LEXICAL ELICITATION TASKS: A COMPARISON OF PRODUCTIVE COMPETENCE IN ITALIAN AS L1, L2, HERITAGE LANGUAGE, AND FOREIGN LANGUAGE This paper presents the results of an experimental study conducted on a sample of 350 speakers aged between 8 and 47, whose linguistic repertoires include Italian as a first language (L1), as a second language acquired and used in Italy (L2), as a heritage language in bilingual family contexts abroad (LMiB), or as a foreign language learned in formal instructional settings outside Italy (FL). From a comparative perspective, the study investigates productive lexical competence through elicitation tasks based on verbal fluency activities, in which participants were asked to produce, within a fixed time limit, as many nouns as possible beginning with assigned letters and referring to three semantic categories (animals, objects, professions). The tasks, conducted in parallel in Italy and Estonia, made it possible to define quantitative scales of productive lexical competence and to relate them to different combinations of variables, including age, modes of spontaneous acquisition and formal learning of Italian, and strategies for lexical retrieval from memory.The analysis of the collected corpus also made it possible to compare the types and frequencies of nouns produced by the different groups of speakers and to assess their degree of overlap with the basic vocabulary of Italian. The findings contribute to the definition of empirical parameters for the assessment of productive lexical competence in Italian in monolingual and multilingual contexts and may offer useful suggestions for the teaching Italian vocabulary.
Il contributo presenta i risultati di una sperimentazione su un campione di 350 parlanti di età compresa tra gli 8 e i 47 anni, nei cui repertori l’italiano assume il ruolo di lingua materna (LM), lingua seconda acquisita e utilizzata in Italia (L2), lingua migrante in contesti familiari bilingui all’estero (LMiB) o lingua straniera appresa in contesti di insegnamento formale fuori d’Italia (LS). In una prospettiva comparativa, la ricerca ha indagato le competenze lessicali produttive attraverso prove di elicitazione basate su compiti di fluenza verbale, nei quali ai partecipanti è stato richiesto di produrre, entro un tempo prestabilito, il maggior numero possibile di sostantivi iniziali con lettere assegnate, in riferimento a tre categorie semantiche (animali, oggetti, mestieri). Le prove, condotte parallelamente in Italia e in Estonia, hanno consentito di definire scale quantitative della competenza lessicale produttiva, mettendole in relazione con diverse combinazioni di variabili, tra cui l’età, le modalità di acquisizione spontanea e di apprendimento formale dell’italiano e le strategie di recupero dei lessemi dalla memoria lessicale. L’analisi del corpus raccolto ha inoltre permesso di confrontare la tipologia e la frequenza dei sostantivi prodotti dalle diverse categorie di parlanti e di verificarne il grado di sovrapposizione con il vocabolario di base dell’italiano. I risultati contribuiscono alla definizione di parametri empirici per la valutazione della competenza lessicale produttiva in contesti monolingui e plurilingui offrendo spunti per la didattica del lessico dell’italiano.
Prove di elicitazione lessicale: competenze produttive in italiano LM, LMiB, L2, LS a confronto
Sara PASQUET;Luisa REVELLI
In corso di stampa
Abstract
LEXICAL ELICITATION TASKS: A COMPARISON OF PRODUCTIVE COMPETENCE IN ITALIAN AS L1, L2, HERITAGE LANGUAGE, AND FOREIGN LANGUAGE This paper presents the results of an experimental study conducted on a sample of 350 speakers aged between 8 and 47, whose linguistic repertoires include Italian as a first language (L1), as a second language acquired and used in Italy (L2), as a heritage language in bilingual family contexts abroad (LMiB), or as a foreign language learned in formal instructional settings outside Italy (FL). From a comparative perspective, the study investigates productive lexical competence through elicitation tasks based on verbal fluency activities, in which participants were asked to produce, within a fixed time limit, as many nouns as possible beginning with assigned letters and referring to three semantic categories (animals, objects, professions). The tasks, conducted in parallel in Italy and Estonia, made it possible to define quantitative scales of productive lexical competence and to relate them to different combinations of variables, including age, modes of spontaneous acquisition and formal learning of Italian, and strategies for lexical retrieval from memory.The analysis of the collected corpus also made it possible to compare the types and frequencies of nouns produced by the different groups of speakers and to assess their degree of overlap with the basic vocabulary of Italian. The findings contribute to the definition of empirical parameters for the assessment of productive lexical competence in Italian in monolingual and multilingual contexts and may offer useful suggestions for the teaching Italian vocabulary.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
