Francesco Romano

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Broader Research interests:

Multilingualism; Linguistic approaches to child and adult L2 acquisition/development; heritage language acquisition; psycholinguistics; morpho-syntax, syntax-semantics; EAP; effects of formal instruction on L2 learning; formal study of language.

Current Research Interests:

(i) Heritage, L2, and native speakers knowledge of Italian direct object clitics: syntactic complexity, L1 transfer, and effects of input exposure.

(ii) Language Attrition and Ultimate Attainment (LAUA), grant awarded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation 2022, (PID2021-122127NB-I00), shared with Pedro Guijarro-Fuentes, (PI) and other PRS Michael Putnam, Acrisio Pires, Estela Garcia Alcaraz, Ana Madeira, Julio Villa-Garcia, Iria Bello Viruega, Mila Vulchanova.

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Michał B. Paradowski

University of Warsaw

Sonja Eisenbeiss

University of Cologne

Scott Kiesling

University of Pittsburgh

Tatiana Nikitina

Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique / French National Centre for Scientific Research

Stefan Müller

Humboldt Universität zu Berlin

Li Wei

University College London

Mercedes Tubino-Blanco

Western Michigan University

Viacheslav Kuleshov

Stockholm University

Steven L Thorne

Portland State University

Willy A Renandya

Nanyang Technological University

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Papers by Francesco Romano

The acquisition of object drop and island sensitivity in L2 Spanish by German speakers

Journal of Second Language Studies, 2024

Conclusion and future directions

Studies in Italian as a heritage language, 2023

Ultimate attainment of gender in heritage and L2 Italian

Studies in Italian as a Heritage Language , 2023

Studies of gender in various L2s have proven this area to be particularly difficult to master, ev... more Studies of gender in various L2s have proven this area to be particularly difficult to master, even for highly proficient L2 speakers (Franceschina, 2005; McCarthy, 2009; Gruter et al., 2012, inter alia). Although disagreement exists as to why this might be, L2 learners characteristically: (1) display low accuracy levels for gender agreement and/or assignment compared to L1 speakers; (2) adopt a default form, typically the masculine form overextending to feminine contexts in dual gender systems like Spanish. Two views vie to explain non-target-likeness, representational versus computational. Representational accounts such as the failed functional feature hypothesis (FFFH), for which age of onset and L1 transfer play a deterministic role on the acquisition of uninterpretable features, compete with computational accounts such as the missing surface inflection hypothesis (MSIH), for which difficulty in retrieval of appropriate spell-out forms under task pressure accounts for non-target-likeness and is inconsequential to features’ underlying representation. Heritage research, however, allows researchers to test age of onset in the acquisition of gender given heritage language speakers are often raised bilingually from very early ages. Despite results from heritage studies showing a remarkable convergence to L2 speakers (Rodina et al. 2020; Bianchi, 2012; Polinsky, 2008), the FFFH and MSIH have not yet been sufficiently considered with HL speakers. The present chapter reports a study aimed at further testing the plausibility of the FFFH and MSIH for heritage language populations and better explaining variability in knowledge of grammatical gender in heritage grammars. The ultimate attainment of Italian gender was scrutinized by comparing highly- proficient Swedish-dominant L2 speakers to highly-proficient Swedish-dominant heritage speakers of Italian and L1 speakers of Italian in Italy. An oral structural priming task and a timed GJT elicited production, judgment, and response time data on knowledge of masculine and feminine gender assignment between nouns and agreeing accusative clitics. Consistent with previous L2 and heritage research, results show the heritage and L2 speakers are more alike than the monolinguals in terms of accuracy, suggesting age of onset is not implicated in ultimate attainment as posited by the FFFH. Additionally, the heritage group was significantly faster in responding correctly to feminine items, suggesting masculine forms to be particularly vulnerable during the processing of gender. This finding is consistent with processing accounts such as the MSIH which posit masculine forms to act as defaults. I argue that, despite most results being consistent with the MSIH and the presence of gender in the L1 playing a facilitative role in ultimate attainment of Italian gender, recourse to grammar external factors need complement current theories proposed to explain non-target-likeness in heritage language knowledge.

