Vorrei perdere il mio accento straniero: indici motivazionali di migranti culturali in Italia

Several studies have shown that a strong motivation, namely the desire to acquire a native–like competence in a target language, may constitute a crucial factor in second language acquisition at diverse levels, including the phonetic–phonological level. This attitude is to a greater extent attested in learners of strong or global languages, such as English; nevertheless, it has not been sufficiently demonstrated or verified in other target languages, such as Italian. Furthermore, since it represents an intra–speaker variable, motivation can only be examined by means of specific data extrapolation and analysis techniques aimed at quantifying a trend. In this regard, the present work intends to objectify the weight exerted by psycho–social motivational variables on the process of phonetic and phonological acquisition of Italian as an l2 by Arabian and Romanian cultural migrants. The results from this preliminary investigation will highlight the quantitative variables to be examined, in a future study, in correlation with acoustic and perceptive phonetic data, produced by the same informants.