Agnieszka Kacprzak

Home Language Will Not Take Care of Itself: Vocabulary Knowledge in Trilingual Children in the United Kingdom

Language input is crucial for language acquisition and especially for children’s vocabulary size. Bilingual children receive reduced input in each of their languages, compared to monolinguals, and are reported to have smaller vocabularies, at least in one of their languages. Vocabulary acquisition in trilingual children has been largely understudied; only a few case studies have been published so far. Moreover, trilingual language acquisition in children has been rarely contrasted with language outcomes of bilingual and monolingual peers. We present a comparison of trilingual, bilingual, and monolingual children (total of 56 participants, aged 4;5–6;7, matched one-to-one for age, gender, and non-verbal IQ) in regard to their receptive and expressive vocabulary (measured by standardized tests), and relative frequency of input in each language (measured by parental report). The monolingual children were speakers of Polish or English, while the bilinguals and trilinguals were migrant children living in the United Kingdom, speaking English as a majority language and Polish as a home language. The trilinguals had another (third) language at home. For the majority language, English, no differences were found across the three groups, either in the receptive or productive vocabulary. The groups differed, however, in their performance in Polish, the home language. The trilinguals had lower receptive vocabulary than the monolinguals, and lower productive vocabulary compared to the monolinguals. The trilinguals showed similar lexical knowledge to the bilinguals. The bilinguals demonstrated lower scores than the monolinguals, but only in productive vocabulary. The data on reported language input show that input in English in bilingual and trilingual groups is similar, but the bilinguals outscore the trilinguals in relative frequency of Polish input. Overall, the results suggest that in the majority language, multilingual children may develop lexical skills similar to those of their monolingual peers. However, their minority language is weaker: the trilinguals scored lower than the Polish monolinguals on both receptive and expressive vocabulary tests, and the bilinguals showed reduced expressive knowledge but leveled out with the Polish monolinguals on receptive vocabulary. The results should encourage parents of migrant children to support home language(s), if the languages are to be retained in a longer perspective.

How Does L1 and L2 Exposure Impact L1 Performance in Bilingual Children? Evidence from Polish-English Migrants to the United Kingdom

Most studies on bilingual language development focus on children’s second language (L2). Here, we investigated first language (L1) development of Polish-English early migrant bilinguals in four domains: vocabulary, grammar, phonological processing, and discourse. We first compared Polish language skills between bilinguals and their Polish non-migrant monolingual peers, and then investigated the influence of the cumulative exposure to L1 and L2 on bilinguals’ performance. We then examined whether high exposure to L1 could possibly minimize the gap between monolinguals and bilinguals. We analyzed data from 233 typically developing children (88 bilingual and 145 monolingual) aged 4;0 to 7;5 (years;months) on six language measures in Polish: receptive vocabulary, productive vocabulary, receptive grammar, productive grammar (sentence repetition), phonological processing (non-word repetition), and discourse abilities (narration). Information about language exposure was obtained via parental questionnaires. For each language task, we analyzed the data from the subsample of bilinguals who had completed all the tasks in question and from monolinguals matched one-on-one to the bilingual group on age, SES (measured by years of mother’s education), gender, non-verbal IQ, and short-term memory. The bilingual children scored lower than monolinguals in all language domains, except discourse. The group differences were more pronounced on the productive tasks (vocabulary, grammar, and phonological processing) and moderate on the receptive tasks (vocabulary and grammar). L1 exposure correlated positively with the vocabulary size and phonological processing. Grammar scores were not related to the levels of L1 exposure, but were predicted by general cognitive abilities. L2 exposure negatively influenced productive grammar in L1, suggesting possible L2 transfer effects on L1 grammatical performance. Children’s narrative skills benefitted from exposure to two languages: both L1 and L2 exposure influenced story structure scores in L1. Importantly, we did not find any evidence (in any of the tasks in which the gap was present) that the performance gap between monolinguals and bilinguals could be fully closed with high amounts of L1 input.

Neither action nor phonological video games make dyslexic children read better

The prevalence and long-term consequences of dyslexia make it crucial to look for effective and efficient ways of its therapy. Action video games (AVG) were implied as a possible remedy for difficulties in reading in Italian and English-speaking children. However, the studies examining the effectiveness of AVG application in dyslexia suffered from significant methodological weaknesses such as small sample sizes and lack of a control group with no intervention. In our study, we tested how two forms of training: based on AVG and on phonological non-action video games (PNAVG), affect reading in a group of fifty-four Polish children with dyslexia. Both speed and accuracy of reading increased in AVG as much as in PNAVG group. Moreover, both groups improved in phonological awareness, selective attention and rapid naming. Critically, the reading progress in the two groups did not differ from a dyslexic control group which did not participate in any training. Thus, the observed improvement in reading in AVG and PNAVG can be attributed either to the normal reading development related to schooling or to test practice effect. Overall, we failed to replicate previous studies: Neither AVG nor PNAVG remedy difficulties in reading in school children.

