Story Retelling in Italian L2: the development of text structure

Within the framework of the Quaestio model (von Stutterheim/Klein 1989), this study examines text structure in story retelling narratives by tutored Chinese-speaking learners of Italian L2, focusing on the distribu-tion and codification of events with different informational status. Two event information status are considered: story line events, which relate main events of the story, and accessory events, which provide secondary information. The relation between conceptual hierarchy of event infor-mation status defined in these terms and linguistic devices which codify this distinction in the text is examined, with particular attention to the use of subordination . The emergence of both conceptual and linguistic levels in text structure of story retelling by Chinese learners of Italian L2 is traced through an examination of texts produced in three consecutive ac-quisitional stages; these learner data are compared with written narratives of the same story, an excerpt of the film “Modern Times”, produced by Italian native speakers.