Aufgabenorientierung im Italienischunterricht. Ein theoretischer Einblick mit praktischen Beispielen., 2024
Brocca, N. (2024). Insegnare l’italiano secondo l’approccio per task con i media digitali. In E. ... more Brocca, N. (2024). Insegnare l’italiano secondo l’approccio per task con i media digitali. In E. M. Hirzinger-Unterrainer (Ed.), Aufgabenorientierung im Italienischunterricht. Ein theoretischer Einblick mit praktischen Beispielen. Reihe „Romanistische Fremdsprachenforschung und Unterrichtsentwicklung“. S.99-144. Narr Francke Attempto Verlag. [https://www.narr.de/aufgabenorientierung-im-italienischunterricht-18509/]
Instant-message requests produced by intermediate learners (N ¼ 60) of Italian as a second langua... more Instant-message requests produced by intermediate learners (N ¼ 60) of Italian as a second language (L2) with Austrian German as their first language (L1) were quantitatively analyzed and compared with the same speech acts performed by L1 speakers of Italian (N ¼ 60). A cross-cultural comparison of requests in L1 Austrian German and L1 Italian was conducted firstly to verify whether any divergent trends in the two groups could be attributed to negative pragmatic transfer from the learners' L1. Cross-linguistic data were gathered through a multiple-choice questionnaire, L1 and L2 data through a discourse completion task. The analysis revealed minimal differences between L1 speakers of Italian and Austrian German in perceiving the most appropriate way to structure the request in terms of directness level and use of face-saving strategies. A substantial alignment of learners' realizations with those of L1 speakers was found in the overall structuring of the request, except that L1 speakers exhibited a stronger tendency to apologize. As for the use of modifiers, small differences were found in the total number as well as in the preference for some types over others. The findings suggest that any effects of transfer from L1 Austrian German to L2 Italian are generally positive.
This article addresses, experimentally, the question of how presuppositions are cognitively proce... more This article addresses, experimentally, the question of how presuppositions are cognitively processed and retrieved in discourse. In the proposed research, we have administered tweets produced by Italian politicians to native speakers so as to assess how easily they could retrieve the presupposed content of two presupposition triggers (definite descriptions and change of state verbs), as opposed to their explicit paraphrase, by answering verification questions. Results showed that content presupposed by change of state verbs was likely to receive more attention than content conveyed by definite descriptions; this could possibly be due to the greater effort involved in mentally representing the event taken for granted by the predicates. Definite descriptions, on the contrary, seem to instruct to a shallower processing modality, which means that their content is processed less attentively or in a ‘good-enough’ way.
<strong>Ladder</strong>. A Corpus of Computer-Mediated Communication for the Analysis... more <strong>Ladder</strong>. A Corpus of Computer-Mediated Communication for the Analysis of the Acquisition of Pragmalinguistic Competences by German-Speaking Learners of Italian. Project description: Many recent research projects (Artoni, Benigni, &amp; Nuzzo, 2020; Cortés Velásquez &amp; Nuzzo, 2017; Nuzzo &amp; Cortés Velásquez, 2020) have underlined the usefulness of creating and analyzing corpora for teaching pragmatics, which, unlike other linguistic levels such as syntax, cannot be explained by rules but only by reference to tendential values or more or less appropriate choices in a given context. This is even more true for interactions via digital media, such as email and instant-messaging services, which have little place in manuals or L2 courses and for which learners have few reference models (Brocca, 2021; Trubnikova &amp; Garofolin, 2020). Data collection: Data were collected from April 2020 to April 2021 with the help of a discourse completion task (DCT). The data consists of emails and instant messages. The informants are (i) German learners of Italian between A2-C1 level according to the CEFR and most of them are students living in Tyrol (Austria) and (ii) native speakers of Italian most of whom are students from Rome (Italy). The data of the learners were collected by students of the undergraduate seminar "Insegnare la pragmatica" which is part of the compulsory module 2b for student teachers at the Institute of Didactics of the University of Innsbruck. The data of the native speakers were collected in large part from students in foreign languages at the University RomaTre thanks to the collaboration with Prof. Elena Nuzzo. The DCTs have been conducted with online questionnaires. Along with the texts, metadata were also registered with the help of an online questionnaire giving sociolinguistic information about the informant (age, self-assessed language level, place of residence, native language, etc.). The DCTs aim to elicit linguistic acts of request and refusal in increasing levels of social dist [...]
