Formulaic patterns in L2 Italian secondary school learners’ interlanguage development

Aims and Objectives: This study investigates the role of formulaic sequences (FS) in the interlanguage development of secondary school learners of Italian as a second language, in their second year of instruction, with a specific focus on the existential/locative structure c’è/ci sono (“there is/there are”). The research aims to determine the extent to which learners rely on FS and how these structures contribute to their broader syntactic and morphological development. Using oral speech production data elicited through a spot-the-difference task, the study applies the framework of Processability Theory to identify developmental patterns in the acquisition of c’è/ci sono . Methodology: The methodology involves a detailed distributional analysis of learners’ oral speech data, combined with the emergence criterion, to differentiate between formulaic and productive use of linguistic structures. In a further step, implicational scaling is applied. Findings: The findings reveal significant variability in learners’ syntactic development. While most learners rely heavily on single words and simplified structures, a minority demonstrates productive use of more complex syntactic forms, including c’è/ci sono . The developmental trajectory of c’è/ci sono progresses from non-production or reliance on alternative strategies to the use of formulaic patterns, followed by productive use with morphological variation. This trajectory aligns with learners’ broader morphological and syntactic development. Originality: The study contributes to a better understanding of FS from a learner-internal processing perspective in L2 Italian learners. Limitations: The study is limited by the cross-sectional nature of the data, which offers no insight into early developmental stages during the first year of instruction.