ABSTRACT:
The interest of this project lies in the domain of modeling our verbal performance on the basis of what we know about our individual modalities in the context of our mother tongue (L1) and foreign language (L2) use. It relates to an aspect of research in the area of neurolinguistic programming (NLP), more precisely the area which focuses on the description of our verbal interactions and the preferences we may have for certain language forms as examples of our individual modalities and of representational systems in the mind.
The introductory part of the presentation looks at the major assumptions of NLP and the role of verbal expression as evidence of our representational systems. It describes the language characteristic of the individual modalities such as the visual, auditory, kinesthetic, olfactory and gustatory.
The research part of the project, carried out with a group of advanced second-language English learners, attempts to describe the subjects’ individual modalities in their mother tongue and in their second language. It addresses the question of whether the modalities, as exemplified in idiosyncratic use of their mother tongue, Polish, are the same as those observed in the use of the second language, English. The data was collected by means of different recognition and production tests in both the subjects’ mother tongue and the second language. This data was supplemented by comments made by the subjects on their individual awareness of the modalities they have. The results of this study have clear implications for FL/L2 classroom teaching and learning practices in terms of how to model a learner’s optimum performance in FL/L2.
