acquisition of communicative competence necessary to interact in most
social contexts and, at more advanced levels, interact in more formal and
professional contexts;
acquisition of the metalanguage/metadiscourse required for an
understanding of the sentence structure, intonation patterns and discourse
patterns of Italian (this will promote autonomous language-learning and
research skills);
acquisition, at more advanced levels, of skills necessary to translate
and interpret from English to Italian and from Italian to
English.
Graduating students are expected to be able to speak Italian with
sufficient accuracy to participate effectively in most conversations on
practical, social and abstract topics. They should be able to interact in
standard Italian, be aware of social and cultural differences, and follow the
essentials of more complex extended spoken and written discourse. In their own
writing, students should be able to express themselves effectively in essays
and research papers in the areas of interest to them.
