Linkage in narratives: A comparison between monolingual speakers of French and Italian, and early and late French-Italian bilinguals
Publisher DOI
Abstract
In the course of language acquisition learners have to deal with the task of producing narrative texts that are coherent across a range of conceptual domains (space, time, entities) -- both within as well as across utterances. The organization of information is analyzed in this study, on the basis of retellings of a silent film, in terms of devices used in the coordination and subordination of events within the narrative sequence. The focus on subordination reflects a core grammatical difference between Italian and French, as Italian is a null-subject language while French is not. The implications of this contrast for information structure include differences in topic management within the sequence of events. The present study investigates in how far Italian-French bilingual speakers acquire the patterns of monolingual speakers of Italian. It compares how early and late bilinguals of these two languages proceed when linking information in narratives in Italian.
Date Issued
2013
Publication Type
Article
Language(s)
en
Additional Credits
Journal
International Review of Applied Linguistics in language teaching
Publisher
De Gruyter Mouton
ISSN
0019-042X
Access(Rights)
open.access