An interlanguage analysis of Maltese advanced learners of Italian L2 : the use of the subjunctive

Abstract

The current study investigates the use of the subjunctive by Maltese advanced learners of Italian as an L2, while exploring and describing aspects of their language production. The study's main goals are to document subjunctive use in Italian by Maltese advanced learners, namely first year Sixth Form students and first year University students, and to develop further understanding of subjunctive use by advanced L2 learners in production tasks. A multi-method research strategy, including quantitative and qualitative approaches as well as a linguistic analysis, was adopted to carry out the research. Data were collected from multiple sources: a bio-data questionnaire, written tasks and oral tasks. This approach has been chosen in order to investigate how subjunctive mood use varies across tasks and how it evolves in the interlanguage of advanced learners. Results indicate that although both groups show a native-like use of the subjunctive, University students show more target-like use of the subjunctive than the Sixth Form Students across all tasks.