- Author:
Ruska Ivanovska-Naskova
- E-mail:
rivanovska@flf.ukim.edu.mk
- Institution:
Università “Ss. Cirillo e Metodio” di Skopje
- Year of publication:
2018
- Source:
Show
- Pages:
71-87
- DOI Address:
https://doi.org/10.15804/IW.2018.09.04
- PDF:
iw/09_1/iw9104.pdf
Teaching Grammar to Learners of Italian as a Foreign Language with the Use of Corpora
The aim of the paper is to explore the possibility of using corpora in teaching grammar to learners of Italian as a foreign language. The paper presents corpus-based activities used with students of Italian at the Saints Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje in 2016/2017. The hypothesis underlying this teaching approach is that direct and guided use of corpora can raise students’ awareness of the complexity of the phenomena observed as well as present them with resources and methods to explore the language more autonomously. The first part of the paper investigates the use of corpora in language teaching, with particular attention to the use of these resources in teaching Italian as a foreign language. The main section describes the activities on concessives and the context in which they have been used. The final part reports on the observations of the students and addresses the advantages and disadvantages of this teaching approach.
- Author:
Valentina Benigni
- E-mail:
valentina.benigni@uniroma3.it
- Institution:
Università degli Studi “Roma Tre”
- ORCID:
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2813-3345
- Author:
Luisa Ruvoletto
- E-mail:
luisa.ruvoletto@unive.it
- Institution:
Università Ca’ Foscari di Venezia
- ORCID:
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0329-1689
- Year of publication:
2019
- Source:
Show
- Pages:
31-58
- DOI Address:
https://doi.org/10.15804/IW.2019.10.1.2
- PDF:
iw/10_1/iw10102.pdf
Asymmetries in the encoding of deictic reference: Italian versus Russian
This paper aims to analyse, through a contrastive approach, the asymmetries between Italian and Russian in the encoding of deictic reference. Some complex and divergent instances of deictic anchoring are discussed in relation to the notion of deictic centre (or zero-point, in Lyons’ terms). Different types of asymmetry can be identified according to structural and functional criteria: a) overcoding versus undercoding of deictic information (e.g., Italian tra and dopo versus Russian čerez); b) different internal articulation of the deictic reference (such as in the sequence of tenses, which is governed by mood and tense in Italian and solely by tense in Russian); c) the adoption of a different perspective in the deictic conceptualisation of space, time, and person (as in conversive predicates). All of these types of asymmetry seem to affect learners’ acquisition of L2. For this reason, a systematic analysis of errors committed in deictic reference can be a useful tool for second-language teaching.