Uso del dimostrativo ana-deittico nella comunicazione parlata in italiano LS. Un approccio pragmatico-topicale

Deixis plays an important role in anchoring the text to the context and it is the most obvious way to reflect the relationship between the structure of languages and context. Based on Levinson’s (1983) theory, deixis has been divided into five types, among which are personal, spatial, temporal, textual and social. This paper examines a particular type of spatial deixis, namely demonstratives. Despite the fact that the international literature attributes an important role to deixis, particularly in the field of pragmatics, there is not much research devoted to it, at least in Italian (except for Watorek 1998; Giuliano 2004; Szantyka 2012). The study intends to observe longitudinally the use of demonstratives in spoken communication in Italian as a Foreign Language and try to explain its functioning by referring to the pragmatic-topical approach. The final considerations which gleaned from the research may provide insights both for educators working in Italian classrooms with Chinese students, as well as for those engaged in teaching Chinese to Italian students.