Razprave in gradivo, Ljubljana, March 1986, No.18 
Giusseppe Francescato UDC 323.15(450=863):376.7 
Universita di Trieste 
Istituto die Glottologia 
Italy 
BILINGUALISM OF YOUNG PEOPLE IN THE SLOVENIAN MINORITY IN ITALY 
& 
The purpose of this paper is to give an idea of the research we 
are engaged in at the University of Trieste (Istituto di 
Glottologia), with special reference to the linguistic problems 
of young bilingual speakers belonging to the Slovene minority. It 
is a well known fact that in the Province of Trieste and, within 
certain limits, in the town itself, there are groups of speakers 
whose mother tongue is Slovenian. However, their knowledge of 
Slovenian is usually accompanied by the acquisition of the 
Italian language, mostly in the course of their second 
socialization. More precisely, the global range of languages in 
the repertoire of the Slovene bilingual speakers in Trieste 
comprises: 1) Slovenian dialect (there are many different local 
dialects); 2) standard Slovenian (formal language, often replaced 
by a colloquial variant); 3) dialetto triestino (the local 
variant of dialectal Italian); 4) standard Italian (literary 
language, usually based on a sub-standard regional model). Of 
course, different speakers display a diversified control of these 
various types. Bilingualism is more or less balanced, according 
with the cultural level of the speakers, their level of 
schooling, their economic and working conditions, their sex, 
territorial distribution, and so on. 
This paper refers particularly to the younger speakers, children 
from the sixth year of age on, pre-adolescents and adolescents 
(teenagers). The reasons for restricting our observations to this 
age limit depend upon the particular interest shown in the last 
few years for the development and the characteristics of language 
acquisition after infancy. This range of age falls entirely 
within the limits of the so-called “second socialization," which 
is, by definition, dominated by the influence of the school - on 
the one side - and of the peer-group, on the other side. 
To stress the role of school influence, one has to consider that 
all children of Slovenian mother tongue, by entering the school 
at elementary level, begin learning both Slovenian and Italian in 
their written (and "formal") form. But for most of the children 
contact with regular education in two languages starts already by 
their entering in the "“scuola-materna" (kindergarten). Our 
research moves from this level. The data we possess can be traced 
back to a number of dissertations (tesi di laurea) elaborated by 
students who are themselves bilingual. The aim of these 
dissertations is to illustrate, with a suitable analysis of the 
materials, some particular sociolinguistic situations, which 
typically reflect the behaviour of the Slovenian minority in 
Trieste, 
  
* Original: English 
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Razprave in gradivo, Ljubljana, March 1986, No.18 
A group of such "tesi" examines the linguistic and social 
behaviour of children who are enrolled ina "kindergarten" for 
Slovenian-speaking pupils. In fact, a careful inspection of the 
attitudes and reactions of such children at the moment when they 
start their second socialization, uncovers many differences among 
the children. These depend upon the influence of their previous 
linguistic education, and the difficulties which face the 
subjects when they meet this new situation. A considerable weight 
in determining such difficulties goes back to the complexity of 
the linguistic repertoire we have shown above, 
In her dissertation, M. Ivasié takes account of three significant 
circumstances operating in the process of linguistic and social 
adaptation of her subjects: a) choice of code on the basis of 
other children's attitudes; b) choice of code on the basis of the 
other general communicative intentions. The results of her 
analyses show how, and in spite of which difficulties, the 
children are able to gain control over two, or more, linguistic 
codes, i.e., how they establish their linguistic competence, and 
in particular how they learn to control the use of different 
codes according to different situations and different 
interlocutors (i.e. how they establish their communicative 
competence). 
According to Ivasié's remarks, a child who enters kindergarten 
already having some notion of at least one Slovenian code and one 
Italian code is able from the beginning to interact with other 
children (bilingual as well as monolingual). In this case 
children learn to use their codes alternatively, and they tend to 
keep this ability alive. On the contrary, children who, at the 
beginning, were able to communicate in one code only, tend to 
make exclusive use of this code. The author underlines the fact 
that children react very early to the conditions for 
bilingualism, and that they not only make a distinction between 
the ones who know and the ones who do not know a language, but 
they are even able to identify some aspects of the social 
distribution of the various codes in the community. In a parallel 
research V. Krizmancié examines similar cases of children who 
have been born in so-called "bilingual families," i.e. families 
where the parents do not speak as a mother tongue the same 
language. One would expect, in such a situation, greater 
difficulties for the integration and adaptation of the subjects, 
and this is what actually happens. 
Another group of dissertations investigates the capacity of 
lexical and grammatical comprehension developed by children in 
Slovenian and Italian respectively. M. Poropat's work is centered 
on the comprehension of certain syntactic structures (the use of 
prepositions) with children from 3 to 7 years of age. Her 
dissertation shows how the cognitive aspects bound with the use 
of the prepositions develop in both languages along parallel 
lines. There are, however, some more complicated situations, when 
the semantic "content" of Slovenian and Italian prepositions, 
respectively, do not entirely overlap. 
