About Us

We are a research group set up in 2006 at the Italian Studies Department, Complutense University of Madrid (Spain) and integrated by University professors and teachers at Spanish National Language Schools (Escuelas Oficiales de Idiomas). The aim of our group is to study the acquisition process of Italian discourse markers in Spanish speakers (whence the name A.Ma.Dis, from Spanish Adquisición de Marcadores Discursivos).

Our research has developed along three financed projects: Acquisition of Discourse Markers in Italian L2 learners interactions (PR1/06-14427-A) supported by the Complutense Universidad; Discourse Markers and Interactional Construction of Conversation in L2 Italian (HUM2007-66134), and Information Structure and Discourse Markers in Oral Competence Didactics in L2 Italian and Spanish (FFI2011-24960), both financed by Spanish National Research Fund Researchers from several European Universities (Valencia, Seville, Turin and Palermo) have taken part in this project. We have contributed to the organisation of several international conferences in this field, such as the First International Conference on Discourse Markers in Romance Languages: a Contrastive Approach (Madrid, 2010) and the International Workshop on Information Processing and Discourse Markers in Romance Languages (Heidelberg, 2012).

We have gradually expanded our research to other close-related fields such as a) the acquisition of conversational strategies, b) the information structure in interlanguage and c) the didactics of oral competence. Recently, in collaboration with the University of Salerno, we are conducting a study on the acquisition of Spanish discourse markers by Italian speakers. Furthermore, we cooperate with the Val.Es.Co research group (Valencia University) in the Spanish Discourse Particles Dictionary and we are preparing a Bilingual Dictionary (Italian-Spanish) on Discourse Markers. The results of our researchs on L2 acquisition and didactics have been published in over twenty papers and have been presented in national and international academic conferences.