Task effects and the yes-bias in heritage language bilingualism

International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism

This study investigated three key issues in heritage language (HL) research. Previous research sh... more This study investigated three key issues in heritage language (HL) research. Previous research shows HL speakers have an advantage on oral production tasks compared to L2 speakers who instead perform better on written tasks. Furthermore, both L2 and HL speakers are claimed to have a yes-bias towards retaining ungrammaticality in GJTs. Finally, the morphological domain has been shown to be as problematic for HL as L2 speakers but research in lesser-known languages is needed. Adult L1, L2, and HL speakers of Italian were compared on an oral priming task and timed GJT. Accuracy and response times were elicited from the latter test. The forms investigated were object and si-passive pronouns which lack corresponding forms in Swedish, the dominant language of the bilingual groups. Mixed effect regression was modelled to accuracy on the priming and GJT and response time data from the GJT. In contrast, a d-prime analysis was used to measure the degree of sensitivity to grammaticality and bias towards correct and incorrect answers in the GJT. Overall, the two bilingual groups performed quite similarly across the measures tested. All three groups show high sensitivity to grammaticality and a very similar bias for yes-answers on both grammatical and ungrammatical items.

L1 versus Dominant Language Transfer Effects in L2 and Heritage Speakers of Italian: A Structural Priming Study

Applied Linguistics , 2021

Conversely to plenty of studies describing how L1 transfer affects L2 systems, where the two gram... more Conversely to plenty of studies describing how L1 transfer affects L2 systems, where the two grammars, L1/L2, often only come to interact later in life, less is known of dominant language transfer in heritage language grammars. Unlike in L2 speakers, the dominant language of the heritage speaker potentially affects its weaker language already from childhood. Evidence of dominant language transfer, however, exists in language production studies focusing on syntax. Therefore, an oral structural priming task was employed to compare transfer effects in advanced Swedish speakers of Italian and early heritage Italian speakers dominant in Swedish. Intrinsic to this comparison is the Basic Continuity hypothesis (Romano 2018), which proposes that highly proficient L2 speakers integrate semantic and syntactic information relevant to an L2 property lacking in the L1 in native-like ways. Results showed that heritage and L2 grammars are similarly impervious to transfer effects and coordinate structural and lexico-semantic information in native-like ways, consistent with the Basic Continuity. Divergence from native controls is shown to be remarkably compatible with monolingual grammars at earlier developmental stages.

Ultimate attainment in heritage language speakers: Syntactic and morphological knowledge of Italian accusative clitics

Applied Psycholinguistics, 2020

The acquisition of a heritage language, normally the weaker language of early bilinguals, has bee... more The acquisition of a heritage language, normally the weaker language of early bilinguals, has been oftentimes defined as incomplete, especially for morphosyntax. As a result, these early bilinguals resemble late bilinguals more than native language speakers, calling into question the role of age of exposure. The effects of syntactic complexity on knowledge of morphosyntactic structures, however, have not been sufficiently considered hitherto. This study investigates age of exposure and syntactic complexity by comparing heritage, second language, and native language speakers on knowledge of Italian accusative clitics in three structures. An oral structural priming task and a speeded grammaticality judgment task find a discrepancy in the level of ultimate attainment heritage speakers reach for syntax and morphology. While their abstract representation of clitic structures approximates that of native language speakers more closely, their morphological knowledge of clitics aligns with second language speakers, suggesting early exposure has tangible effects only on syntactic knowledge. In turn, syntactic complexity affects the representation of clitic structures in a predictable manner, but is inconsequential to explicit knowledge of morphological forms in monolingual and bilingual speakers. Lack of age of exposure effects in the morphological domain are attributed to interface vulnerability.

Francesco Romano

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