Instant-message requests produced by intermediate learners (N ¼ 60) of Italian as a second langua... more Instant-message requests produced by intermediate learners (N ¼ 60) of Italian as a second language (L2) with Austrian German as their first language (L1) were quantitatively analyzed and compared with the same speech acts performed by L1 speakers of Italian (N ¼ 60). A cross-cultural comparison of requests in L1 Austrian German and L1 Italian was conducted firstly to verify whether any divergent trends in the two groups could be attributed to negative pragmatic transfer from the learners' L1. Cross-linguistic data were gathered through a multiple-choice questionnaire, L1 and L2 data through a discourse completion task. The analysis revealed minimal differences between L1 speakers of Italian and Austrian German in perceiving the most appropriate way to structure the request in terms of directness level and use of face-saving strategies. A substantial alignment of learners' realizations with those of L1 speakers was found in the overall structuring of the request, except that L1 speakers exhibited a stronger tendency to apologize. As for the use of modifiers, small differences were found in the total number as well as in the preference for some types over others. The findings suggest that any effects of transfer from L1 Austrian German to L2 Italian are generally positive.
The use of educational videos, an increasingly common practice among students, represents a monod... more The use of educational videos, an increasingly common practice among students, represents a monodirectional communication that clashes with communicative approaches to foreign language teaching. In this study, impulse videos (iVs), videos designed to encourage learner interaction, were introduced to pre-service teachers (PSTs) (N = 44) who were asked to design a lesson using iVs in line with the communicative approach. The PSTs completed a questionnaire to evaluate this learning experience. The results, obtained through qualitative content analysis and descriptive statistics, show that the PSTs, far from being technology averse, were reluctant to adopt a communicative approach that reinterprets the use of videos.
This article addresses, experimentally, the question of how presuppositions
are cognitively proce... more This article addresses, experimentally, the question of how presuppositions are cognitively processed and retrieved in discourse. In the proposed research, we have administered tweets produced by Italian politicians to native speakers so as to assess how easily they could retrieve the presupposed content of two presupposition triggers (definite descriptions and change of state verbs), as opposed to their explicit paraphrase, by answering verification questions. Results showed that content presupposed by change of state verbs was likely to receive more attention than content conveyed by definite descriptions; this could possibly be due to the greater effort involved in mentally representing the event taken for granted by the predicates. Definite descriptions, on the contrary, seem to instruct to a shallower processing modality, which means that their content is processed less attentively or in a ‘good-enough’ way.
The study compares how native speakers of German from the area of Innsbruck (Austria) and native ... more The study compares how native speakers of German from the area of Innsbruck (Austria) and native speakers of Italian from the area of Rome (Italy) perceive the communicative act of backing out of an invitation for dinner at the last minute, in a situation of low social distance. The purpose of the study is twofold: to shed light on the orientation of Austrian German and Italian languages/cultures in terms of linguistic politeness, and to expand empirical cross-cultural research to a less-commonly investigated speech act. Data collected by means of a discourse completion task (DCT) are triangulated with responses to an assessment question and metapragmatic comments, and analyzed following a quantitative approach. The analysis of the DCT findings shows some cross-group differences in the choice of speech act realization strategies and internal modifiers. However, the overall results reveal more similarities than differences between the two populations regarding the informants&#39; perception of face threat in last-minute cancellations. This seems to disprove the idea that the two groups belong to different cultural frameworks in terms of politeness orientation, at least as far as it concerns the specific speech act under investigation.
In the first wave of Covid-19 pandemic, Heritage Language (HL) classes in Nord-Rhine Westphalia (... more In the first wave of Covid-19 pandemic, Heritage Language (HL) classes in Nord-Rhine Westphalia (NRW), one of the most advanced German states concerning HL didactics, shifted to distance learning. Technology-mediated teaching was considered the immediate and apparently obvious reaction by many teachers. However, the use of digital resources supporting distance learning could also act as a long-term solution for HL classes challenged by their heterogenic composition and logistical difficulties. Using a cross-sectional online survey and a quantitative data analysis, this research investigates how distance learning was put into practice and which didactical adaptations were subsequently made. The results testify to the existence of a clear disparity between a minority of teachers who benefited from the potentials of digital media and a high majority who were not able to pursue the interactional goals that they were used to. Structural institutional isolation and missing networks contributed to a largely negative didactical impact on teaching.
