Iwona Kowal

The present paper investigates word associations in beginner learners of Swedish as L3. Word associations can be understood as links that connect words in the human mind and therefore they can shed light on how language learners build their mental lexicon. Three general types of word associations can be distinguished: phonological, paradigmatic and syntagmatic. Previous studies have shown that the first type occurs in children acquiring their first language and in second language learners while paradigmatic and syntagmatic associations can be found in adults L1-speakers. 28 Polish adult learners of L3 Swedish participated in the study in which they were asked to fulfil the Swedish version of Kent-Rosanoff word list. The analysis has shown that multilinguals at the beginning stage of their L3-learning translate words into one of their background languages – most often L1-Polish. Word associations in these learners are also complex in nature: in most cases students had clang associations combined with other types, such as translation, paradigmatic or syntagmatic.

The paper presents a longitudinal study of writing fluency in second language students. The aim was to follow the development of the students’ fluency during a three-year period in which they studied Swedish as a second language. Fifteen Polish university students participated in the study. The analysis shows that fluency develops non-linearly with some peaks in the average developmental curve. Furthermore, we observed both between- and within-individual variability in fluency in text production. The development of fluency is unpredictable and no one subject mirrors in their development the average curve. Individual differences were observed at every step of second language development. The analysis shows that writers who are slow at typing are not automatically less fluent and that subjects who develop more slowly can achieve a high level of fluency in writing. In general, writers who were slower and less fluent at the beginning made the greatest progress in fluency during the three-year period, compared with those who were more skilled with regard to both language and typing, who achieved a certain level of fluency faster than their fellow students.