Migration, language, and variation: the challenge of foreign speakers to detect Italian linguistic varieties

Abstract

In the last decades, Italy has been affected by new migratory waves which enriched its varied sociolinguistic landscape. If on one hand Italy has been dealing with the integration of new immigrants in the society, on the other foreign immigrants need to cope with the extreme sociolinguistic complexity which defines the Italian linguistic reality. The present study aims to examine how foreign speakers perceive regional linguistic variation of Italy. A perceptive experiment was conducted on 44 foreign respondents to test their linguistic perception of six regional Italian varieties. Results showed that Italian’s explicit learning helps linguistic comprehension, but it is not enough to grasp differences between regional varieties of Italian, and this could cause comprehension difficulties for the unrepresented varieties in Italian language programs. We suggest that the enhancement of Italian regional varieties’ representation could foster new immigrants’ integration in the welcome society.