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- Volume 18, Issue, 2004
Australian Review of Applied Linguistics. Supplement Series - Volume 18, Issue 1, 2004
Volume 18, Issue 1, 2004
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Attrition in the verb system of Italian in Australia
Author(s): Marinella Carusopp.: 9–24 (16)More LessThis article reports on an investigation into the loss of morphology expressing temporality in the Italian of second generation Italo-Australians. The purpose of the study is to verify whether the loss of Italian tense and aspect morphology proceeds from marked to unmarked, where markedness is defined on the basis of formal and semantic criteria. Italian language samples are elicited through interviews with first and second generation Italo-Australians, and speakers are placed on an attritional continuum along which the verb forms are compared. The explanations for the patterns of loss identified in the data involve a combination of factors, such as markedness principles, universal or general characteristics of spoken language and interlinguistic influence of dialect.
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Trilingual women as language mediators in the family
Author(s): Antonia Rubinopp.: 25–49 (25)More LessIn the process of language shift from the immigrant languages to English, everyday communication within the family can become increasingly problematic due to strong divergences in the linguistic competences of the older and the younger generations. This article explores the process of language mediation between different generations, as it occurs within a Sicilian-Australian family belonging to the last wave of Italian mass immigration to Australia Through a corpus of spontaneous conversations, the study focuses on the role played by a second generation woman as a mediator within her family. The linguistic analysis shows that, in order to overcome communication breakdown, she makes full use of her competence in all three languages: Italian, Sicilian and English, and employs codeswitching extensively as a conversational strategy to accommodate participants with different language abilities. Furthermore, while she maintains Dialect as the language of the most inner family circle, she shifts to Italian as the more ‘learneable’ language that can contribute to cohesion in the extended family.
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Does overt learner participation equal better L2 acquisition?
Author(s): John Landopp.: 50–62 (13)More LessThe present study examines the relationship between learner participation and accuracy improvement in the use of some features of standard Italian, which were taught over a period of intensive grammatical instruction in a tertiary classroom setting. The subjects of the study are 60 tertiary learners of L2 Italian from a variety of Italian dialect backgrounds, aged 18-25, receiving instruction focused on the use of the past tense system. The incidence of learner overtly vocal participation is measured by monitoring the number of verbalised exchanges of each participant over the 15 hours of instruction. Less overtly vocal participation is monitored by teacher observation of student interaction. Data relating to both vocal and less vocal participation are compared to the improvement percentages in the accurate use of the taught features. While the results of the investigation do not support unambiguously the hypothesis that measurable, verbalised participation during instruction relates to higher accuracy achievement, they bring to the foreground the crucial role of less overtly vocal manifestations of learner participation. This calls for a re-definition of the notion of learner participation and has pedagogical implications for a common assumption held by the L2 teaching profession.
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Virtual immersion
Author(s): Vincenza Tudinipp.: 63–80 (18)More LessMost studies in the field of synchronous Computer Mediated Communication (CMC) deal with interactions between language learners, while interactions between native speakers (NS) and learners have not been explored to the same extent, particularly to ascertain whether chatting with NS can provide a pedagogically sound bridge to conversation. Through the analysis of interactions within a NS Italian chatline, this paper considers whether the chatline environment can act as a bridge to conversational Italian by providing the same opportunities for second language acquisition reputedly offered by face-to-face interaction. Italian NS chatline discourse is analysed for its conversational ‘flavour’ by considering variety of Italian, range of topics, questions, discourse markers, feedback tokens and negotiations. The findings of this study suggest that NS chat discourse can provide learners with exposure to colloquial and regional varieties of Italian, which are generally unavailable in language textbooks. Furthermore, NS chatline discourse offers learners a type of informal conversational practice which also includes negotiation of meaning, thus confirming its role in promoting language learning.
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Learners’ perceptions of a web-enhanced learning environment
Author(s): Antonella Strambipp.: 81–96 (16)More LessThis article presents the results of a longitudinal study on the perceptions of a Web-enhanced learning environment by a group of beginning-level students of Italian. A Website was specially designed and implemented as a complement to the existing syllabus, in order to enhance interactivity, variety, and authenticity of materials and tasks, as well as flexibility and learner control. The aim of the study is to ascertain whether the introduction of computing technology can promote learners’ positive attitudes, as suggested in much of the current literature on Computer-Assisted Language Learning. Quantitative and qualitative data collected from a variety of sources confirm that the introduction of computing technology can contribute to learners’ positive perceptions of the opportunities offered by their learning environment. However, a few drawbacks are also identified which suggest that the introduction of Web-enhanced learning in itself cannot be expected to promote and sustain learners’ positive attitudes and motivation in the long term, and that more research is needed to explore effective ways of using Web-based materials, particularly at introductory levels of competence in the target language.
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Keeping it all in the family
Author(s): Amber Parkinson and John Hajekpp.: 97–114 (18)More LessAlthough the Italian system of address pronouns is relatively complex, scant attention is paid to the issue in L2 manuals designed for English-speaking learners of Italian. After showing that Italian L2 manuals are not necessarily accurate in the limited detail they provide, we examine specifically the frequent claim that so-called informal tu is always used within the family. Results of a large quantitative survey conducted with native speakers of Italian in Italy and Australia show the situation to be much more complicated. Alongside tu, the more formal Lei, and the often ignored Voi, are also used, according to the interlocutor in question. Close genetic relation and proximity of age, operating independently of each other, are clear predictors of reciprocal use of tu. Otherwise, non-reciprocal use of Lei-tu and Voi-tu and even the more formal reciprocal use of Lei are not unknown in a family setting. Observations are made as to how these patterns group, along with a number of other observations about pronoun use. Finally, pedagogical suggestions that might allow English-speaking learners of Italian to understand address pronouns in Italian better and use them more accurately are also provided.
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Auxiliary verbs, dictionaries and the late evolution of the Italian language
Author(s): John J. Kinderpp.: 115–132 (18)More LessThe use of be as an auxiliary verb with intransitive verbs has declined in all the Romance languages over the past five centuries. Today, Spanish and Portuguese use only have, in Catalan and Romanian be occurs in marginal contexts, and in French, be is used with approximately 40 verbs. Italian is a notable exception, since be is still used as the auxiliary of nearly 300 intransitive verbs, as well as with all transitives in the passive and with all reflexives. This well-known fact is a notorious source of difficulty for language teachers and students, partly because there have been few adequate descriptions or even taxonomies of the semantic classes of intransitive verbs which take be. This paper reports an attempt to describe the selection of auxiliary verbs in Italian in terms of contemporary dictionaries of Italian. The paper offers a description of auxiliary selection based on the Auxiliary Selection Hierarchy proposed by Sorace (2000), using some recent monolingual dictionaries as sources. This raises some issues about the use of dictionaries as source material for grammatical descriptions.
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