On accessible language testing for students with disabilities

The aim of the paper is to discuss the accessibility of language tests, in particular for students who have sensory (deaf) and learning disabilities (LD). The term accessibility refers to the design of products, devices, services, or environments so that they ensure equal access for all individuals. Test accessibility is “the extent to which a test and its constituent item set permits the test-taker to demonstrate knowledge of the target construct” (Beddow 2009). Two individuals may have the same language competence, but accessibility issues may preclude one from demonstrating his/her competence. I present some results of a pilot study funded by the Italian Ministry of Education and Research (MIUR), entitled “Interventi per studenti sordi e con DSA all’Università: valutazione delle competenze linguistiche in italiano e in inglese” (Measures for deaf students and students with LD at University: Assessment of language competence in Italian and English), which involved the collaboration of scholars from the Ca’ Foscari University of Venice and the University of Bologna. Our research questions are the following: Do the tests which aim to assess language competence in L1 and L2 really do so in the case of deaf students and students with LD? Or can the negative results be attributed to the format of the tests? Is a common reasonable accommodation such as extended time sufficient to make language proficiency tests accessible

The Italian repetitive prefix ri-: Incorporation vs. cliticization

University of Venice Working Papers in Linguistic

Clitics in Northern Italian Dialects: Phonology, Syntax and Microvariation

University of Venice Working Papers in Linguistic

Indefinite determiners in informal Italian: A preliminary analysis

This paper presents the results of a pilot study on the distribution of indefinite determiners in contexts with narrow scope interpretation in current informal Italian. It individuates the available forms and presents their diatopic distribution. The research is based on data collected through an online questionnaire designed to detect optionality. The results show that in narrow scope indefinite contexts, i.e. negative statements, both the zero determiner and the definite article are widespread throughout the country. The partitive determiner is only found in episodic sentences and is limited to restricted geographic areas. In all contexts and areas, a large degree of optionality is found. In some context and area, however, it is possible to identify one form more prominent than the others. This can be related to the context, which may favour some specialized meaning of one specific form, e.g. saliency and small quantity, or to diatopic variation due to language contact with the dialect, as shown by comparing present-day informal Italian with the dialectal data reported in AIS and analysed in Cardinaletti and Giusti (2018)

Dependency, licensing, and the nature of grammatical relations

Dependency is a general term that refers to different structural relations. We highlight three very general classes of phenomena that are often captured by this term: (i) the structural relation between a lexical head (e.g., V, N, A) and the functional structure projected by it such as the relation between a verb and an auxiliary or between a noun and a determiner; (ii) the local selectional relation between a lexical head and the constituents that are combined merged with it to satisfy its argument structure, as in the case of the verb and the direct and indirect objects; (iii) the structural relation created by two different constituents that share the same referential index. In the latter case, we observe two major types: a constituent is displaced, as in the case of the subject of a passive clause or a wh-constituent; or two constituents share the same referent but have different functions in the clause (or in different clauses), as is the case of pronouns and their antecedents

Morphosyntactic Skills Influence the Written Decoding Accuracy of Italian Children With and Without Developmental Dyslexia

Some types of developmental dyslexia (DD) are associated with morphology. Deep DD leads to morphological and semantic errors, and possible comorbidity with syntactic deficits; phonological-output-buffer DD causes problems in decoding longer morphologically complex words. In addition, cross-linguistic studies highlight the effects of morphological awareness on reading accuracy and fluency. The role of morphosyntactic abilities in reading is, however, not clear. This study explores the influence of morphosyntactic competence on reading in Italian children with and without DD. A total of 14 children with DD and 28 with Typical Development (TD) attending the Italian primary school were tested on written decoding, syntactic comprehension of different grammatical structures, and syntactic production of direct object clitic pronouns. DD children were significantly less accurate and slower in reading than TD children. Syntactic skills of the two groups did not differ significantly, but some differences in their acquisitional pace emerged. Syntactic comprehension and production of direct-object-clitic pronouns predicted reading accuracy standard scores, thus suggesting that morphosyntactic abilities, beyond clitics’ weak phonological status, affect decoding accuracy. Decoding accuracy was influenced by reading errors related to morphology (morphological, semantic, and phonological-output-buffer errors). Decoding speed was a specific weakness of DD children and was rather affected by multi-letter combinations. Consistent with a dual-route approach to orthographic processing, we argue that accuracy depends on fine-grained decoding strategies maximizing the precise ordering of letters, thus it is more sensitive to morphosyntactic skills. Morphological reading errors were associated with phonologically weak (determiners, clitic pronouns, and prepositions) and salient words (verbs). This suggests that the decoding of function words and morphologically complex words is particularly demanding and related to both phonological and morphosyntactic skills. Age had a negative predictive effect on semantic errors, compatible with the gradual acquisition of lexical decoding strategies, which seemed to be slowed down by DD. We conclude that oral morphosyntactic skills play a role in reading accuracy in the Italian shallow orthography for both DD and TD children. It is then advisable to assess children’s linguistic profile during DD diagnoses to establish whether some reading errors are related to morphosyntactic weakness. In this case, ad hoc morphosyntactic training might support reading accuracy

