Studenti internazionali in mobilità: la questione del lessico della conoscenza in italiano L2

Academic vocabulary is a key component in studying at university level for non-native international students of Italian as L2. In this paper first of all it will be discussed the notion of academic vocabulary and will be presented the lists created for Italian, e.g. the Lessico della Conoscenza and the Academic Italian Word List. It will be then introduced an experimental test, designed to assess the knowledge of academic vocabulary of students who are non-native speakers of Italian. The results of the first experimental administration of the test will be presented and discussed and it will be given an overview of possible suggestions for teaching and learning on the basis of the test results.