabic positions, it may be said that ‘coda’ stops are obligatorily released in Polish, yet may be unreleased in English. Thus, the traditional term ‘coda’ is insufficient to describe the prosodic properties of post-vocalic stops in Polish and English. These differences may be captured in the Onset Prominence framework (Schwartz 2013). In languages with unreleased stops, the mechanism of submersion places post-vocalic stops at the bottom of the representational hierarchy where they may be subject to weakening. Submersion produces larger prosodic constituents and thus has phonological consequences beyond 'coda' behavior.

Language Experience and Phonetic Training as Factors Influencing Timing Organisation in Polish Learners of English

The paper investigates the dynamics of speech rhythm in Polish learners of English and, specifically, how rhythm measurements revealing durational characteristics of vocalic and consonantal intervals through the measures (%V, ΔV, ΔC, VarcoV, VarcoC and nPVI) change along the process of second language acquisition as a result of language experience and phonetic training, and influence rhythmic characteristics of L2 English. The data used for the analysis come from 30 Polish first-year students of the University of Łódź recorded reading two texts (English and Polish) during two recording sessions separated by a 7-month period of language studies and compared to the data obtained from the recordings of native speakers of English. The experiment aims at verifying whether the participants achieve progress in the rhythm measure scores under the influence of language experience and phonetic training, as it has already been confirmed that general proficiency of non-native speakers of English is a key factor contributing to the successful production of rhythmic patterns in English (Waniek-Klimczak 2009, Roach 2002). The results have shown no substantial and consistent progress for the whole group and across all the measures. Statistical tests, however, have revealed significant changes in the subjects' performance with respect to the vocalic measures ΔV and VarcoV. This may reflect the effect of the type of phonetic training the students are offered, which is segment-based with particular emphasis on vowels.

Imitation of English vowel duration upon exposure to native and non-native speech

AbstractThe study reproduces pilot work concerned with the imitation of English vowel duration by Polish learners (Zając 2013). Its aim was to expand on the findings of the previous study, i.e. determine if the magnitude of imitation may depend on the native/non-native status of the model talker and investigate whether the provision of explicit instructions to imitate at the beginning of the experiment affects convergence strategies of the participants. The dependent variable was the duration of three English front vowels analysed in shortening and lengthening contexts. The stimuli included pre-recorded English word pairs pronounced by a native and a non-native model talker. The experimental procedure consisted of three tasks: (1) reading the English word pairs displayed sequentially on a computer screen (baseline condition), producing the English words after exposure to (2) the native model talker’s voice and (3) the non-native model talker’s voice (shadowing conditions). The results show that the magnitude of imitation in the pronunciation of L2 learners may differ as a function of the model talker (native vs. non-native). The provision of explicit instructions to imitate at the beginning of the experimental procedure was found not to have a significant impact on the convergence strategies of the subjects.

How Dictionary Users Choose Senses in Bilingual Dictionary Entries: An Eye-Tracking Study

We use modern eye-tracking technology to scrutinize the process of sense and equivalent selection in polysemous bilingual entries. Our study subjects, intermediate and advanced Polish learners of English, consulted 26 Polish-to-English dictionary pages prompted with a sentence translation task. Throughout the task, an eye-tracking device unobtrusively recorded their gaze patterns, which are analyzed and discussed. Both successful and unsuccessful searches are examined. Also, we assess the potential of eye-tracking technology in the study of dic­tionary use.

Foreign Accents in Polish: Non-native Speakers’ and Native Listeners’ Views

Abstract As in recent years a growing number of foreigners have been settling in Poland and learning our language, Poles have found themselves in a fairly new situation of being increasingly exposed, both in direct contacts and through the media, to their mother tongue pronounced with a variety of foreign accents. In a series of studies (Szpyra- Kozłowska and Radomski 2012, in press, Szpyra-Kozłowska 2013b) we have undertaken an examination of how such accents are perceived and evaluated by Polish listeners. The issues that have come under scrutiny so far concerned identification of the speakers’ origin, evaluation of different accents in terms of their intelligibility, degree of accentedness and acceptance, establishing the major perceptual properties of several accents and examining their salience. In the present paper we focus on the participants of communication which involves accented Polish, i.e. non-native speakers and native listeners, and their views on this phenomenon. We examine them in two questionnaire studies, one administered to 40 foreign learners of Polish and the other one to 80 native listeners. Thus, our study sets itself the following goals: to examine what attitudes Poles take towards Polish-speaking foreigners and their accents in particular (Questionnaire 2); to juxtapose these opinions with foreign learners’ experience of Poles’ reactions to accented Polish (Questionnaire 1); to draw implications for the phonetic training of foreigners who undertake to learn Polish.