The linguistic input in textbooks of Italian as Second Language

Abstract

The linguistic input in textbooks of Italian as Second Language – abstract Student: Anna Ferrarini, matr. 964406, LM – Scienze del Linguaggio, curriculum: Glottodidattica Relatore: Prof. Nicola Munaro

The aim of this thesis is to investigate the linguistic input in textbooks of Italian as Second Language. Standard Italian is undergoing several changes, as observed by recent researches. In particular, they are considered as expanding and stabilizing in a new form of standard, referred to as neo-standard (Berruto), or italiano dell’uso medio (Sabatini), or italiano tendenziale (Mioni). Have these changes become part of the linguistic input presented to learners? To which extent and for what reasons? This thesis tries to answer these questions. In order to accomplish the purpose of this thesis, a corpus of 9 textbooks (3 textbooks for each level) was collected. The textbooks, which are published in Italy, were chosen because they appeared to be the most used among teachers of Italian as Second Language. In order to discover which were the most used textbooks a survey was conducted among teachers via questionnaire. Publishing houses were contacted as well for a feedback. The data collection was carried out manually. The first section of this thesis focuses on contemporary Italian. First, a brief history of Italian is provided in order to understand present day Italian. Second, the “architecture” of Italian language varieties is explained, in order to introduce the standard variety. Third, the concept of standard in Italian is analysed in detail. At the end of this section, an outline of the main recent trends of language change concerning Italian is provided. The second section focuses in detail on the main morpho-syntactic features analysed in this thesis. The features concern syntax, as well as the verb system and the pronominal system. In particular, they are: left and right dislocation, cleft sentence, presentational cleft, changes in the use of pronouns (i.e. lui, lei, loro, as subject pronouns), multipurpose che, changes in the use of verbs (i.e. use of present tense instead of the future, modal uses of the future and other changes in the use of the future; expansion of the use of imperfetto; uses of passato prossimo and passato remoto; the use of the indicative instead of the subjunctive; the development of verbal periphrases); in addition, also other phenomena as considered, such as agreement ad sensum, changes in interrogative and exclamatory sentences, conjunctions in subordinate sentences. The third section focuses on the role of texts in language teaching and the notion of input, in order to provide background information for the analyses of the corpus. First, a brief history of language teaching approaches and method is provided. Second, the notion of text in the Common European Framework of Reference is analysed. Third, an outline of teaching Italian as Second language is provided. Last, elements about the discussion on which Italian to teach to foreigners are provided. The fourth section provides the analyses of the data collected, followed by the discussion of the results and conclusions.