Annali di Ca’ Foscari. Serie occidentale

Journal | Annali di Ca’ Foscari. Serie occidentale
Journal issue | 50 | 2016
Research Article | Oral Inter-Understanding of Words in a Phrasal Context

Oral Inter-Understanding of Words in a Phrasal Context

Lexical Transparency in the Language Couple Italian-French

Abstract

This article examines the role of oral lexical transparency of some words in the field of romance languages’ inter-comprehension. An initial list of 200 Italian words was presented orally without context to a group of French people who had no knowledge of the Italian language. Eleven of these words had then been submitted in different sentences with a different level and nature of transparency to another group made up of a variety of French adolescents and adults. They had to concentrate on every useful linguistic element – phonological similarities or contextual clues – present in the phrasal context and then recognize the meaning of the Italian words. After presenting the methodology of the research, the essay goes on to analyse the data collected and to give some conclusions. Overall, words are better understood in the presence of a context and adults seem to have more strategies to adopt in order to grasp the meaning of the given words.


Open access | Peer reviewed

Submitted: April 12, 2016 | Accepted: July 16, 2016 | Published Sept. 30, 2016 | Language: it

Keywords TransparencyPhrasal contextLexiconItalianFrench


Read this article