Abstract
Marked word orders in written Italian A comparison between native speakers, L1-German learners, and L1-English learners This paper focuses on cross-linguistic influence in the acquisition of Italian as an L2 by learners with Germanic L1s (English and German). The general domain under investigation is information structure, notably marked word orders. The English and German languages differ from each other in this domain, since English has a rigid word order (SVO), while German is a Verb-second language, with a relatively flexible word order. The hypothesis tested in this study is that English learners are more reluctant to deviate from a basic word order SVO in response to information structure than their Germans pairs. Approximately 300 written texts were selected from two comparable corpora freely available online, VALICO and VINCA. VALICO is an Italian corpus which includes narratives produced by Italian L2 learners and VINCA is the corresponding control corpus produced by native Italian speakers. Data analysed in this paper lend support to the hypothesis that English learners are more prone to conform to the basic SVO word order pattern than German speakers: They apparently avoid VS orders with inaccusative verbs and overuse presentational sentences with esserci, which are largely employed in their L1. In the last section of the paper some instructional interventions to foster the noticing of marked word orders and their relative functions will be suggested.
Highlights
This paper focuses on cross-linguistic influence in the acquisition of Italian as an L2 by learners with Germanic L1s (English and German)
In the last section of the paper some instructional interventions to foster the noticing of marked word orders and their relative functions will be suggested
Summary
Il tedesco infatti è una lingua in cui il verbo finito deve occupare una posizione precisa (la seconda), ma vi è libertà riguardo allo statuto sintattico del costituente (uno solo) che può comparire nella prima posizione della frase; qui, in alternativa al Soggetto, possono essere presenti altri elementi (ad esempio Oggetti o circostanziali), sempre in funzione dei valori pragmatici della struttura informativa L’influenza della L1 in questo ambito viene ribadita in diversi altri lavori aderenti allo stesso impianto teorico: per esempio Turco, occupandosi di scisse e altri costrutti, rileva la facilità con cui le prime sono prodotte nell’italiano L2 di francofoni; Valentini, & Businaro, con dati su sinofoni e anglofoni, osservano che presso i primi si registra nuovamente una precoce comparsa di ordini VS con inaccusativi o con Soggetto focale e − viceversa − presso i secondi si rilevano ‘zone di resistenza’, ossia una refrattarietà a deviare dall’ordine non marcato SVO in risposta a scopi pragmatici. Anticipiamo subito il confronto con le altre due sezioni non native: la distribuzione dei testi con o senza sintassi marcata corrisponde grossomodo a quella individuata sopra, con una percentuale leggermente inferiore di testi senza sintassi marcata nei germanofoni
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