http://hdl.handle.net/11089/18855 Sun, 05 Apr 2026 16:29:49 GMT 2026-04-05T16:29:49Z http://hdl.handle.net/11089/18860 Dynamic Targets in the Acquisition of L2 English Vowels Schwartz, Geoffrey; Aperliński, Grzegorz; Kaźmierski, Kamil; Weckwerth, Jarosław This paper presents acoustic data on the dynamic properties of the FLEECE and TRAP vowels in the speech of two groups of Polish users of English. Results reveal that the more proficient group users, made up of teachers and professors with professional-level proficiency in English, produce more dramatic patterns of formant movement, reminiscent of native productions, than first year students. It is argued that vowel inherent spectral change (VISC) is an inherent aspect of English phonology, originated in interactions between vowels and neighboring consonants, and later generalized to the vowel system as a whole. By contrast, Polish is a language with a minimal role of VISC. Consequently, successful acquisition of L2 English vowels involves not only the mastery of vowels in F1- F2 space, but also formant trajectories over time. Fri, 24 Jun 2016 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/11089/18860 2016-06-24T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/11089/18859 Refining the Methodology for Investigating the Relationship Between Fluency and the Use of Formulaic Language in Learner Speech Guz, Ewa This study is a cross-sectional analysis of the relationship between productive fluency and the use of formulaic sequences in the speech of highly proficient L2 learners. Two samples of learner speech were randomly drawn and analysed. Formulaic sequences were identified on the basis of two distinct procedures: a frequency-based, distributional approach which returned a set of recurrent sequences (n-grams) and an intuition and criterion-based, linguistic procedure which returned a set of phrasemes. Formulaic material was then removed from the data. Breakdown and speed fluency measures were obtained for the following types of speech: baseline (pre-removal), formulaic, non-formulaic (post-removal). The results show significant differences between baseline and post-removal fluency scores for both learners. Also, formulaic speech is produced more fluently than non-formulaic speech. However, the comparison of the fluency scores of n-grams and phrasemes returned inconsistent results with significant differences reported only for one of the samples. Fri, 24 Jun 2016 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/11089/18859 2016-06-24T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/11089/18857 English Pronunciation Teaching at Different Educational Levels: Insights Into Teachers’ Perceptions and Actions Szyszka, Magdalena The aim of the present paper is to reflect upon the place of pronunciation in English as a foreign language (EFL) teaching at different educational levels in Poland. To collect the data, an on-line survey was conducted among EFL professionals teaching at primary, lower secondary, and higher secondary schools in Poland. The questions focused on the respondents’ beliefs about pronunciation, teachers’ competences regarding pronunciation and pronunciation teaching, and the pronunciation teaching techniques they use. The results depict the most and least frequently used pronunciation teaching techniques at each of the three educational stages, and the beliefs of EFL teachers in Poland regarding pronunciation teaching. Fri, 24 Jun 2016 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/11089/18857 2016-06-24T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/11089/18858 Global Foreign Accent Rating of Code-Switched and L2-Only Sentences Šimáčková, Šárka; Podlipský, Václav Jonáš Recent studies of short-term phonetic interference suggest that code-switching can lead to momentary increases in L1 influence on L2. In an earlier study using a single acoustic measure (VOT), we found that Czech EFL learners’ pronunciation of English voiceless stops had shorter, i.e. more L1-Czech-like, VOTs in code-switched compared to L2-only sentences. The first aim of the current study was to test the prediction that native listeners would judge the code-switched English productions as more foreign-accented than the L2-only productions. The results provide only weak support for this prediction. The second aim was to test whether more native-like VOT values would correlate with improved accentedness scores. This was confirmed for sentence-initial stops. Fri, 24 Jun 2016 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/11089/18858 2016-06-24T00:00:00Z