engleski

Some Differences in Punctuation Use in Croatian and English

Punctuation is an important feature of the written language. It has, however, suffered a significant blow in electronic communication where rules have become rather flexible. This has made it harder for learners to develop their writing skills for communicating in formal contexts. It is certainly praiseworthy if learners can communicate their message in L2, but there comes a point where we need to take the development of communicative competence a step further and teach learners how to write coherent and cohesive texts. Punctuation, clearly, is important in achieving this. Although Croatian and English have much in common in view of punctuation use, there are differences that learners need to be aware of if they are to produce and understand English texts correctly. For example, there are differences in the use of the capital letter, full stop, comma, etc. Some of these differences can actually be highlighted and explained as early as third grade of elementary school. Cross-linguistic influence occurs at all levels, so it is quite understandable that native Croatian speakers might come to apply rules governing punctuation use in Croatian when writing English texts. Furthermore, native speakers of Croatian might come under the strong influence of the English language and begin applying punctuation rules from L2 when writing texts in L1. This presentation explores the differences in punctuation use in Croatian and English and suggests ways to make learners at different levels aware of such differences.

punctuation ; differences in punctuation ; writing ; cross-linguistic influence

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