Friulian Journal of Science 2.2002 (Research)

Assessment of the linguistic development of Friulian-Italian bilingual children

Federica Mauro, Alessandra Burelli

Abstract. The aim of the present study was to assess the linguistic development of Friulian-Italian bilingual children by means of tests which analyse both the comprehension and production abilities in each language. The study concerns 8 subjects attending the first year of Primary School in Friuli Venezia Giulia, an Italian region where Friulian is considered a minority language and Italian the official and majority language. The main purpose of the investigation was to find out the dominant language of each child and the level (phonology, syntax, lexicon) at which the largest number of cross-linguistic influences occur. We noticed that the influence of Italian on Friulian is very strong at the lexical level. On the other hand, Friulian does not show traces of the influence of Italian at the syntactic level and sometimes Friulian influences Italian at the syntactic level. As it is common for a minority language to be influenced at the lexical level by the majority and more prestigious language, on the basis of the data collected we can assume that the Italianisation of the Friulian lexicon is a widespread phenomenon concerning the language spoken by the whole linguistic community and not only the language of children and young people.

Keywords. Friulian-Italian bilingualism, assessment of linguistic abilities, lexicon, syntax

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