Test linguistici accessibili per studenti sordi e con DSA. Pari opportunità per l'accesso all'Università

Il volume si occupa dell’elaborazione di test di valutazione delle competenze linguistiche, in particolare dell’italiano e dell’inglese, che siano accessibili agli studenti sordi e con disturbi specifici dell’apprendimento (DSA) e che permettano pertanto di superare le loro difficoltà specifiche pur mirando a preservare i livelli di norma richiesti. Il progetto si sviluppa in particolare nell’ambito dei servizi offerti dalle Università agli studenti sordi e con DSA e intende promuovere una riflessione tra i docenti di Linguistica teorica e applicata, Lingua e Linguistica italiana, Lingua e Linguistica inglese, i collaboratori ed esperti linguistici (CEL) e i docenti dei Centri Linguistici di Ateneo, coinvolgendo anche gli esperti esterni a cui viene spesso commissionata la produzione dei test universitari. Per le possibili ricadute nella Scuola, il volume è rivolto anche a docenti e studenti delle Scuole Secondarie Superiori. Lo studio intende contribuire a sviluppare una cultura dell’accessibilità e dell’inclusione e una sensibilizzazione alle particolari esigenze delle persone sorde e con DSA, anche ai fini dell’inserimento lavorativo

Variazioni meteomarine recenti e climatologia dinamica nel bacino adriatico: primi risultati

Abstract Recent sea level variations are a key indicator of global climate change. Estimating sea-level rise is one of the most important scientific issues, with a potential large positive social impact. The Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), underlines the importance of instrumental records to analyse recent sea-level changes. The relatively intense warming recorded throughout the latest 40 years - with widespread ice melting and relative glacial-hydro-isostatic rearrangement - has however induced global sea level rise ranging around 1.2-2.0 mm/yr. In the Mediterranean Sea, this value is significantly lower (approximately by 35%) than the global mean value. Likely, this is due to the Northern Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), inducing at the Adriatic latitudes an evident increase of atmospheric pressure and temperature, as well as of salinity variation; also taking into account the specific features of this almost closed shallow sea. However, relative sea level rise (RSLR) occurred along the entire shorelines of the Northern Adriatic Sea, locally interfering with land subsidence, both natural and man-induced, and eustasy. Their combined effect has produced relative ground settlements ranging from centimetres to meters. Aim of this study is to analyse the historic series of meteo-marine records for 12 measuring stations, belonging to the National Tidal Network organized by ISPRA, located between Trieste and Otranto in order both to verify trends in sea level variations and to identify the most significant storm events occurred from 2010 to 2015. Synoptic situations responsible for these intense events for each sector of the basin have been analysed too. Persistence of subtropical high pressure conditions alternated with higher frequency of cyclogenesis have been detected for almost every month on both the northern Adriatic basin and the medium and high Tyrrhenian; this most likely is due to the increase of sea surface temperatures: around at 0.8 °C in the last fifteen years. Keywords: climate change, rising average sea level, Adriatic Sea, cyclogenesis, storm surge

What do you do if you don't have modal particles?

Languages differ in the words speakers have at their disposal. One major difference between German and Italian is the very rich system of modal particles found in the former language (about 20 particles) vs. the restricted modal lexicon of the latter (few particles, such as ben, mai, poi, pure, Coniglio 2008, Cardinaletti 2011). Does Italian have other ways of expressing the semantics conveyed by modal particles? It has often been observed that Italian makes use of marked word orders in contexts in which German displays modal particles (Helling 1983, Masi 1996, Tamborra 2001, a.o.). In this short paper, I will show, on the basis of Grosz’ (2010) analysis of German particles doch and ja, how the sentences containing these particles, which do not have an Italian counterpart, can be translated into Italian. It is shown that Italian may make use of syntactic devices such as Left and Right Dislocation when the particle has a smaller scope than the entire proposition. The discussion will also point out a difference between Italian Left and Right Dislocation not discussed before