Italian, French, Polish: in the Bermuda Triangle of linguistic interference

• Main Author: Małgorzata Balicka
• Format: Article
• Language: Catalan
• Published: Adam Mickiewicz University 2009-01-01
• Series: Studia Romanica Posnaniensia
• Online Access: http://pressto.amu.edu.pl/index.php/srp/article/view/3199

Increasing contacts between nations make people learn foreign languages. Unfortunately, the use of more than one language system may cause errors due to linguistic interference. In the present paper we consider different definitions of this phenomenon and describe the conditions reąuired for its presence, along with proposals on how to eliminate interference mistakes. A specific case is false friends, words similar in form but different in meaning, which can lead to misunderstandings or even disgrace. As interference implies the knowledge of at least two languages, bilingualism is another problem discussed in the paper. We present different approaches to interference and study the relation between bilingualism and interference. Finally, we discuss loanwords as one of the results of interference. With all these considerations in mind we can make a specific study of interference mistakes made by Polish students of Italian philology.