The perception of rhetorical questions in English by Italian native speakers.

Abstract

This present study aims at investigating the perception of rhetorical questions in English by Italian native speakers through the creation of an experimental study. This thesis seeks to bridge the gap in the current literature between the sheer amount of research on the production of rhetorical questions in English and the restricted field of research on their perception by Italians who are studying or have studied English as L2. In order to investigate this matter, this thesis has been divided into four chapters. The first chapter will be devoted to the theoretical introduction on the characteristics of rhetorical questions from the point of view of their functioning and prosody. Particular attention will be then dedicated to the interferences which might take place in L2 production and perception, moving on subsequently to a panoramic view on the existing experimental studies on RQs adopting a cross-language perspective. The second chapter will be fully devoted to the explanation of the entire experiment, starting from the presentation of the stimuli and the participants to the description of the questionnaires’ structure and methodology. The third chapter provides the reader with a descriptive and statistical analysis of the experimental data, showing the results from both the control and experimental groups through the Logistic Regression Model. Lastly, at the core of the fourth chapter there will be a thorough discussion on the limitations and the main findings and implications of the study.