L'italiano accademico: solo una questione socio-linguistica?

In light of the rich linguistic repertoire of the Italian language, in which an alternation in the use of linguistic varieties and dialects defi nes a bilingual linguistic community, the study of academic Italian becomes crucial in comprehending to what extent the level of understanding of the standard language is simply attributable to socio-linguistic factors or to internal factors as well, that is to say what Chomsky defi nes as grammatical competence. This study investigates fi rst year university students’ command of academic Italian. Specifi cally, data from the Valutazione della Preparazione Iniziale (VPI), a general test which evaluates students’ initial preparation, are compared with results of a Grammaticality Judgment Test administered to the same newly enrolled university students.