Varianti e varietà di apprendimento conservate nell’Archivio Storico dell’Università per Stranieri di Perugia

The Historical Archive of the University for Foreigners in Perugia preserves a documentary heritage of enormous interest: the University has therefore undertaken its valorization over the last few years, particularly regarding the “Examinations” series, which collects written tests taken by foreign students from 1926 to 1987. It is a diachronic journey through learning variety texts, with insights into the history of Italian L2 teaching. The paper aims to introduce these examination texts from the theory of error analysis proposed in recent years by Cecilia Andorno. By way of example, errors in some texts are analyzed and classified and systematic aspects of interlanguage are highlighted. Draft copies of two tests are also transcribed and analyzed in order to recognize the learner’s approach with reference to the “learning variants” recalled in the title. Finally, mention is made of the digital corpus that will collect exam texts so that they can be analyzed according to grammatical categories and error types.