Between text, lexicon and morphosyntax: A descriptive analysis of L2 Italian texts

Textual, lexical and morphosyntactic competences are three important competences for the development and learning of a second language (L2). On the one hand, the development of textual competence seems to be linear from the first stages of L2 acquisition. On the other hand, lexical and morphosyntactic competences seem to be problematic for L2 learners across all levels of proficiency. Specifically, L2 learners are not aware of lexical mistakes and do not perceive lexical restrictions on the selection of word phrases. Moreover, some morphosyntactic aspects (i.e., the correct use of verbal forms and complex syntactic orders) are challenging for L2 learners. Keeping this in mind, the present study investigates the textual, lexical and morphosyntactic levels in texts produced by intermediate and advanced L2 learners of Italian. The aim of the present research is to describe the most relevant textual, lexical and morphosyntactic features in both intermediate and advanced levels, and to determine to which extent the two proficiency levels differ from each other. Results show that both intermediate and advanced level students structure their texts properly. From a grammatical point of view, the texts of both levels are characterized by the same types of mistakes (i.e., the selection of the correct preposition and the use of clitic pronouns). Interestingly, intermediate texts seem to be more grammatically correct with respect to advanced texts. On the contrary, lexical competence appears to be higher in advanced texts rather than in intermediate texts, thus suggesting that advanced texts are more informative but less grammatically correct than intermediate texts.