Although there is evidence to suggest that the development of pragmatic competence is closely linked to that of grammatical competence, the exact nature of the relationship is yet unknown. In light of the well established fact that even the pragmatic competence of advanced L2 learners is mostly incomplete, in SLA it is generally accepted that grammatical competence does not necessarily imply pragmatic competence. A lack of grammatical competence, however, can seriously affect a learner’s capacity of being communicatively successful. The level of grammatical competence, therefore, seems to act as a constraint on the acquisition of pragmatic competence. The present article discusses the results of an experiment, designed to examine the use of modifiers in requests, in relation to syntactic complexity in Italian L2, carried out among 46 Dutch university students, with a low-intermediate proficiency level of Italian. The linguistic focus of the study is on the use of so-called modifiers, which can be employed to mitigate the illocutionary force of a speech act. For beginning L2 learners the use of modifiers is often particularly difficult. With increasing proficiency, the use of modifiers moves towards native-like use, but hardly ever reaches the L1-norm In the study participants had to perform an interactive oral task, consisting of a video-recorded role-play, based on a short situational description. Syntactic complexity was defined in terms of the number of words, clauses and subclauses per AS-unit. A cloze test was administered to establish the general level of L2 proficiency. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the implications for further research into the interface between the development of pragmatics and syntactic complexity.
Benché l’acquisizione della competenza pragmatica e quella della competenza grammaticale in L2 appaiano strettamente correlate, la natura dell’interazione tra sviluppo pragmatico e sviluppo grammaticale pare tutt’altro che ovvia. In base alla costatazione che persino la competenza pragmatica degli apprendenti progrediti è spesso parziale, l’opinione attualmente prevalente è che l’apprendimento della grammatica in L2 non implichi necessariamente l’apprendimento della pragmatica. Ciò non toglie che una conoscenza difettosa delle forme grammaticali usate più comunemente dai parlanti nativi per la realizzazione di determinati atti linguistici può seriamente ostacolare il successo comunicativo. Nel presente articolo si discutono i risultati di una ricerca incentrata sul rapporto tra sviluppo pragmatico e complessità sintattica in italiano L2, condotta tra 46 apprendenti d’italiano, tutti studenti universitari di madrelingua nederlandese, con un livello di padronanza linguistica bassao-intermedio. Lo studio è focalizzato sull’apprendimento dei cosiddetti modificatori, che in un atto linguistico come la richiesta possono essere adoperati per mitigare la forza illocutoria e la minaccia dell’enunciato. Per un apprendente L2 l’uso appropriato dei modificatori, che è determinato da varie regole distribuzionali lessicali e grammaticali, risulta spesso particolarmente difficile. Man mano, con il progresso grammaticale, il repertorio delle forme pragmatiche dell’apprendente si espande, avvicinandosi di più alla norma nativa. Ai partecipanti sono stati somministrati due test: un cloze, usato per misurare il livello di padronanza linguistica generale degli apprendenti, e un role-play, registrato su video, basato su una breve descrizione della situazione e dei ruoli. La complessità sintattica della produzione orale degli studenti è stata misurata in termini del numero di parole, clausole e clausole dipendenti per AS-unit. Nell’articolo sono discusse le implicazioni dello studio, in particolare riguardo all’interfaccia tra competenza pragmatica e complessità sintattica.
(2007). Competenza pragmatica e complessità sintattica in italiano L2: l’uso dei modificatori nelle richieste [journal article - articolo]. In LINGUISTICA E FILOLOGIA. Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/10446/104
Competenza pragmatica e complessità sintattica in italiano L2: l’uso dei modificatori nelle richieste
2007-01-01
Abstract
Although there is evidence to suggest that the development of pragmatic competence is closely linked to that of grammatical competence, the exact nature of the relationship is yet unknown. In light of the well established fact that even the pragmatic competence of advanced L2 learners is mostly incomplete, in SLA it is generally accepted that grammatical competence does not necessarily imply pragmatic competence. A lack of grammatical competence, however, can seriously affect a learner’s capacity of being communicatively successful. The level of grammatical competence, therefore, seems to act as a constraint on the acquisition of pragmatic competence. The present article discusses the results of an experiment, designed to examine the use of modifiers in requests, in relation to syntactic complexity in Italian L2, carried out among 46 Dutch university students, with a low-intermediate proficiency level of Italian. The linguistic focus of the study is on the use of so-called modifiers, which can be employed to mitigate the illocutionary force of a speech act. For beginning L2 learners the use of modifiers is often particularly difficult. With increasing proficiency, the use of modifiers moves towards native-like use, but hardly ever reaches the L1-norm In the study participants had to perform an interactive oral task, consisting of a video-recorded role-play, based on a short situational description. Syntactic complexity was defined in terms of the number of words, clauses and subclauses per AS-unit. A cloze test was administered to establish the general level of L2 proficiency. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the implications for further research into the interface between the development of pragmatics and syntactic complexity.File | Dimensione del file | Formato | |
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