Alavolja il suo padre e la sua mamma non folevanno : fenomeni di contatto nella produzione scritta di italiano L2 di apprendenti maltesi

Abstract

Italian L2 in Malta is often characterised by instances of language contact. This occurs because Italian normally starts being taught in Maltese schools when learners are 11 years old and would therefore already be in possession of a sound competence of both Maltese and English. The bilingual situation in Malta, in which code-switching is often present, leads to a situation wherein, while speaking and writing in Italian L2, learners often use utterances in which features of Maltese or, more rarely, of English are present. In this study, the written production of Maltese learners of Italian is investigated. Examples are provided from written texts of 16 year-olds which provide evidence of how language contact leads to transfer of graphemes and of lexical items into their learner language variety.