"BUENO STIAMO PRATICANDO": COMPARATIVE ANALYSES OF DISCOURSE MARKERS USED IN INTERACTIVE CONTEXTS AMONG SIMILAR LANGUAGES

ABSTRACT The paper compares the discursive markers used in interactive contexts among learners of Italian as a foreign language (henceforth FL) whose mother tongue is either Brazilian Portuguese or Spanish and Catalan. Comparing the two corpora it emerges that discursive markers can be expressed in both the FL as in the L1. The most widely used category of interactive markers is that of phatic expressions and approval mechanisms, while metatextual markers are completely absent. When discursive markers are expressed in L1 there is a lack of interactive negotiation, since speakers prefer to engage the task assigned.