The study explores how native language (L1) lexical access is affected by immersion in a second-language (L2) environment, and by short-term reimmersion in the L1 environment. We compared the L1 picture-naming performance of Polish–English bilinguals living in the UK (migrants) against that of bilinguals living in Poland (controls). Each group was tested twice: the migrants while in the UK (L2 immersion) and after visiting Poland (L1 reimmersion); the controls twice in their L1 environment. Contrary to our expectations, there was no main effect of group, thus suggesting that L2 immersion per se does not impact L1 lexical access. Nevertheless, migrants benefitted from L1 reimmersion by showing faster naming latencies for high-frequency words after a short visit to their home country, probably due to more opportunities to encounter these words. Overall, the study shows that the cognitive system is sensitive to the language environment by quickly adapting the activation level of lexical items.

In 2021 the ruling party in Poland proposed a reform to reverse the regressivity of the Polish tax system. Although the number of potential beneficiaries significantly exceeded the number of sufferers, the media coverage of the reform was strongly negative. This pushed the government to introduce reform adjustments, all of which benefited the high-income self-employed, increasing the cost of the reform and reducing its redistributive effect. To explain this, we analyze articles on the reform published in the three most opinion-forming newspapers. We demonstrate that the negative media coverage stemmed from successful incorporation of business narratives in the public debate by the business lobbying associations. It was supported by the weakness of workers’ organizations and a low level of citizens’ trust in government.

Theories of language processing differ with respect to the role of abstract syntax and semantics vs surface-level lexical co-occurrence (n-gram) frequency. The contribution of each of these factors has been demonstrated in previous studies of children and adults, but none have investigated them jointly. This study evaluated the role of all three factors in a sentence repetition task performed by children aged 4–7 and 11–12 years. It was found that semantic plausibility benefitted performance in both age groups; syntactic complexity disadvantaged the younger group but benefitted the older group; while contrary to previous findings, n-gram frequency did not facilitate, and in a post-hoc analysis even hampered, performance. This new evidence suggests that n-gram frequency effects might be restricted to the highly constrained and frequent n-grams used in previous investigations, and that semantics and morphosyntax play a more powerful role than n-gram frequency, supporting the role of abstract linguistic knowledge in children's sentence processing.

This study tested whether individual sensitivity to an auditory perceptual cue called amplitude rise time (ART) facilitates novel word learning. Forty adult native speakers of Polish performed a perceptual task testing their sensitivity to ART, learned associations between nonwords and pictures of common objects, and were subsequently tested on their knowledge with a picture recognition (PR) task. In the PR task participants heard each nonword, followed either by a congruent or incongruent picture, and had to assess if the picture matched the nonword. Word learning efficiency was measured by accuracy and reaction time on the PR task and modulation of the N300 ERP. As predicted, participants with greater sensitivity to ART showed better performance in PR suggesting that auditory sensitivity indeed facilitates learning of novel words. Contrary to expectations, the N300 was not modulated by sensitivity to ART suggesting that the behavioral and ERP measures reflect different underlying processes.

Bilingual language development might be characterized by transfer, deceleration, and/or acceleration, the first two being relevant for the language impairment diagnosis. Studies on bilingual children’s productive phonology show evidence of transfer, but little is known about deceleration in this population. Here, we focused on phonological transfer and deceleration in L1 speech of typically developing Polish-English bilingual children of Polish migrants to the United Kingdom (aged 4.7–7). We analyzed L1 speech samples of 30 bilinguals and 2 groups of Polish monolinguals, matched to the bilinguals on age or vocabulary size. We found that bilingual children’ speech (both simultaneous and early sequential) was characterized by transfer, but not by deceleration, suggesting that while phonological deceleration phases out in children above the age of 4.7, transfer does not. We discuss our findings within the PRIMIR model of bilingual phonological acquisition (Curtin et al., 2011) and show their implications for SLT practices.

We investigated the speech patterns and accentedness of Polish–English bilingual children raised in Great Britain to verify whether their L1 Polish would be perceived as different from that of monolinguals matched for age and socioeconomic status. To this end, Polish-language speech samples of 32 bilinguals and 10 monolinguals (a 3:1 ratio, MAge = 5.79) were phonetically analysed by trained phoneticians and rated by 55 Polish raters, who assessed the degree of native accent, intelligibility, acceptability and perceived age. The results show significant differences in the phonetic performance of bilingual and monolingual children – both in terms of atypical speech patterns uncovered in the phonetic analysis and in terms of the holistic accentedness ratings. We also explored the socio-linguistic predictors of accent ratings in bilingual speech and found that the amount of L1 Polish input was the main predictor of accentedness in children's L1 Polish speech, while L2 English input was marginally significant. (149)

The first and second authors contributed equally to this article and should be considered co–first authors. We regret this omission and any problems it may have caused.

To acquire a new word, learners need to create its representation in phonological short-term memory (STM) and then encode it in their long-term memory. Two strategies can enable word representation in STM: universal segmentation and phonological mapping. Universal segmentation is language universal and thus should predict word learning in any language, while phonological mapping is language specific. This study investigates the mechanisms of vocabulary learning through a comparison of vocabulary learning task results in multiple languages. We tested 44 Polish third graders learning English on phonological STM, phonological awareness in Polish and in English, and on three tasks, which involved learning novel word forms in Polish (first language), in English (second language), and in a language that did not resemble any language known to participants (an unknown language). Participants’ English proficiency was controlled through a vocabulary task. The results suggest that word learning engages different mechanisms for familiar and unfamiliar languages. Phonological awareness in English predicted learning second language and unknown language words, and phonological STM predicted learning words of the unknown language. We propose that universal segmentation facilitates word learning only in an unfamiliar language, while in familiar languages speakers use phonological mapping in order to learn new words.