Uso lessicale e linee di sviluppo dell’autonomia linguistica nelle interlingue

Abstract

In this paper we investigate the development of the lexical competence of pre-basic learners of Italian as a second language focusing specifically on the relationship between the lexical items used by the non-native speakers and those used by the Italian interviewer during the communicative interaction. Our aim is to show that different kinds of lexical production (true independent production, repetition with assimilation and imitation of the acoustic form) can be interpreted as different degrees of lexical competence. The first step in our research is a complete lemmatization of 6 texts of 2 learners (native speakers of Tigrinya) as described in § 1. In § 2 we explain how we can assign a “status of independence” to each form produced by the learner, according to the relationship it establishes with the direct input of the native speaker. The data (in the appendix) is analysed both from a quantitative and qualitative perspective (§ 3) and the results drawn from our study seem to confirm the validity and the usefulness of the notion of “independent use” as an empirical parameter for the analysis of the development of lexical competence. This allows us to highlight the learners’ progress towards a more complex organisation of the semantic relationships in L2 vocabulary and their freer, more confident and more creative use of the language.