SPRZEDAŻ RZECZY KRADZIONEJ

THE SALE OF STOLEN GOODS Summary The most complex analysis of the legal consequences resulting fromthe sale of stolen goods can be found in the Digest 18,1,34,3. Paul frames three separate hypotheses, in which the solutions differ depending on whether the contracting parties, or at least one of them, when stipulating the contract, were aware that the goods for sale had been stolen. If both parties were aware that the object of sale was res furtiva , the contract was void, i.e. neither party was obliged towards the other. Where only the buyer was aware of the circumstances then the seler was not bound by the contract. However, only if he voluntarily delivered his performance, could he demand payment. If only party aware that the goods were stolen was the seller, whereas the buyer concluded the contract in good faith, the sale was valid as a whole. This judgement conforms with the opinion of earlier jurisprudence, especially that of Pomponius. The question of what reason underpinned the jurists’ decision on the invalidity of sale, which had res furtiva as an object and was concluded by the parties aware of this fact, appears the first problem to be solved. I would rather dismiss the notion that such a solution could have been based either on the idea of impossibility of performance or on the mere mala fides of the contracting parties. Given that the seller was not bound to transfer ownership to the buyer, the execution of the contract of sale, the object of which was res furtiva, had to be considered possible. Neither does it seem plausible that the invalidity of the contract was provoked merely by the mala fides of the parties. It would be difficult indeed to speak of one party’s bad faith, if there is no good faith to be protected on the other side of the contract. In all probability the objective the jurists had in mind when excluding the validity of a deliberate sale of res furtivae , was to stop the circulation of such goods and render it easier for the owners to recover them. Therefore a deliberate sale of a stolen thing must have been considered invalid on the ground that it tended to violate one of the principles of legal order and hence was contra bonos mores . From the analysis of the three hypotheses considered by Paul results, that the validity of the sale of res furtiva depended on the good faith of the purchaser. Wherever he was unaware that the object of sale had been stolen, the contract was valid, irrespective of the good or bad faith of the seller. On the contrary, if the purchaser was aware, that the object of sale was res furtivay the contract was void in principle. The seller however, if in good faith, was granted the possibility to convalidate it by spontaneous performance. The reason for such a differentiation was probably the fact, that of the two reciprocal performances, which constituted the substance of the contract of sale, only the one, to which the seller was obliged, could violate the legal order and thus was considered defective. Therefor it was precisely the claim of the purchaser, trying to force such an execution in spite of His knowledge of the status of the goods, that was contra bonos mores and hence invalid. In such a situation the seller was not obliged to deliver his performance. Considering the principle of reciprocity of the contract of sale, one must conclude, that the purchaser could not be obliged towards the seller either, and thus, in principle, the whole contract was void. On the other hand, even though the seller could not have been forced to deliver his performance, he did have the possibility to deliver it voluntarily. In such a case, on the basis of the principle of reciprocity, he could claim payment from the purchaser. On this basis the contract became valid.

Value in shopping experiences in the perception of Polish consumers

The purpose of this paper is to identify the types of value that arise in the shopping context and the factors that determine it, as well as to present consumer attitudes towards the value generated by experiential marketing activities. The paper presents the results of five focus group interviews, during which typical shopping experiences and examples of experience shopping environment were discussed. The results show that during ordinary shopping activities participants of the study focused mainly on utilitarian aspects of value (e.g., price and time). While they clearly appreciated the entertainment and intellectual value provided by experiential marketing, they judged its potential to be rather a one-time event than a part of their regular shopping activity. This suggests that for Polish consumers receiving the basic utilitarian value during their shopping experiences is preferable to memorable experiences unless they become emotionally involved.

Determinants of Vertical and Horizontal Gender Segregation in the Workplace in Poland

The aim of this article is to analyse factors influencing the level of horizontal and vertical occupational segregation in Poland. The results of qualitative and quantitative surveys conducted among Polish employees are investigated. The data are taken from a project on employee perspectives on corporate social responsibility. Ninety individual depth interviews (IDI) with participants from 22 sectors of the economy and 1000 computer-assisted telephone interviews (CATI) on a representative sample of Polish employees were carried out. A number of variables associated with respondents’ socio-demographic status, the characteristics of respondents’ organisations, and internalised values and norms, were analysed. The findings suggest that the vast majority of the observed examples of discrimination originate from the cultural values and norms of Polish society, which decision-makers and employees have internalised in the early stages of the socialisation process.