Space Conceptualization and Motion Verbs in Polish and French as Foreign Languages

The following text compares the acquisition of French and Polish as second languages. The empirical research (target group includes Polish and French native speakers, Polish students of French and French students of Polish) is designed to answer certain questions concerning, among others, the extent of language categorisation, the characteristics of the mother tongue and real communication of adult learners of typologically different foreign languages. The research results show that 1) the major difficulty in constructing a new system of meaning stems from the necessity of building a new type of relation, 2) constructing new dictionary resources is a function of learners’ knowledge of given language tools, and 3) comparison of the learners’ transition from Polish to French and vice versa implies the existence of certain stages of acquisition particular to a deconstruction of its own and construction of a new system of language devices.