The plurilingual repertoire of the Sri Lankan community in Naples: a sociolinguistic and acquisitional study

According to data from the National Institute of Statistics, in 2023 the Sri Lankan ethnic community is the largest in Naples (14,627 presences, 26% of the total foreign population). It is described as well-established in a limited area of the city (Guadagno, 2022). Although many Sri Lankans attend L2 Italian courses, studies report very frequent phenomena of fossilisation of interlanguage at a basic level of development (Garzonio/Gracci, 2006; Spina, 2013). This proposal aims at investigating the Sri Lankan community in Naples combining a sociolinguistic and acquisitional approach. Data were collected through a questionnaire, administered to 40 first- and second-generation adult Sri Lankans. The interviews were recorded and transcribed using the Elan software. In the context of describing the participants’ plurilingual repertoire, the objective of this contribution is to verify whether and how their ethnic orientation towards Italy (Nagy, 2018) is related to their linguistic uses and skills in L2 Italian and Neapolitan dialect. Sri Lankan participants' self-assessments are combined with interlanguage analysis. First observations reveal a positive correlation between ethnic orientation and proficiency level in the L2 and a general negative attitude toward Neapolitan dialect, with rare codeswitching phenomena. Grazonio, Jacopo/Gracci, Sandra. 2006. “Lessico esotico dei tamil d’Italia. Uno studio linguistico e sociolinguistico nella comunità di Bologna”. in Innàccaro, Gabriele/Banfi, Emanuele (eds.), Lo spazio linguistico italiano e le lingue esotiche: rapporti e reciproci influssi. Roma, Bulzoni: 67-84. Guadagno, Eleonora. 2022. “Territori in movimento. La comunità srilankese nella spazialità napoletana”. Bollettino della Società Geografica Italiana 14, 5/2: 95-108. Nagy, Naomi. 2018. “Linguistic attitudes and contact effects in Toronto’s heritage languages: A variationist sociolinguistic investigation”. International Journal of Bilingualism 22/4: 429-446. Spina, Carmela. 2013. “L’italiano degli immigrati srilankesi”. In De Meo, Anna (ed.), Professione Italiano. Lingua, cittadinanza, salute e tutela della persona per immigrati di Paesi Terzi. Napoli, Il Torcoliere: 169-181.