Author: Bianca-Elena Babei-Popa
Summary: The study examines how children growing up in Romanian families living in Italy use the Romanian language. Romanian in this context is a heritage language, that is the language spoken at home within a minority community while another language, in this case Italian, is the dominant environmental language. This study focuses on differential object marking and explores how this structure is used by Romanian-speaking children residing in Italy. The topic is relevant for Romania given the large Romanian communities living abroad and the growing importance of preserving the Romanian language outside the country.
Using a story-telling task, the present study compares the use of differential object marking by Romanian-speaking children in Italy to that of age-matched monolinguals living in Romania. The results indicate that the former use differential object marking correctly, but less frequently than the latter, suggesting that reduced exposure to Romanian may affect the acquisition of complex linguistic structures. These findings can help improve teaching materials and strategies for Romanian language programs abroad, supporting the preservation of the Romanian language within Romanian communities in diaspora.