La competenza metapragmatica nella produzione dei non nativi: il caso della metacomunicazione

Abstract

The aim of this paper is twofold: first of all, to propose a theoretical model of metacommunication and secondly to analyse the use of metacommunicative forms by non native speakers, with different levels of competence in L2, when communicating in the Italian language with native speakers. Firstly, the model of metacommunication presented here conceives metacommunication to be a linguistic phenomenon that takes place whenever participants in an interaction make explicit remarks on any element of the speech event (addresser, code, message, etc…). However, what is important to this model is to analyse the linguistic phenomenon from a functional point of view, that is, to understand the reasons why speakers use metacommunication. Secondly, it will be shown that, according to their level of competence in L2 (elementary, intermediate or advanced level), non native speakers use metacommunicative sentences which differ both in respect of the aspects of the interaction they focus on and, above all, in respect of the functions they perform.