Von Nicola Brocca „Rosalba, seit Sie gegangen sind, verspüre ich in mir kein Leben mehr Die Nächt... more Von Nicola Brocca „Rosalba, seit Sie gegangen sind, verspüre ich in mir kein Leben mehr Die Nächte quälen mich und die Tage sind öd und leer Diese Reise wurde von Gedanken getragen wunderschöner Stunden Kehren Sie zurück und seien Sie mir immer Verbunden.“ DVD von „Brot und Tulpen“ (Foto: Nicola Brocca). So drückt Bruno Ganz in der Rolle eines isländischen Kellners in Venedig seine Liebe für die Hausfrau Rosalba in dem Film „Brot und Tulpen“ (Sivio Soldini, Italien 1999) aus. Der Isländer ha..
Tweet as you speak : the role of implicit strategies and pragmatic functions in political communication : Data from a diamesic comparison, 2019
Nell’ultimo decennio, Twitter ha mostrato di poter modificare radicalmente le interazioni tra cla... more Nell’ultimo decennio, Twitter ha mostrato di poter modificare radicalmente le interazioni tra classe politica ed elettorato. Tuttavia, l’influenza reciproca tra questo social medium e i discorsi politici tradizionali non è ancora stata estesamente indagata. Il presente lavoro si propone di esaminare alcune differenze stilistiche tra le interazioni via Twitter e i discorsi pubblici con particolare riferimento all’uso che i politici fanno dell’implicatura e della presupposizione per codificare diverse funzioni pragmatiche nei loro messaggi (cf. Naaman et al. 2010; Graham et al. 2013; 2016; Brocca, Garassino 2015, inter alia). I dati raccolti in un corpus di tweet e discorsi pubblici italiani mostrano come alcune correlazioni tra strategie di implicito e funzioni pragmatiche siano sistematiche nei due tipi di media confermando su base empirica l’ipotesi avanzata in Spina (2012), Brocca e Garassino (2015), inter alia, che il comportamento comunicativo adottato dal politico per persuadere il suo pubblico non è soggetto a vincoli diamesici significativi.
Aufgabenorientierung im Italienischunterricht. Ein theoretischer Einblick mit praktischen Beispielen., 2024
Brocca, N. (2024). Insegnare l’italiano secondo l’approccio per task con i media digitali. In E. ... more Brocca, N. (2024). Insegnare l’italiano secondo l’approccio per task con i media digitali. In E. M. Hirzinger-Unterrainer (Ed.), Aufgabenorientierung im Italienischunterricht. Ein theoretischer Einblick mit praktischen Beispielen. Reihe „Romanistische Fremdsprachenforschung und Unterrichtsentwicklung“. S.99-144. Narr Francke Attempto Verlag. [https://www.narr.de/aufgabenorientierung-im-italienischunterricht-18509/]
Instant-message requests produced by intermediate learners (N ¼ 60) of Italian as a second langua... more Instant-message requests produced by intermediate learners (N ¼ 60) of Italian as a second language (L2) with Austrian German as their first language (L1) were quantitatively analyzed and compared with the same speech acts performed by L1 speakers of Italian (N ¼ 60). A cross-cultural comparison of requests in L1 Austrian German and L1 Italian was conducted firstly to verify whether any divergent trends in the two groups could be attributed to negative pragmatic transfer from the learners&#39; L1. Cross-linguistic data were gathered through a multiple-choice questionnaire, L1 and L2 data through a discourse completion task. The analysis revealed minimal differences between L1 speakers of Italian and Austrian German in perceiving the most appropriate way to structure the request in terms of directness level and use of face-saving strategies. A substantial alignment of learners&#39; realizations with those of L1 speakers was found in the overall structuring of the request, except that L1 speakers exhibited a stronger tendency to apologize. As for the use of modifiers, small differences were found in the total number as well as in the preference for some types over others. The findings suggest that any effects of transfer from L1 Austrian German to L2 Italian are generally positive.
This article addresses, experimentally, the question of how presuppositions are cognitively proce... more This article addresses, experimentally, the question of how presuppositions are cognitively processed and retrieved in discourse. In the proposed research, we have administered tweets produced by Italian politicians to native speakers so as to assess how easily they could retrieve the presupposed content of two presupposition triggers (definite descriptions and change of state verbs), as opposed to their explicit paraphrase, by answering verification questions. Results showed that content presupposed by change of state verbs was likely to receive more attention than content conveyed by definite descriptions; this could possibly be due to the greater effort involved in mentally representing the event taken for granted by the predicates. Definite descriptions, on the contrary, seem to instruct to a shallower processing modality, which means that their content is processed less attentively or in a ‘good-enough’ way.
