Cover not available
Article published In:
Discourse Markers in Second Language Acquisition / Les marqueurs discursifs dans l’acquisition d’une langue étrangère: Studies on Italian and French as L2 / Études en italien et en français langues étrangères
Edited by Margarita Borreguero Zuloaga and Britta Thörle
[Language, Interaction and Acquisition 7:1] 2016
► pp. 17–43

Confirming or asserting?

Conflicting values and cross-linguistic influence in the use of yes/no particles in L2 Italian

| University of Turin
| University of Salerno

Yes and no allow an easy management of talk-in-interaction and, unlike other classes of discourse markers, occur from early stages of L2 acquisition onwards (Perdue 1993; Bernini 1996, 2000; Andorno 2008a for L2 Italian). However, problems in their use can arise in replies to negative utterances such as “Didn’t you hear the news?”, “You didn’t read the news, did you?”, as in this case speakers have to choose one of the two conflicting values possibly encoded by the particles — either asserting a positive/negative polarity for the proposition at issue or confirming/reversing the negative polarity conveyed by the previous speaker. Since Pope (1973), a distinction has been drawn between languages with polarity-oriented particles, such as English yes/no, and languages with agreement-oriented particles, such as Japanese hai/iie. The study compares the use of Italian sì/no and other routines such as echo-constructions in native speakers and L2 learners with either a polarity-oriented or an agreement-oriented L1. Results show that cross-linguistic influence can affect the use of sì/no in L2, as pointed for other domains of pragmatic competence (Gass & Selinker 1992; Kasper 1992; Jarvis & Pavlenko 2008). Results further show that, even when learners lack pragmalinguistic competence in the use of particles, they treat replies of confirmation or rejection differently, thus revealing sociopragmatic sensitivity similar to that of native speakers in recognising the markedness of disagreement replies.

