PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE OF INTERITA: REEXPLORING A SWEDISH LEARNER CORPUS OF ITALIAN
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.54103/2037-3597/30429Abstract
This paper presents InterIta, a corpus of oral production data gathered at Stockholm University between 2001 and 2009 from university students of Italian with different levels of proficiency. In the paper, we outline the characteristics of the corpus and some results from studies that have leveraged the transcribed recordings. These are mainly studies concerning lexical, grammatical and interactional aspects of learners’ interlanguage. The corpus and the studies conducted are framed in the context of the acquisitional studies on Italian as a second/foreign language of the early 2000s. Interita has also served for a body of work within the field of L3 acquisition which has taken an interest in the role of multilingual learners’ linguistic background. As an example of ongoing work based on the corpus, we present a longitudinal study on cross-linguistic influence in the development of verb morphology. Subsequently, we discuss the possibilities and limitations of Interita and highlight the need for integrating complementary data types. We finally suggest possible future directions of research based on the corpus which we believe would enrich the field of research devoted to Italian as a second, third or foreign language.
Passato, presente e futuro di InterIta: un corpus di produzione orale di studenti di italiano in Svezia
Questo saggio presenta InterIta, un corpus di dati relativi alla produzione orale di studenti universitari di italiano appartenenti a diversi livelli di competenza e raccolti all’Università di Stoccolma tra il 2001 e il 2009. Nel saggio, descriviamo le caratteristiche del corpus e alcuni risultati a partire dalle registrazioni trascritte. Si tratta di studi riguardanti principalmente aspetti lessicali, grammaticali e interazionali delle interlingue degli studenti. Il corpus e gli studi ad esso collegati si inseriscono nel contesto degli studi sull’acquisizione dell’italiano come lingua seconda/straniera dei primi anni 2000. Interita, inoltre, è stato utilizzato in una serie di studi nel campo dell’acquisizione della L3 che hanno esaminato il ruolo del retroterra linguistico di apprendenti plurilingui. Come esempio di lavoro attualmente in corso sul corpus, presentiamo uno studio longitudinale sull’influenza cross-linguistica nello sviluppo della morfologia verbale. Discutiamo poi le possibilità e i limiti di Interita, evidenziando la necessità di integrare altri tipi di dati. Infine, suggeriamo possibili direzioni future di ricerca a partire dal corpus che, a nostro avviso, arricchirebbero il campo della ricerca dedicata all’italiano come lingua seconda, terza o come lingua straniera.
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