Most studies on spelling processes suppose that the activation of orthographic representations is over before we start to write. The goal of the present study was to provide evidence indicating that the orthographic representations activated during spelling production interact continuously with the motor processes during movement production. We manipulated gemination to assess the influence of the orthographic properties of words on the kinematic parameters of production. Native English-speaking participants wrote words containing double letters and control words on a digitizer [e.g., DISSIPATE (Geminate) and DISGRACE (Control)]. The word pairs shared the initial letters and differed on the presence of a doublet at the same position. The results revealed that latencies were shorter for Geminates than Controls, indicating that spelling processes were facilitated by the presence of a doublet in the word. Critically, the impact of letter doubling was also observed during production, with shorter letter durations (e.g., D, I, S) and intervals (DI, IS) for Geminates than Controls. Letter doubling therefore affected the whole process of word writing: from spelling recall to movement preparation and production. The spelling processes that were involved before movement initiation cascaded into processes that regulate movement execution. The activation spread onto peripheral processing until the production of the doublet was completely programmed (e.g., letter S).

According to a national survey on language usage, Veneto dialect (spoken in Veneto, one of Italy’s northeastern regions) benefits from the widest usage range compared to other regional dialects spoken in the Italoromance domain. We collected 35 hours of interactional data and conducted attitudinal interviews. From these data, we examined a family’s language policy (nuclear and extended family) and its influence on a child’s (Francesco, aged 17–30 months) language environment and acquisition of norms of usage. The juxtaposition of the attitudinal interviews of the adults in Francesco’s environment with the interactional data collected revealed numerous discrepancies between the adults’ expressed attitudes and their production. We argue that attitudes do not necessarily predict language choices and that the relationship between the two is more complicated than a cause-and-consequences one, in particular when these concern dialect usage. Rather, there is a dynamic link between attitudes and language choices as these are constantly (re)defined, negotiated and reconfigured during interaction.

International audienceThis paper aims to document two adjustment types motivating code choices in early production in the multilingual context of Veneto (Italy), where the regional dialects and Italian share the same geolinguistic space. Languages with which a child comes into contact in his/her environment could provide a vantage point for the study of early contextual language adjustments. We compared the early production of a child - Francesco (17-30 months) - with his input, through a quantitative lexical approach to the material. Data were collected in an ecological family setting. Dyadic interactions (15 hours) were taped in Francesco's home and multiparty interactions (20 hours) were recorded in his grandparents' home. In the first setting, statistically-driven acquisition could justify the adjustments in Francesco's production to the language choices in his home environment. In the second setting, where social interaction is different, pragmatically motivated adjustments are more likely to ground Francesco's choices. Results from the analyses suggest that a) child-directed speech promotes steady acquisition of the language which is selected the most frequently in the input and that b) pragmatically explicit interactional contexts could favour the production of lesser used languages

The majority of studies conducted in the Italoromance area have dealt with issues of language transmission by analyzing declared language practices. In this paper, we will present detailed analyses of the effective practices observed within family interactions involving speakers belonging to three generations from Veneto (northeastern Italy). Adopting a qualitative approach, we seek to document the modalities of transmission of the minority languages to the younger generations. Each interlocutor's production will be analyzed in order to gain knowledge on the types of interaction contexts which favour the usage of Italian or dialect. In cases of codeswitching within or between utterances, we will focus on the possible reasons underlying the change from one code to the other.