In this study, we validated the "ReadFree tool", a computerised battery of 12 visual and auditory tasks developed to identify poor readers also in minority-language children (MLC). We tested the task-specific discriminant power on 142 Italian-monolingual participants (8-13 years old) divided into monolingual poor readers (N = 37) and…

This study compares mastery of gender assignment and agreement in Italian by adult Italian-German bilinguals who have acquired two languages simultaneously (2L1), and by adult German highly proficient second language learners (L2ers) of Italian. Our data show that incompleteness in bilingual acquisition and in second language (L2) acquisition…

This study investigates the relationship in L2 writing between raters' judgments of communicative adequacy and linguistic complexity by means of six-point Likert scales, and general measures of linguistic performance. The participants were 39 learners of Italian and 32 of Dutch, who wrote two short argumentative essays. The same writing tasks…

In 3 experiments, we investigated the effect of grammatical gender on object categorization. Participants were asked to judge whether 2 objects, whose names did or did not share grammatical gender, belonged to the same semantic category by pressing a key. Monolingual speakers of English (Experiment 1), Italian (Experiments 1 and 2), and Spanish…

The study aimed at investigating the role of nominal gender in animal categorization in preschoolers. Given the regularities characterizing gender system, at both syntactical and morphological level, Italian language is suitable to address this issue. In three experiments, participants were asked to classify pictures of animals as male or female.…

This paper seeks to provide insights into the local context of ICLHE (Integrating Content and Language in Higher Education) in Italy. Its principal aim is descriptive although it also discusses theoretical models since it seeks to establish the extent to which Focus on Form (FonF) is present in ICLHE lectures. By means of observations, recordings…

The present article addresses the following question: what variables condition syntactic transfer? Evidence is provided in support of the position that third language (L3) transfer is selective, whereby, at least under certain conditions, it is driven by the typological proximity of the target L3 measured against the other previously acquired…

Several studies show that teachers make use of grading practices to affect students' effort and achievement. Generally linearity is assumed in the grading equation, while it is everyone's experience that grading practices are frequently non-linear. Representing grading practices as linear can be misleading both from a descriptive and a…

In this article, the author concludes a three-part series in which she analyzes verb complements in German and Italian. Parts 1 and 2 of the series appear in volume 18, numbers 2 and 3, respectively. (CFM)

Briefly discusses the concepts of "subject,""complement,""transitivity," and "intransitivity," contrasts the classes of complements in German and Italian based on identical criteria of classification, justifies such a classification for complements, and suggests didactic implications for the theory of…

This paper argues that split-intransitive phenomena are better explained in semantic terms. A semantic analysis is carried out in Role and Reference Grammar, which assumes the theory of verb classification proposed in Dowty 1979. (49 references) (JL)

After an introduction to the Italian linguistic situation, highlighting the remarkable number of language varieties present in Italy today, the paper goes on to review briefly the history of micronationalism in Italy, and to propose a classification of language planning based on the distinction between macro- and micronationalism. There follows a…