Maria Francesca Ferin

Biographic Data

ID3531238
NAMEMaria Francesca Ferin
GIVEN NAMESMaria Francesca
FAMILY NAMEFerin
SIGNATUREFERIN M F
AFFILIATIONSUniversity of Konstanz
ORCID0009-0000-1203-3967
VERIFIEDYes
TOTAL WORKS5
TOTAL CITATIONS0
AUTHOR COUNT5
EDITOR COUNT0
FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR2023
LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR2026
H-INDEX0

  • Production and comprehension of rhetorical questions in the acquisition of Italian as a first language

    Open AccessMaria Francesca Ferin, Tanja KupischARTICLELanguage Acquisition2026

    This paper investigates rhetorical questions (RhQs) in monolingual children acquiring Italian, comparing the comprehension and production of RhQs based on their optional lexical, morphosyntactic, and prosodic cues. We show that 6-to-9-year-old children are in the process of acquiring the use of optional lexical and morphosyntactic markers in production (e.g., discourse particles, information structure), but only 9-year-olds show adult-like patter…

  • The acquisition of rhetorical questions in bilingual children with Italian as a heritage language

    Open AccessMaria Francesca Ferin, Theodoros Marinis et al.ARTICLEBilingualism Language and Cognition2025

    Rhetorical questions (RhQs) are a complex phenomenon at the interface of pragmatics, prosody and syntax, which requires reasoning on intentions and goals, and which involves a mismatch between literal and intended meaning. In Italian, RhQs can be marked by optional particles and verbal morphology. We investigated when children aged 6-9 acquire the relevant patterns of optional modification and exploit them in the appropriate pragmatic context. In…

  • How Bilingual Experience Shapes Accents in German-Italian Primary School Children

    Tanja Kupisch, Massimiliano Canzi et al.ARTICLEHeritage Language Journal2024

    This study investigates the accents of German-Italian school children (6–10 years old) in their two languages. We ask whether accents in the bilingual children’s two languages are related and how foreign accentedness is associated with proficiency in other areas of language (speech rate, vocabulary size) and extralinguistic factors (formal and informal exposure and AoO in the majority language). Data from 87 early bilingual German-Italian childre…

  • On the Role of Informal vs. Formal Context of Language Experience in Italian-German Primary School Children

    Open AccessMichele Piccione, Maria Francesca Ferin et al.ARTICLELanguages2024References: 50

    This study focuses on the contexts of language experience in relation to language dominance in eighty-seven Italian-German primary school children in Germany using the MAIN narrative task. We compare current language experience in the heritage language (Italian) and the majority language (German) in both formal and informal settings, and we examine the respective impact on micro- and macrostructure measures, including different language domains. …

  • Rhetorical question comprehension by Italian–German bilingual children

    Open AccessMiriam Geiß, Maria Francesca Ferin et al.ARTICLESecond language Research2023References: 2

    This study investigates for the first time the comprehension of rhetorical questions (RhQs) in bilingual children. RhQs are non-canonical questions, as they are not used to request information, but to express the speaker’s belief that the answer is already obvious. This special pragmatic meaning often arises by means of specific prosodic and lexical-syntactic cues. Being childhood learners, children have to acquire the concept of rhetoricity, but…