Poznań Studies in Contemporary Linguistics vol. 44 (4), 2008
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Item Atkins, B. T. Sue and Michael Rundell. 2008. The Oxford guide to practical lexicography. Oxford: Oxford University Press. xii+540 pages. ISBN: 978-0-19-927771-1.(Versita Ltd., de Gruyter, 2008) Szczepaniak, RenataItem AUTONOMY, EXPERIENCE AND CONCEPTS: A STUDY IN EDUCATIONAL DISCOURSES(Versita Ltd., de Gruyter, 2008) Siek-Piskozub, Teresa; Strugielska, AriadnaThe aim of this article is to investigate the impact of educational reforms launched in Poland in the last decade upon the notion of learner autonomy as evidenced by the results of a cross- sectional study. Necessarily, standard definitions of the concept of autonomy will be re-defined against the background of socio-political reforms in the country and their reflections in sylla- buses and curricula. Re-evaluating the notion of learner independence in the Polish context will be primarily viewed from the perspective of the learner; however, relevant comparisons with teachers’ perceptions will be also provided. Employing methodological guidelines offered by Conceptual Metaphor Theory, conclusions will be drawn concerning the practicability of foster- ing learner autonomy in the Polish milieu.Item MEASURING FOREIGN LANGUAGE LEARNING APTITUDE. POLISH ADAPTATION OF THE MODERN LANGUAGE APTITUDE TEST BY CARROLL AND SAPON(Versita Ltd., de Gruyter, 2008) Rysiewicz, JacekThis article sets itself two main aims. The first is to describe the rationale behind the decision to adapt for Polish learners the Modern Language Aptitude Test (MLAT) by Carroll and Sapon (1959), rather than to develop a new measure. The reasons behind the decision are discussed in the context of the relevant individual differences (ID) research in Poland and the need for a reli- able and theoretically valid measure of foreign language (FL) aptitude for L1 Polish is articu- lated. The other aim is to describe the development, piloting and initial validation of the Polish MLAT-based adaptation of a new measure of FL aptitude. Two methods of test adaptation (trans- lation and paraphrase) are discussed and justified with relation to the current project. It was de- cided that all four components of FL aptitude, as proposed by Carroll (1981), would be repre- sented in the Polish adaptation of the MLAT. The piloting was done on approximately 200 sec- ondary school learners aged 19, while the data for the initial validation study, in the form of sec- ond language (L2) English proficiency test results as well as simple measures of motivation, length of study, social background and others, came from ca. 250 subjects, aged 18–22.Item THE USEFULNESS OF THE DEFINITIONS OF ABSTRACT NOUNS IN OALD7 AND NODE(Versita Ltd., de Gruyter, 2008) Grochocka, MartaItem PROTO-INDO-EUROPEAN ERGATIVITY... STILL TO BE DISCUSSED(Versita Ltd., de Gruyter, 2008) Bavant, MarcSince Uhlenbeck’s seminal article (“Agens und Patiens im Kasussystem der indogermanischen Sprachen”, 1901) many scholars have accepted the hypothesis of an ergative case in Proto-Indo- European (PIE) given the light it could shed on obscure facts discovered by the comparatist school inside the IE family. The Soviet linguistic school has been particularly active on ergativity in rela- tion with their interests for living languages of the Caucasus and for ancient languages of the Mid- dle East. More recent works on ergativity have shifted the focus to Australian languages. When the theory of language universals took ergativity into consideration, scholars began to seek an expla- nation of the so-called “split ergativity” in relation with Silverstein’s animacy hierarchy. A sequel of this was that the kind of split ergativity demonstrated by PIE seemed contrary to the accepted universals and, consequently, discarded. This paper challenges the way language universals have been used to refute the PIE ergativity hypothesis. Indeed, the influence of the animacy hierarchy is known to be effective in many languages, but more as a tendency than as an absolute universal. Also, PIE is not a fully-fledged language, but rather a field of experimentation. I also present the viewpoint that PIE could have had no split at all, but solely a semantic impossibility to use inani- mate noun phrases in an agent role, which seemed backed up by similar “embarrassments” in modern languages and by the so-called “Hittite ergative”.Item SUBJECT-VERB CONCORD WITH COLLECTIVE NOUNS OR THE COUNT-MASS DISTINCTION: WHICH IS MORE DIFFICULT FOR POLISH LEARNERS OF ENGLISH?(Versita Ltd., de Gruyter, 2008) Dziemianko, AnnaTwo aspects of English syntax were chosen for closer analysis in the present paper, i.e., subject- verb concord involving collective nouns in the singular and the syntactic marking of noun reclas- sification from the category of uncountable nouns to that of countable ones with the help of the indefinite article. The study aims to find out which of them is more difficult for Polish learners of English and whether the degree of difficulty depends on the learners’ proficiency in the foreign language. The discussion is based on the results yielded by an empirical study in which interme- diate and advanced Polish students of English took part. The subjects had to complete partial English translations of Polish sentences with specific low-frequency English nouns which substi- tuted true English equivalents of the Polish nouns shown in the sentences. The study reveals that marking subject-verb concord in the case of collective subject nouns was as difficult for the sub- jects as signaling the count-mass distinction by means of the indefinite article and the zero arti- cle, respectively.