GENDER IN L2 AND HERITAGE ITALIAN BY SWEDISH AND SPANISH DOMINANT SPEAKERS
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.54103/2037-3597/30422Abstract
We report a study investigating the role of typological similarity in the acquisition of grammatical gender in Italian as L2. Robust evidence exists showing that knowledge of gender is never fully attained by L2 and heritage speakers of languages like Spanish and Swedish. However, whether typological proximity between the two languages spoken by the bilingual facilitates the acquisition of gender-marking is unknown. L2 and heritage speakers of Italian dominant in typologically (dis)similar languages (Spanish-Italian vs. Swedish-Italian) were compared on the production and judgment of 3SG/PL gender assignment on object clitics. Results reveal the Spanish-Italian groups had an advantage when the gender-assigning nouns were not cognates and 2L1/L1-L2 gender incongruent while the Swedish-Italian groups showed an advantage when the gender-assigning nouns were gender incongruent and cognates between Spanish and Italian. The finding is, however, moderated by intrinsic differences between heritage and L2 speakers and limited to production only.
L’acquisizione del genere in italiano L2: un’indagine su parlanti ispanofoni e suedofoni
Il presente studio indaga il ruolo della somiglianza tipologica nell’acquisizione del genere grammaticale in italiano come L2. Numerosi studi dimostrano come la conoscenza del genere non venga mai totalmente raggiunta da parlanti italiano L2 che hanno come lingue native lo spagnolo e lo svedese. Tuttavia, la possibilità che la prossimità tipologica tra le due lingue parlate dal soggetto bilingue possa facilitare l’acquisizione della marcatura di genere è pressoché inesplorata. Si è dunque svolto uno studio che ha messo a confronto la produzione orale e il giudizio grammaticale dell’assegnazione di genere 3SG/PL sui clitici oggetto da parte di parlanti italiano L2 con L1 tipologicamente (dis)simili (spagnolo-italiano vs. vs svedese-italiano). I risultati mostrano che i gruppi spagnolo-italiano avevano un vantaggio quando i nomi che assegnavano il genere non erano affini, mentre i gruppi svedese-italiano mostravano un vantaggio quando i nomi che assegnavano il genere erano incongruenti dal punto di vista del genere e affini tra lo spagnolo e l’italiano. Tali risultati sono tuttavia attenuati dalle differenze intrinseche tra i parlanti delle due lingue considerate e limitati alla sola produzione orale.
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