<strong>Ladder</strong>. A Corpus of Computer-Mediated Communication for the Analysis... more <strong>Ladder</strong>. A Corpus of Computer-Mediated Communication for the Analysis of the Acquisition of Pragmalinguistic Competences by German-Speaking Learners of Italian. Project description: Many recent research projects (Artoni, Benigni, &amp; Nuzzo, 2020; Cortés Velásquez &amp; Nuzzo, 2017; Nuzzo &amp; Cortés Velásquez, 2020) have underlined the usefulness of creating and analyzing corpora for teaching pragmatics, which, unlike other linguistic levels such as syntax, cannot be explained by rules but only by reference to tendential values or more or less appropriate choices in a given context. This is even more true for interactions via digital media, such as email and instant-messaging services, which have little place in manuals or L2 courses and for which learners have few reference models (Brocca, 2021; Trubnikova &amp; Garofolin, 2020). Data collection: Data were collected from April 2020 to April 2021 with the help of a discourse completion task (DCT). The data consists of emails and instant messages. The informants are (i) German learners of Italian between A2-C1 level according to the CEFR and most of them are students living in Tyrol (Austria) and (ii) native speakers of Italian most of whom are students from Rome (Italy). The data of the learners were collected by students of the undergraduate seminar "Insegnare la pragmatica" which is part of the compulsory module 2b for student teachers at the Institute of Didactics of the University of Innsbruck. The data of the native speakers were collected in large part from students in foreign languages at the University RomaTre thanks to the collaboration with Prof. Elena Nuzzo. The DCTs have been conducted with online questionnaires. Along with the texts, metadata were also registered with the help of an online questionnaire giving sociolinguistic information about the informant (age, self-assessed language level, place of residence, native language, etc.). The DCTs aim to elicit linguistic acts of request and refusal in increasing levels of social dist [...]
Instant-message requests produced by intermediate learners (N ¼ 60) of Italian as a second langua... more Instant-message requests produced by intermediate learners (N ¼ 60) of Italian as a second language (L2) with Austrian German as their first language (L1) were quantitatively analyzed and compared with the same speech acts performed by L1 speakers of Italian (N ¼ 60). A cross-cultural comparison of requests in L1 Austrian German and L1 Italian was conducted firstly to verify whether any divergent trends in the two groups could be attributed to negative pragmatic transfer from the learners' L1. Cross-linguistic data were gathered through a multiple-choice questionnaire, L1 and L2 data through a discourse completion task. The analysis revealed minimal differences between L1 speakers of Italian and Austrian German in perceiving the most appropriate way to structure the request in terms of directness level and use of face-saving strategies. A substantial alignment of learners' realizations with those of L1 speakers was found in the overall structuring of the request, except that L1 speakers exhibited a stronger tendency to apologize. As for the use of modifiers, small differences were found in the total number as well as in the preference for some types over others. The findings suggest that any effects of transfer from L1 Austrian German to L2 Italian are generally positive.
The use of educational videos, an increasingly common practice among students, represents a monod... more The use of educational videos, an increasingly common practice among students, represents a monodirectional communication that clashes with communicative approaches to foreign language teaching. In this study, impulse videos (iVs), videos designed to encourage learner interaction, were introduced to pre-service teachers (PSTs) (N = 44) who were asked to design a lesson using iVs in line with the communicative approach. The PSTs completed a questionnaire to evaluate this learning experience. The results, obtained through qualitative content analysis and descriptive statistics, show that the PSTs, far from being technology averse, were reluctant to adopt a communicative approach that reinterprets the use of videos.
This article addresses, experimentally, the question of how presuppositions
are cognitively proce... more This article addresses, experimentally, the question of how presuppositions are cognitively processed and retrieved in discourse. In the proposed research, we have administered tweets produced by Italian politicians to native speakers so as to assess how easily they could retrieve the presupposed content of two presupposition triggers (definite descriptions and change of state verbs), as opposed to their explicit paraphrase, by answering verification questions. Results showed that content presupposed by change of state verbs was likely to receive more attention than content conveyed by definite descriptions; this could possibly be due to the greater effort involved in mentally representing the event taken for granted by the predicates. Definite descriptions, on the contrary, seem to instruct to a shallower processing modality, which means that their content is processed less attentively or in a ‘good-enough’ way.
