| The primary purpose of this research examines Italian Canadian adolescent speech varieties used by second and third generation high school students pursuing an Italian credit course. The focus is specifically on the social dialect spoken by Italian Canadian and native Italian teenagers in specific social contexts. Students pursuing Italian courses as a second language (L2) in a local high school in Woodbridge, Ontario were engaged in interviews, audio and video recordings. As well, they completed a series of questionnaires over a week's period.; Likewise, in Italy, their adolescent counterparts participated in a similar study. The data collection and analysis provided a framework revealing various patterns of adolescent communication consisting of three basic categories: emotive, connotative and clique-coded language discourses. This framework also allowed for cross-cultural comparisons carried out on Italian adolescent discourse. Above all, it clearly reported that teenagers in Italy, similar to their Italian Canadian counterparts manifest a distinct and recognizable speech code.; Having carefully analyzed contemporary adolescent talk in Italy, and its pedagogical implications it is essential that as a teacher of Italian as a second language (L2), it be incorporated in a learning syllabus that is tailored to meet the adolescents learning interests. The present Ontario Curriculum documents (1999, 200) for Classical and International languages can complement the inclusion of Italian adolescent speech forms via a 'curriculum model' consisting of a cultural syllabus and a "scenario approach" (Di Pietro, 1987) which make our language learners more responsive to our Italian (L2) classes.; The final part of the research addresses and puts forth recommendations that will facilitate the teaching of Italian as an L2 in the future. The findings in this study on Italian Canadian adolescent speech reflect the types of observations suggested in the literature by researchers in North America such as Danesi (1988, 1989, 1994, 1996, 1997,1999, 2003a, 2003b); Clivio & Danesi (2000) who are among the very few who have carried out cross-cultural comparisons and by researchers in Europe such as Cortelazzo (1994), De Paoli (1998), and Marcato (1994, 1997). |
