Linguistische Treffen in Wrocław (Jan 2024)

Charakterystyka wymowy polskiej Białorusinów i Ukraińców na przykładzie głosek [ɔ], [w] i [ʈ͡ʂ] / Characteristics of the Polish Pronunciation of Belarusians and Ukrainians on the Example of the Sounds [ɔ], [w] and [ʈ͡ʂ]

  • Paula Magiera

DOI
https://doi.org/10.23817/lingtreff.24-28
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 24
pp. 399 – 413

Abstract

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The research, conducted in 2021, constitutes a part of the dissertation I am preparing. I surveyed forty Polish high school students, twenty of whom are from Belarus and twenty from Ukraine (ten from eastern Ukraine and ten from western Ukraine). All the students were just beginning their education in Poland and their knowledge of Polish was at a basic level. The respondents repeated specific words after the teacher and independently read aloud sentences containing words that appeared in the first part of the study. In the first part of the article, I briefly describe the similarities and differences occurring in the segmental plane between Polish, Ukrainian, Belarusian and Russian, specifically between the pronunciation of the sounds [ɔ], [w] and [ʈ͡ʂ]. The second part of the article focuses on the most conspicuous results concerning the differences between the pronunciation of the sounds [ɔ], [w] and [ʈ͡ʂ] in Polish depending on the background of the respondents. I compared the results of respondents from Ukraine and Belarus, as well as the results of respondents from eastern and western Ukraine. Whether the words in question were repeated or read by the respondents was also an important factor. The main aim of the presented research is to help teachers of Polish as a foreign language to better understand the process of acquisition of Polish pronunciation by Slavic-speaking groups learning Polish depending on their country of origin, as well as to explain the reason for the pronunciation mistakes made by students coming from Ukraine and Belarus. The conclusions of the study are also intended to help in matching the appropriate teaching methodology for specific Slavic-speaking groups.

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