Note sull’apprendimento delle parole polisemiche

Abstract

As well known, both in the case of acquiring an L! and, later, a foreign language (FL), many factors related to communicative, affective and relational contexts come into play. The existence in the historical-natural languages of polysemic words can be a difficulty in learning either a L1 (for example in the case of the Italian banco which can mean both a “school bench” and a “butcher’s bench”) or a FL (for example in the case of Italian speakers struggling to memorize that orologio in many European languages corresponds to two different terms, depending on whether we mean “wall/table clock” or “wristwatch”). This difficulty is then made stronger by the fact that more words are common and frequent, more extensive is their polysemy. The aim of this paper is to highlight the similarities and differences that exist in L1 and FL acquisition of polysemic words. In this regard, different study approaches are taken into account, bearing in mind the need – in our opinion – to promote the development of word consciousness (involving an interest in and an awareness of word parts, word order, how words extend their meanings, word choice in different uses of the language etc.), with either L1 or FL learners.