Three dissertations (by N. Bizjak, I. Stare and L. Leghissa) are 
devoted to the problems of lexical comprehension by students of 
the "scuola media." Subjects from 10 to 18 years of age are 
enrolled in schools for young people with Slovenian mother 
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Razprave in gradivo, Ljubljana, March 1986, No.18 
tongue. For these studies a number of tests have been developed, 
especially in order of taking account of the age level and of the 
process of maturation acquired in the school. By means of a 
multiple-choice test, comprehension of lexical items is measured. 
One of the major difficulties in this research has been the 
elaboration of a set of questions, to be used in the test, and 
offering a similar range of difficulty in both languages. In 
Leghissa's dissertation even orthographic difficulties have been 
put to proof. The results of these studies have been evaluated 
with reference to a number of variables, such as social group, 
socio-cultural status of the family, sex, schooling level, place 
of residence. An evaluation of the objective results of tests in 
comparison with the subject's opinions has been traced with the 
help of a test for self-evaluation. 
Language comprehension in general appears to be related with age. 
In the particular setting of the Province Trieste there seems to 
be some connection between bilingualism and place of residence, 
in the sense that in the villages situated on the coast 
bilingualism is more common, as against the villages in the 
interior, where monolingualism (and the use of Slovenian) is the 
rule. In the group of young people submitted to investigation 
there appeared to be a tendency to develop bilingualism, in spite 
of the fact that the activity in the schools takes place almost 
exclusively in Slovenian. 
With references to differences among sex groups, it appears that 
girls prefer to choose a bilingual behaviour, while young men are 
easily oriented towards monolingualism in either one of the two 
languages, Slovenian or Italian. These results underline the 
importance of the socio-cultural variables with reference to the 
linguistic competence and general linguistic ability of bilingual 
speakers. 
As a consequence of the research conducted by means of tests, it 
has been possible to elaborate a sort of "index" for the 
evaluation of "orientation" of subjects towards either 
bilingualism or monolingualism. Comparing the results obtained by 
the subjects in both languages, it has been established that, 
when the number of errors remains within a certain range, it has 
to be taken as an indication of the subjects’ tendency to develop 
a good control of both languages (bilingualism); when, on the 
contrary, the number of errors is very small in either one of the 
two languages, it has to be taken as an indication of the leaning 
of the subjects to become by preference a monolingual in that 
language. This "index" was used with good results in all research 
undertaken with the aim of classifying individual performances 
and the collective performances of groups of pupils as well. 
The data on self-evaluation, on the other hand, have shown how 
young people perceive the peculiar characteristics of their 
linguistic experience, and how they feel as members of a minority 
group and experience the special difficulties inherent in their 
situation. In the self-evaluation data there appeared to be some 
homogeneity, in so far as the majority of the subjects declared 
to have some difficulties in the sue of the Italian language. On 
the other hand, while they estimated to possess a much better 
command of the Slovenian language, a majority of them declared to 
have trouble with both languages, and to be dissatisfied with 
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Razprave in gradivo, Ljubljana, March 1986, No.18 
their competence, especially of Italian. They emphasized the need 
of having a good access to the language of the majority. 
One significant point is made by the differences between various 
schools. To interpret these data, one has to take into account 
the various aspects of the local socio-economic situation. For 
example, in the families of lower social level there is a 
tendency to enroll their children in schools of lower prestige, 
where linguistic performances are usually less appreciated. 
Somewhat surprising is the fact that, in absolute terms, the 
comprehension of the Italian section of the test appeared to be 
slightly better than the comprehension of the Slovenian section. 
In order to explain this apparently contradictory fact, it has to 
be remarked that in general the knowledge of Italian is the 
result of a scholastic process, so that Italian is normally 
acquired in its standard form, while Slovenian is usually known 
first in its "dialectical" form. This leads to a situation of 
“diglossia," because communication in the family as well as 
outside the school goes on in the Slovene dialect (the number of 
those families where standard or colloquial Slovenian is used is 
relatively limited, but increasing). The use of dialect has some 
negative influence upon the control of the standard language, and 
this is a reason for some concern in an environment like the one 
of the minority, where puristic tendencies are obviously 
prevailing. 
There are some other problems of some significance in order to 
assess the conditions of the bilingual minority. One could 
consider, for example, the problem of balance in bilingualism. A 
number of young people acquires, through the school, but also by 
direct experience, a balanced knowledge of both Slovenian and 
Italian, usually at a high level. this is not the rule for 
bilingual speakers at large, however. There is then the problem 
of the "national" feelings of the young people, largely based on 
their linguistic experience. A short final comment can be made to 
stress the fact that research on the linguistic and 
sociolinguistic aspects of the Slovenian minority in Trieste is 
at present underway, and it can be said to state some good 
premises, which will help to face the problems of the minority in 
all their complexity in the future. 
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