The study compares how native speakers of German from the area of Innsbruck (Austria) and native ... more The study compares how native speakers of German from the area of Innsbruck (Austria) and native speakers of Italian from the area of Rome (Italy) perceive the communicative act of backing out of an invitation for dinner at the last minute, in a situation of low social distance. The purpose of the study is twofold: to shed light on the orientation of Austrian German and Italian languages/cultures in terms of linguistic politeness, and to expand empirical cross-cultural research to a less-commonly investigated speech act. Data collected by means of a discourse completion task (DCT) are triangulated with responses to an assessment question and metapragmatic comments, and analyzed following a quantitative approach. The analysis of the DCT findings shows some cross-group differences in the choice of speech act realization strategies and internal modifiers. However, the overall results reveal more similarities than differences between the two populations regarding the informants&#39; perception of face threat in last-minute cancellations. This seems to disprove the idea that the two groups belong to different cultural frameworks in terms of politeness orientation, at least as far as it concerns the specific speech act under investigation.
In the first wave of Covid-19 pandemic, Heritage Language (HL) classes in Nord-Rhine Westphalia (... more In the first wave of Covid-19 pandemic, Heritage Language (HL) classes in Nord-Rhine Westphalia (NRW), one of the most advanced German states concerning HL didactics, shifted to distance learning. Technology-mediated teaching was considered the immediate and apparently obvious reaction by many teachers. However, the use of digital resources supporting distance learning could also act as a long-term solution for HL classes challenged by their heterogenic composition and logistical difficulties. Using a cross-sectional online survey and a quantitative data analysis, this research investigates how distance learning was put into practice and which didactical adaptations were subsequently made. The results testify to the existence of a clear disparity between a minority of teachers who benefited from the potentials of digital media and a high majority who were not able to pursue the interactional goals that they were used to. Structural institutional isolation and missing networks contributed to a largely negative didactical impact on teaching.
Von Nicola Brocca „Rosalba, seit Sie gegangen sind, verspüre ich in mir kein Leben mehr Die Nächt... more Von Nicola Brocca „Rosalba, seit Sie gegangen sind, verspüre ich in mir kein Leben mehr Die Nächte quälen mich und die Tage sind öd und leer Diese Reise wurde von Gedanken getragen wunderschöner Stunden Kehren Sie zurück und seien Sie mir immer Verbunden.“ DVD von „Brot und Tulpen“ (Foto: Nicola Brocca). So drückt Bruno Ganz in der Rolle eines isländischen Kellners in Venedig seine Liebe für die Hausfrau Rosalba in dem Film „Brot und Tulpen“ (Sivio Soldini, Italien 1999) aus. Der Isländer ha..
Tweet as you speak : the role of implicit strategies and pragmatic functions in political communication : Data from a diamesic comparison, 2019
Nell’ultimo decennio, Twitter ha mostrato di poter modificare radicalmente le interazioni tra cla... more Nell’ultimo decennio, Twitter ha mostrato di poter modificare radicalmente le interazioni tra classe politica ed elettorato. Tuttavia, l’influenza reciproca tra questo social medium e i discorsi politici tradizionali non è ancora stata estesamente indagata. Il presente lavoro si propone di esaminare alcune differenze stilistiche tra le interazioni via Twitter e i discorsi pubblici con particolare riferimento all’uso che i politici fanno dell’implicatura e della presupposizione per codificare diverse funzioni pragmatiche nei loro messaggi (cf. Naaman et al. 2010; Graham et al. 2013; 2016; Brocca, Garassino 2015, inter alia). I dati raccolti in un corpus di tweet e discorsi pubblici italiani mostrano come alcune correlazioni tra strategie di implicito e funzioni pragmatiche siano sistematiche nei due tipi di media confermando su base empirica l’ipotesi avanzata in Spina (2012), Brocca e Garassino (2015), inter alia, che il comportamento comunicativo adottato dal politico per persuadere il suo pubblico non è soggetto a vincoli diamesici significativi.
"Rosalba, seit Sie gegangen sind, verspüre ich in mir kein Leben mehr Die Nächte quälen mich und ... more "Rosalba, seit Sie gegangen sind, verspüre ich in mir kein Leben mehr Die Nächte quälen mich und die Tage sind öd und leer Diese Reise wurde von Gedanken getragen wunderschöner Stunden Kehren Sie zurück und seien Sie mir immer Verbunden." DVD von "Brot und Tulpen" (Foto: Nicola Brocca). So drückt Bruno Ganz in der Rolle eines isländischen Kellners in Venedig seine Liebe für die Hausfrau Rosalba in dem Film "Brot und Tulpen" (Sivio Soldini, Italien 1999) aus. Der Isländer hat sich die fremde Sprache selbständig durch das Lesen des Buches "Der rasende Roland"-ein Epos aus dem Jahr 1516-beigebracht und kann sich ausschließlich in Versen und mit höfischem Wortschatz ausdrücken. Seine Sprachkenntnisse reichen aus, um eine effektive Liebeserklärung auszudrücken, aber stellen Sie sich vor, er müsste einen Kebab in Reimen bestellen… Wirklich (noch) aktuell?
