The development of phraseological errors in Chinese learner Italian: A longitudinal study

This study investigates the developmental patterns of phraseological errors in Chinese beginner and pre-intermediate learners of Italian in the use of noun + adjective and adjective + noun lexical combinations. Based on a longitudinal error-annotated learner corpus, a mixed-effect model is used to detect the effects on phraseological accuracy of a number of predictors, including time. Two of the variables expected to increase accuracy over time – a higher proficiency level and the use of a more common type of combination – turn out to favour the production of phraseological errors. Other significant predictors affecting phraseological accuracy are phraseological status and topic. Mixed-effect models prove to be effective in revealing the influence of a variety of categorical and numerical predictors and their interactions.