Un momento o un attimo? La scelta di vocaboli nel libro di testo- uno studio comparativo
Author
Summary, in English
This paper presents research on the vocabulary used in textbooks for language courses in
Italian for beginners. The goal of the research was to find out if there is any difference in
vocabulary between textbooks written for a Swedish target audience on the one hand, and a
target audience living in Italy on the other hand, and also what consequences, if any, these
differences might have.
The paper presents a number of considerations which an author is bound to make
when selecting the words for a textbook, such as the students' curriculum, the students' goal
and the frequency of the words. Two textbooks are presented, one for the Swedish market
and one for the Italian, and an analysis is made on the frequency of the words and the
difference between the books. Two Italian certificate tests are presented, one for level A1
and one for level A2. A group of Swedish informants were tested to determine what impact
the choice of book had on their learning.
The results of the comparison of the books confirm that there is a slight difference
between the books: the Italian book has a larger percentage of frequent words, and the
Swedish book presents a larger number of words easy to understand for a Swedish student
given their knowledge of Swedish and English.
The result of the tests shows that the Swedish students have difficulties in
understanding the texts used in the test, and their result in reading is lower than their results
in writing and grammar. It is not obvious though that it would have been possible to use the
Italian textbook in a Swedish context, as there are different requirements in a context far
from a Italian speaking environment.
Italian for beginners. The goal of the research was to find out if there is any difference in
vocabulary between textbooks written for a Swedish target audience on the one hand, and a
target audience living in Italy on the other hand, and also what consequences, if any, these
differences might have.
The paper presents a number of considerations which an author is bound to make
when selecting the words for a textbook, such as the students' curriculum, the students' goal
and the frequency of the words. Two textbooks are presented, one for the Swedish market
and one for the Italian, and an analysis is made on the frequency of the words and the
difference between the books. Two Italian certificate tests are presented, one for level A1
and one for level A2. A group of Swedish informants were tested to determine what impact
the choice of book had on their learning.
The results of the comparison of the books confirm that there is a slight difference
between the books: the Italian book has a larger percentage of frequent words, and the
Swedish book presents a larger number of words easy to understand for a Swedish student
given their knowledge of Swedish and English.
The result of the tests shows that the Swedish students have difficulties in
understanding the texts used in the test, and their result in reading is lower than their results
in writing and grammar. It is not obvious though that it would have been possible to use the
Italian textbook in a Swedish context, as there are different requirements in a context far
from a Italian speaking environment.
Department/s
Publishing year
2011
Language
Italian
Full text
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Document type
Student publication for Bachelor's degree
Topic
- Languages and Literatures
Keywords
- Italian
- lexicon
- second language acquisition
- vocabular
- frequency
- Swedish
- students
- textbook
- comparative
Supervisor
- Petra Bernardini (Senior Lecture)