Multilingual Expatriates in Poland and Their Attitudes Towards Learning Polish Cover Image

Multilingual Expatriates in Poland and Their Attitudes Towards Learning Polish
Multilingual Expatriates in Poland and Their Attitudes Towards Learning Polish

Author(s): Ewa Komorowska
Subject(s): Foreign languages learning, Language acquisition, Western Slavic Languages
Published by: Instytut Slawistyki Polskiej Akademii Nauk
Keywords: multilingualism with Polish; expats in Poland; attitudes towards Polish;

Summary/Abstract: The article presents partial results from an online survey conducted with a group of expatriates living and working in Poland. The main aim of the study was to examine the attitude of the target group towards learning Polish, and to find the most important motivations for learning it or the reasons for not doing so. This problem has not been thoroughly researched before because expatriates previously were not treated as a separate research group. The results show, however, that they are an interesting object of study; they differ from other types of learners (e.g. academic learners) mostly because of their different motivations and attitudes towards learning Polish. The language profile of the expatriates is particularly noteworthy, especially their multilingualism, although not all are learning Polish. Their motivations to start learning the language, and the reasons for stopping to do so or for not even starting at all despite living in Poland for long time, are also worth exploring.

  • Issue Year: 2022
  • Issue No: 22
  • Page Range: 1-17
  • Page Count: 17
  • Language: English