Acquisition and Learning Spanish Article by Polish children and adults in the immersive linguistic environment

Abstract

Language learning and language acquisition represent two different cognitive processes that are influenced by factors such as context, input, motivation and age. More specifically, the age of immersion seems to have a crucial role in determining foreign language fluency. This project constitutes an experimental attempt to prove that language learning and language acquisition do not produce similar results. In order to demonstrate this, different values and contexts of the use of the Spanish article are described and based on interviews of Polish citizens living in Spain, an analysis of errors is presented, comparing the productions of children who acquired the Spanish language unconsciously (language acquisition), and those of adults who received explicit instruction (language learning) of Spanish as a foreign language.