“The LIPS Corpus (Lexicon of Spoken Italian by Foreigners) and the Acquisition of Vocabulary by Learners of Italian as L2”

The aim of this paper is to present corpus‐based research on the acquisition of the vocabulary of Italian as L2. The goal of the research was to study the lexical uses of non‐native speakers and the processes of lexical acquisition underlying these uses. The informants of the corpus were non‐native speakers learning Italian both within Italy and outside of it in order to compare the development of lexical competence in different learning contexts. The main results show how lexical competence develops above all quantitatively at the beginning and intermediate levels, as well as how it develops qualitatively at the more advanced levels in particular. Different learning inputs greatly affect the development of lexical competence: learners acquiring Italian in Italy have a deeper knowledge of the Italian lexicon compared to learners learning Italian outside of Italy.