Effect of Bridge Language Status in the Intercomprehension-Based Learning of L2 Polish by Speakers of Russian

This paper examines the relation between a learner’s multilingual repertoire and the processing (comprehension and production) of a complex L2 Polish morphosyntactic structure. A miniature experiment was run in which a group of students with knowledge of Russian took part in a brief course of L2 Polish, of which they had no experience. Since data was collected after only 4.5 hours of exposure to an otherwise completely unknown target language, it seems legitimate to assume that processing mainly relied on spontaneous intercomprehension, i. e., the possibility to exploit positive transfer to communicate in an unknown foreign language (Polish) that is genetically close to a known bridge language (Russian). Crucially, while all participants were familiar with Russian, for some it represented an L2, whereas for others it was the L1. The paper thus investigates to what extent the status (L1 vs. L2) of the bridge language affects positive transfer in the acquisition of a related target language. The results point to an advantage for the native speakers of the bridge language, although L2 speakers were also able to perform the task with considerable success.