Brocca N., 2020. Comuncare la crisi. Comunicazione istituzionale sulla base di esempi che raccont... more Brocca N., 2020. Comuncare la crisi. Comunicazione istituzionale sulla base di esempi che raccontano la pandemia. 14.05.2020. Videoconferenza e esercizi per il corso „Comunicazione politica“ presso ZAHW: Zürcher Hochschule für angewandte Wissenschaften. Online: https://youtu.be/5HcaC2ADzb0
Grenzgänge und Grenzziehungen Transdisziplinäre Ansätze in der Lehrer*innenbildung, 2022
Zum Alltag von Lehrer*innen gehört die Bewältigung einer Fülle von Anforderungen. Darunter fällt ... more Zum Alltag von Lehrer*innen gehört die Bewältigung einer Fülle von Anforderungen. Darunter fällt das Unterstützen von Lernprozessen, das Lehren in schulischen und außerschulischen Lernorten sowie der Umgang mit Mehrsprachigkeit und Diversität oder der Einsatz von digitalen Medien. Diese vielfältigen Aufgaben fordern von den Lehrpersonen eine stete Auseinandersetzung mit zahlreichen Grenzen ein. Der vorliegende Sammelband widmet sich deswegen bestehenden Grenzziehungen sowie Grenzgängen und Grenzüberschreitungen in der Lehrer*innenbildung. Eine besondere Berücksichtigung erfahren dabei fachdidaktische, bildungswissenschaftliche und islamisch-theologische bzw. religionspädagogische Annäherungen. Die Beiträge des Sammelbandes bilden die Lehrer*innenbildung in ihrer Komplexität ab und entwickeln neue transdisziplinäre Perspektiven.
Lo scopo di questo articolo è esplorare gli aspetti del significato implicito (il ‘non detto’) al... more Lo scopo di questo articolo è esplorare gli aspetti del significato implicito (il ‘non detto’) all’interno di un corpus di tweet prodotti da dieci politici italiani rappresentativi dei principali schieramenti. Sulla base della teoria pragmatica abbiamo operato una macro-distinzione fra presupposizioni e implicature, categorie associate alla persuasività del messaggio. Gli impliciti infatti rappresentano informazioni che non sono espresse in modo diretto nella comunicazione, ma sono trasmesse agli ascoltatori o ai lettori indirettamente, al di sotto della loro attenzione cosciente. Presupposizioni e implicature si distinguono però per il diverso livello di sotto-codifica, dal momento che le prime sono meno ‘sfidabili’ da parte dei riceventi. L’analisi statistica condotta sul corpus ha rivelato asimmetrie significative nella distribuzione dei diversi tipi di implicito nei profili esaminati; questo risultato ci ha permesso di proporre una distinzione preliminare fra differenti stili comunicativi (lungo un continuum che va dal più al meno diretto) impiegati dai politici su questo medium.
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are cognitively processed and retrieved in discourse. In the proposed
research, we have administered tweets produced by Italian politicians to
native speakers so as to assess how easily they could retrieve the
presupposed content of two presupposition triggers (definite descriptions
and change of state verbs), as opposed to their explicit paraphrase, by
answering verification questions. Results showed that content presupposed
by change of state verbs was likely to receive more attention than content
conveyed by definite descriptions; this could possibly be due to the greater
effort involved in mentally representing the event taken for granted by the
predicates. Definite descriptions, on the contrary, seem to instruct to a
shallower processing modality, which means that their content is processed
less attentively or in a ‘good-enough’ way.
are cognitively processed and retrieved in discourse. In the proposed
research, we have administered tweets produced by Italian politicians to
native speakers so as to assess how easily they could retrieve the
presupposed content of two presupposition triggers (definite descriptions
and change of state verbs), as opposed to their explicit paraphrase, by
answering verification questions. Results showed that content presupposed
by change of state verbs was likely to receive more attention than content
conveyed by definite descriptions; this could possibly be due to the greater
effort involved in mentally representing the event taken for granted by the
predicates. Definite descriptions, on the contrary, seem to instruct to a
shallower processing modality, which means that their content is processed
less attentively or in a ‘good-enough’ way.