Intercomprehension between two unrelated languages: a case study on Italian and Dutch.

Abstract

Earlier studies have shown that intercomprehension between related languages is possible. Once intercomprehension between related languages is studied, the step to intercomprehension between unrelated languages is not far off. The present case study investigated whether native speakers of Italian (n=5) who had attended a course in intercomprehension between Romance languages (IC group) were able to transfer their strategies to a reading comprehension test and translation of a newspaper article in an unfamiliar Germanic language (Dutch). Their results were compared to five university students without experience in intercomprehension (N-IC group). Of secondary interest were possible differences in reading the article and the added value of audio, which was added halfway through the test. Results showed a higher success rate for IC participants, which suggests that they were indeed able to transfer their strategies to an unrelated language. No differences in reading were observed and in most cases, audio was valued as useless. Nevertheless, some IC participants said they used the intonation pattern to better understand the overall article, which also confirms their capacity to transfer their intercomprehension strategies to an unfamiliar and unrelated language.