Gabriele Pallotti

A Simple View of Linguistic Complexity.

Although a growing number of second language acquisition (SLA) studies take linguistic complexity as a dependent variable, the term is still poorly defined and often used with different meanings, thus posing serious problems for research synthesis and knowledge accumulation. This article proposes a simple, coherent view of the construct, which is defined in a purely structural way, i.e. the complexity directly arising from the number of linguistic elements and their interrelationships. Issues of cognitive cost (difficulty) or developmental dynamics (acquisition) are explicitly excluded from this theoretical definition and its operationalization. The article discusses how the complexity of an interlanguage system can be assessed based on the limited samples with which SLA researchers usually work. For the areas of morphology, syntax and the lexicon, some measures are proposed that are coherent with the purely structural view advocated, and issues related to their operationalization are critically scrutinized.

Conversation Analysis of Opening Sequences of Telephone Calls to Bookstores in English and Italian

In this article we attempt to apply the principles and tools of conversation analysis (CA) to domain-specific discourse. Considering that the CA approach is largely unused in LSP research, we begin by discussing the relevance and applicability of CA to domain-specific analysis. We then illustrate experimental cross-cultural data from 2 corpora of telephone call openings to a variety of English and Italian workplaces, and 2 corpora of calls to English and Italian bookstores, as an example of how CA may produce concrete evidence which may help us to define what is domain-specific about certain kinds of telephone talk

Language Socialisation and Language Shift in the 1b Generation: A Study of Moroccan Adolescents in Italy.

Abstract This paper reports on a longitudinal ethnographic study of the language socialisation of a group of Moroccan adolescents who migrated to Italy in the late 1990s. The approach is based on the notion of language socialisation, which sees the process of acquiring a language as linked to that of becoming a member of a culture. The participants live in small towns in a semi-rural area in Northern Italy and were closely observed during their initial contact with Italian Ethnographic observations continued in the following years, and were conducted both in the homes and in school programmes. Five years later, in-depth interviews were carried out on a range of issues dealing with ethnolinguistic identity, and language knowledge and use in a variety of domains and intercultural relationships. Written materials were also collected on personal experiences and attitudes towards Italy and Morocco. These data, taken together, show how socialisation into the new culture is producing a very rapid shift in language use and associated attitudes towards the different languages in the repertoire, i.e. Italian, Moroccan and Standard Arabic, and other European languages. Patterns of language use, linguistic ideologies and ethnolinguistic identity of this multilingual community are discussed in relation to educational policies.

Morphological complexity in written L2 texts

Morphological complexity (MC) is a relatively new construct in second language acquisition (SLA). After critically discussing existing approaches to calculating MC in first- and second-language acquisition research, this article presents a new operationalization of the construct, the Morphological Complexity Index (MCI). The MCI is applied in two case studies based on argumentative written texts produced by native and non-native speakers of Italian and English. Study 1 shows that morphological complexity varies between native and non-native speakers of Italian, and that it is significantly lower in learners with lower proficiency levels. The MCI is strongly correlated to proficiency, measured with a C-test, and also shows significant correlations with other measures of linguistic complexity, such as lexical diversity and sentence length. Quite a different picture emerges from Study 2, on advanced English learners. Here, morphological complexity remains constant across natives and non-natives, and is not significantly correlated to other text complexity measures. These results point to the fact that morphological complexity in texts is a function of speakers’ proficiency and the specific language under investigation; for some linguistic systems with a relatively simple inflectional morphology, such as English, learners will soon reach a threshold level after which inflectional diversity remains constant.

Insegnare la storia italiana in modo semplice e chiaro

How to Teach Italian History in a Clear and Simple Way The article discusses how Italian history can be presented to native and non-native learners in a clear and interesting way. After discussing how and why history textbooks can be obscure, difficult and demotivating, some general principles for writing more effective texts are presented. Examples are drawn from a book on Italian history, Che storia! (G. Pallotti, G. Cavadi, 2011). This book presents a succint account of over twenty centuries in little more than 150 pages. This is achieved by a drastic reduction of references to names, dates, specific events. Rather, special attention is given to aspects of social, economical and political life, which help the reader understand how people lived in a certain time and how some social dynamics are still relevant for understanding today’s world. These aspects of social life are presented in the form of very concrete details about how people lived, what they ate, how they worked. Such details aim at stimulating the reader’s interest, while at the same time illustrate the general character of an epoch. The article also tackles the problematic issue of finding the right balance between clarity and stylistic adequacy, leading to reading pleasure. These two legitimate objectives are sometimes in contrast with each other and authors should be aware of the choices they make and their consequences on a given population of readers.