Keywords: L2 Italian, discourse markers, pragmatic transfer, agreement, polarity

Article language: French

Published online: 30 August 2016
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/lia.7.1.01and
References
Alleton, V
(1976) La grammatica del cinese. Roma: Ubaldini Editore.Google Scholar
Anderson, A.H., Bader, M., Bard, E.G., Boyle, E., Doherty, G., Garrod, S., Isard, S., Kowtko, J., McAllister, J., Miller, J., Sotillo, C., Thompson, H. & Weinert, R
(1991) The HCRC Map Task Corpus. Language and Speech 341, 351–366. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Andorno, C
(2007) Apprendere il lessico: elaborazione di segnali discorsivi (sì, no, così). In M. Chini et al. (eds.), Imparare una lingua: recenti sviluppi teorici e proposte applicative (96–122). Perugia: Guerra.Google Scholar
(2008a) Entre énoncé et interaction: le rôle des particules d’affirmation et négation dans les lectes d’apprenants. Acquisition et interaction en langue étrangère 261, 173–190. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2008b) Connettivi in italiano L2 fra struttura dell’enunciato e struttura dell’interazione. In G. Bernini et al. (eds.), Competenze lessicali e discorsive nell’acquisizione di lingue seconde (481–510). Perugia: Guerra.Google Scholar
Andorno, C. & Rosi, F
(2015) Short replies in Italian: Sì / no and other markers between polarity and agreement. Journal of Pragmatics 871, 105–126. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
to appear). Italian sì / no in replies between polarity and agreement: a first inquiry on corpus data. In J. Gille & C. Norén (eds.) Parler les langues romanes, vol. 2. Multilinguism and Language acquisition Bern Peter Lang
Avesani, C
(1990) A contribution to the synthesis of Italian intonation. In H. Fujisaki (ed.), Proceedings of the 1990 international conference on spoken language processing (833–836). Tokyo Kobe: The Acoustical Society of Japan.Google Scholar
Bazzanella, C
(1995) I segnali discorsivi. In L. Renzi, G. Salvi. & A. Cardinaletti. (eds.), Grande Grammatica Italiana di consultazione, (225–260). Bologna: Il Mulino.Google Scholar
Bazzanella, C. & Borreguero Zuloaga, M
(2011) ‘Allora’ e ‘entonces’: problemi teorici e dati empirici. In E. Khachaturyan (ed.), Discourse markers in Romance languages, Oslo Studies in Language 3(1), 7–45.Google Scholar
Bebee, L.M., Takahashi, T. & Uliss-Weltz, R
(1990) Pragmatic transfer in ESL refusals. In R.C. Scarcella, E. Andersen & S.C. Krashen (eds.), Developing communicative competence in a second language (55–73). New York: Newbury House.Google Scholar
Bernini, G
(1990) Per una tipologia delle repliche brevi. In M-E. Conte, A. Giacalone Ramat & P. Ramat (eds.), Dimensioni della linguistica (119–150). Milano: FrancoAngeli.Google Scholar
(1995) Le profrasi. In L. Renzi, G. Salvi & A. Cardinaletti (eds.), Grande grammatica italiana di consultazione, vol. III1 (175–224). Bologna: Il Mulino.Google Scholar
(1996) Stadi di sviluppo della sintassi e della morfologia della negazione in italiano L2. Linguistica e Filologia 31, 7–33.Google Scholar
(2000) Negative items and negation strategies in nonnative Italian. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 22(3), 399–438. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bolinger, D
(1957) Interrogative structures of American English, the direct question. Alabama: University of Alabama Press.Google Scholar
Bu, J
(2012) A Study of Relationships between L1 Pragmatic Transfer and L2 Proficiency. English Language Teaching 51, 32–43.Google Scholar
Bublitz, W
(1981) Conducive yes-no questions in English. Linguistics 191, 851–870. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Canepari, L
(1980) Italiano standard e pronunce regionali. Padova: Cluep.Google Scholar
Carletta, J., Isard, A., Isard, S., Kowtko, J., Newlands, A., Doherty-Sneddon, G. & Anderson, A
(1996) HCRC dialogue structure coding manual (HCRC/TR-82). Human Communication Research Centre, University of Edinburgh.Google Scholar
Charezińska, A
(1981) Some Observations on the English and Polish Question-Answering System. Papers and Studies in Contrastive Linguistics 131, 185–197.Google Scholar
Choi, S
(1991) Children’s answers to yes-no questions: a developmental study in English, French, and Korean. Developmental Psychology 27(3), 407–420. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dal Negro, S. & Fiorentini, I
(2014) Reformulation in bilingual speech: Italian cioè in German and Ladin. Journal of Pragmatics 741, 94–108. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
De Mauro, T., Mancini, F., Vedovelli, M. & Voghera, M
(1993) Lessico di frequenza dell’italiano parlato (LIP). Milano: Etaslibri.Google Scholar
Farkas, D.F. & Bruce, K.B
(2010) On reacting to assertions and polar questions. Journal of Semantics 271, 81–118. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ferraris S
(2004) Come usano ma gli apprendenti di italiano L1 e L2? In G. Bernini et al. (eds.), Atti del 3° Congresso di studi dell’Associazione Italiana di Linguistica Applicata (73–92). Perugia: Guerra.Google Scholar
Fisiak, J., Lipińska-Grzegorek, M & Zabrocki T
(1978) An introductory English-Polish contrastive grammar. Państ: Wydaw Naukowe.Google Scholar
Gao, M.C.S
(2000) Mandarin Chinese: An introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Gass, S. & Selinker, L
(1992) Language transfer in language acquisition. London: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Giuliano, P., Anastasio, S. & Russo R
(2015) In che modo i segnali discorsivi si correlano al livello interlinguistico e all’integrazione linguistica e sociale di apprendenti immigrati? Paper presented at the IV International Symposium Discourse Markers in Romance Languages: A Contrastive Approach , Heidelberg, 6-9th May 2015.
Grice, M. & Savino, M
(2003) Question type and information structure in Italian. In A. Mettouchi & G. Ferré (eds.), Proceedings of Interfaces Prosodiques (117–122). Nantes.Google Scholar
Günther, A
(2001) Mongolisch Wort für Wort. Bielefeld: Peter Rump Verlag.Google Scholar
Halliday, M.A.K
(1994) Introduction to functional grammar. London: Edward Arnold.Google Scholar
Hashemian, M
