La competenza prosodica nella classe di lingue. L’italiano in contesto L2, LS ed e-learning

Full proficiency in a second language is attained when learners develop rhythmic-prosodic competence equivalent to that of the native speakers. Since prosodic competence is the result of a complex set of variables, this study aims to investigate the role of the learning context in the acquisition of the suprasegmental features of Italian. Three different groups of Polish learners are involved in the study: four students of Italian as a second language, four learners of Italian as a foreign language, and four e-learners. The results of spectro-acoustic analysis conducted on the speech corpus show that exposure to the L2 in native contexts facilitates the awareness that communicative effectiveness largely depends on the tonal variations of the utterance. Furthermore, the e-learners’ ability to perform intonation patterns similarly to native speakers suggests that the strategies adopted in distance education to teach oral productive skills are useful for the development of prosodic competence in L2.