Lexical acquisition of foreign languages by Russian native speakers

Abstract

Global situation requires fluency in more than two languages nowadays. Professionals knowing several languages and aware of the lingvo-cultural aspects of global communication are of high value in the modern world due to economic, political and social – factors. Vocabulary proficiency determines an individual’s mastery of the native or the second (third) language owing to the fact that lexical skills include understanding of semantics of language elements, their potential compatibility with other units and phonological characteristics of words in speech. The present research deals with the lexical characteristics of simultaneous English and German acquisition as L2 and L3 respectively by the senior students of linguistics department majoring in History and Culture of the Countries of the Studied Languages of the Institute of linguistics and cross-cultural communication of Moscow State Regional University. The authors explore the factors of mutual influence of lexical systems of both languages in the process of their study by Russian native speakers and evaluate the impact of the native language on L2 and L3 acquisition. Having analyzed the specifics of such polylingual learning environment the authors offer а method of teaching vocabulary to advanced students based on the primary importance of the native language in the second or third language acquisition. The experiment carried out within the scope of the survey proves the efficiency of the suggested technique.

Keywords

• lexical acquisition
• translingualism
• lingvo-culture
• multilingualism
• language proficiency