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Masaryk University Brno Faculty of Education MASARYK UNIVERSITY BRNO FACULTY OF EDUCATION DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE Grammatical Interference in the Language of Czech and Polish Speakers of English Diploma thesis Brno 2018 Supervisor: Author: Mgr. Radek Vogel, Ph.D. Bc. et Bc. Magdalena Kyzlinková Prohlášení Prohlašuji, že jsem závěrečnou práci diplomovou vypracovala samostatně, s využitím pouze citovaných pramenů, dalších informací a zdrojů v souladu s Disciplinárním řádem pro studenty Pedagogické fakulty Masarykovy univerzity a se zákonem č. 121/2000 Sb., o právu autorském, o právech souvisejících s právem autorským a o změně některých zákonů (autorský zákon), ve znění pozdějších předpisů. Brno, 22. července 2018 …….………………… Magdalena Kyzlinková Acknowledgement In the first place, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the supervisor of my diploma thesis, Mgr. Radek Vogel, Ph.D., for his guidance, valued help and professional advice not only throughout writing this work, but also during the whole course of my studies at Masaryk University. Furthermore, I would like to thank my siblings and their families, my partner and my mother for their patience, motivation and support. Finally, special thanks are also given to all the Polish and Czech participants without whom the research could not have been conducted. Anotace Tato diplomová práce se zabývá gramatickou interferencí v jazyce českých a polských mluvčích angličtiny. Práce je rozdělena do dvou hlavních částí, teoretické a praktické. Teoretická část se skládá ze tří kapitol. První kapitola se pokouší nastínit nejdůležitější historické kontakty tří porovnávaných zemí s hlavním zaměřením na polsko-anglické a česko-anglické vztahy. Druhá kapitola je věnována popisu typologie jako lingvistické vědy, je zde nastíněn její historický vývoj, a v neposlední řadě se zaměřuje jak na typologickou, tak genealogickou klasifikaci jazyků. Třetí kapitola se zabývá jazykovými chybami a klade důraz na interferenční chyby, které jsou způsobeny vlivem mateřského jazyka na jazyk cílový. Praktická část práce analyzuje vybrané gramatické jevy, které jsou problematické pro české mluvčí, a pomocí kvantitativního výzkumu se snaží zjistit, zda u mluvčích typologicky porovnatelného a genealogicky příbuzného jazyka, v tomto případě polských mluvčích angličtiny, dochází k analogickým interferencím. Součástí praktické části je i kapitola porovnávající syntetické rysy češtiny a polštiny s analytickými rysy angličtiny. Klíčová slova anglický jazyk, český jazyk, polský jazyk, jazyková typologie, jazyková interference Abstract This diploma thesis is concerned with grammatical interference in the language of Czech and Polish speakers of English. The thesis is divided into two main parts, more specifically a theoretical and a practical part. The theoretical part consists of three chapters. The first chapter discusses the most important historical contacts of the three examined nations with the primary focus on Polish-English and Czech-English relations. The second chapter aims to define typology as a linguistic discipline, traces its origins and concentrates on typological as well as genealogical classification of languages. The third chapter deals with language errors, emphasizing interlingual errors of interference. With the results obtained from the conducted quantitative research, the practical part analyses selected grammatical phenomena reported to be problematic for the Czech speakers of English and attempts to determine whether analogous interference occurs in the Polish users of English, a genealogically cognate and typologically comparable language. Furthermore, the practical part contains a chapter contrasting the most salient analytic properties of English with synthetic properties of Czech and Polish. Key words English, Czech, Polish, linguistic typology, linguistic interference Table of contents Introduction ........................................................................................................................................... 7 Literature review ............................................................................................................................... 11 Theoretical part ................................................................................................................................... 13 1 Historical overview ........................................................................................................................... 13 1.1 History of language contact ......................................................................................................... 13 1.1.1 Polish .................................................................................................................................... 13 1.1.2 Czech .................................................................................................................................... 18 1.1.3 English .................................................................................................................................. 22 1.2 Summary of the chapter .............................................................................................................. 26 2 Linguistic typology ........................................................................................................................... 28 2.1 Language classification ............................................................................................................... 28 2.2 Definition of linguistic typology and its origins .......................................................................... 28 2.3 Typological classification ............................................................................................................ 30 2.4 Language dynamism .................................................................................................................... 32 2.5 Genealogical classification .......................................................................................................... 33 2.6 Summary of the chapter .............................................................................................................. 34 3 Errors in language learning ............................................................................................................. 36 3.1 Mistakes and errors ..................................................................................................................... 36 3.2 Error classification ...................................................................................................................... 37 3.3 Study of learner’s error ................................................................................................................ 39 3.4 Cause of an error ......................................................................................................................... 42 3.5 Summary of the chapter .............................................................................................................. 46 4 Conclusion of the theoretical part ................................................................................................... 48 Practical part ....................................................................................................................................... 50 5 Methodology...................................................................................................................................... 50 5.1 Areas of research ......................................................................................................................... 50 5.2 Research objectives ..................................................................................................................... 50 5.3 Research design and data collection ............................................................................................ 51 5.4 Data processing ........................................................................................................................... 55 5.5 Research scope and limitations ................................................................................................... 55 6 Typological properties of English, Czech and Polish .................................................................... 56 7 Results and discussion ...................................................................................................................... 62 7.1 Research on Czenglish ................................................................................................................ 62 7.2 Research on Polglish ................................................................................................................... 72 7.3 Czenglish and Polglish in comparison ........................................................................................ 78 Conclusions .......................................................................................................................................... 87 Works Cited ......................................................................................................................................... 90 Appendices ........................................................................................................................................... 96 Test: Czech version ........................................................................................................................... 96 Test: Polish version ..........................................................................................................................
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