(2012) Cross-cultural differences and pragmatic transfer in English and Persian refusals. The Journal of Teaching Language Skills 41, 23–46.Google Scholar
Hays, P.R
(1992) Discourse markers and L2 acquisition. Papers in Applied Linguistics-Michigan 71, 24–34.Google Scholar
Hellermann, J. & Vergun, A
(2007) Language which is not taught: The discourse marker use of beginning adult learners of English. Journal of Pragmatics 391, 157–179. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Holmberg, A
(2013) The syntax of answers to polar questions in English and Swedish. Lingua 1281, 31–50. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Interlandi G
(2004) Il continuum della variazione pragmatico-espressiva nell’intonazione dell’italiano parlato a Torino. In F. Albano Leoni, F. Cutugno, M. Pettorino & R. Savy (eds.), Il parlato italiano (1–20). Napoli: M. D’Auria Editore, CD-Rom.Google Scholar
Jarvis, S. & Pavlenko, A
(2008) Crosslinguistic influence in language and cognition. London: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kameyana, R
(2013) A question-answering system in negative questions of English, French, and Japanese. In S. Okada (ed.), Osaka University Papers in English Linguistics 161, 127–159. Google Scholar
Kasper, G
(1989) Interactive procedures in interlanguage discourse. In W. Olesky (ed.), Contrastive pragmatics (189–229). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(1992) Pragmatic transfer. Second Language Research 81, 203–231. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(1996) Introduction: Interlanguage pragmatics in SLA. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 181, 145–148. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kasper, G. & Schmidt, R
(1996) Developmental issues in interlanguage pragmatics. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 181, 149–169. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kitagawa, C
(1980) Saying Yes in Japanese. Journal of Pragmatics 4 (2), 105–120. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Klein, W. & Perdue, C
(1992) Utterance structure. Developing grammars again. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kornfilt, J
(1997) Turkish. Descriptive grammars. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
MacWhinney, B
(1995) The CHILDES Project, Tools for Analyzing Talk. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Maiden, M. & Robustelli, C
(2007) A reference grammar of Modern Italian. McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
Matras, Y
(2000) Fusion and the cognitive basis for bilingual discourse markers. International Journal of Bilingualism 41, 505–528. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2007) The borrowability of structural categories. In Y. Matras & J. Sakel (eds.), Grammatical borrowing in cross-linguistic perspective (31–69). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Möllering, M
(2004) The acquisition of German modal particles: A corpus-based approach. Bern: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Moravcsik, E.E
(1971) Some cross-linguistic generalizations about yes-no questions and their answers. In Working papers on language universals, vol.71 (45–193). Stanford CA: Stanford University Linguistic Department.Google Scholar
Morris-Jones, B
(1999) The Welsh answering system. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pauletto, F. & Bardel, C
this issue). How do Swedish learners of Italian as an L2 use the Italian interjection “be”? Language, Interaction and Acquisition 7(1), 89–116. DOI logo
Perdue, C
(1993) Second language acquisition by adult immigrants. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Polat, B
(2011) Investigating acquisition of discourse markers through a developmental learner corpus. Journal of Pragmatics 431, 3745–3756. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pope, E
(1973) Question-answering systems. In Proceedings of Chicago Linguistic Society (482–492). Chicago: Chicago Linguistics Society.
Ringbom, H
(2001) Lexical transfer in L3-production. In J. Cenoz, B. Hufeisen & U. Jessner (eds.), Cross-linguistic influence in third language acquisition: Psycholinguistic perspectives (59–68). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ringbom, H. & Jarvis, S
(2009) The importance of cross-linguistic similarity in foreign language learning. In M.H. Long & C.J. Doughty (eds.), Handbook of language teaching (106–118). West Sussex, UK: Wiley Blackwell. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Romero Trillo, J
(2002) The pragmatic fossilization of discourse markers in non-native speakers of English. Journal of Pragmatics 341, 769–784. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sadock, J.M. & Zwicky, A.M
(1985) Speech act distinctions in syntax. In T. Shopen (ed.), Language Typology and Syntactic Description, vol.I1 (155–196). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Savino, M
(2005) Descrizione autosegmentale-metrica di alcune tipologie intonative dell’italiano di Bari. In E. Burr (ed.), Tradizione e innovazione. Linguistica e Filologia italiana alle soglie del terzo millennio, Atti del VI Convegno Nazionale SILFI (163–178). Firenze: Cesati.Google Scholar
Scarcella, R.C
(1983) Developmental trends in the acquisition of conversational competence by adult second language learners. In N. Wolfson & E. Judd (eds.), Sociolinguistics and Language Acquisition, (175–183). Rowley, MA: Newbury House.Google Scholar
Takahashi, S
(1996) Pragmatic transferability. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 181, 189–219. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Underhill, R
(1976) Turkish grammar. Cambridge: Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Press.Google Scholar
Yamagashira, H
(2001) Pragmatic transfer in Japanese ESL refusal. Buletin Akademi Kagoshima 311, 259–275.Google Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 1 other publications

Borreguero Zuloaga, Margarita, Kathrin Siebold & Britta Thörle
2021. Methodological Approaches to Studying Discourse Particles in L2. Corpus Pragmatics 5:1 ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 24 march 2023. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.