Writing in Italian L2 A Study on the Referential Movement and the Mechanisms of Cohesion in Descriptive and Narrative Texts

Abstract

This article presents a study on L2 writing in Italian and it aims to analyse the organisation of the information and the mechanisms of cohesion in descriptive and narrative texts written by Chinese speaking university students. For this purpose, the study, within the framework of the Quaestio model, examines, on the one hand, the global text structure and, on the other, the referential movement in the domains of time, space, persons and objects. Finally, it focuses on the cohesive devices employed by the informants. The results highlight differences between descriptive and narrative texts, concerning both the distribution of the information and cohesive relations.