Carlotta Sparvoli

Carlotta Sparvoli is an Associate Professor in the Department of Asian and North African Studies at Ca' Foscari University of Venice, where she has been a faculty member since February 2022. She also serves as the Director's Delegate for Information Technology. Her academic work bridges theoretical and applied linguistics, with a focus on Chinese language and its pedagogy.

• PhD in Languages, Cultures and Society, Ca' Foscari University of Venice (2012)
• Laurea in Oriental Languages (Chinese), Ca' Foscari University of Venice (1991)
• National Scientific Habilitation for Associate Professor (2019)

Her research centers on the semantics of modal expressions in Chinese, the acquisition of Mandarin tones, and the teaching of Chinese as a second language. She employs corpus-based and cognitive linguistic approaches to analyze modality, negation, and discourse structure. Her interdisciplinary work integrates insights from psychology, philosophy, and education.

The 15 most recent publications reflect a strong focus on modality, tonal acquisition, and political discourse in Chinese. These works span book chapters, journal articles, and encyclopedia entries, published by leading academic presses such as Oxford University Press and De Gruyter. Her research shows a consistent trajectory toward understanding the cognitive and pragmatic dimensions of Chinese linguistic structures.

• President, Italian Association of Chinese Linguistics (AILC)
• Executive Board Member, Chinese as a Second Language Research (CASLAR)
• Executive Committee Member, International Association of Chinese Linguistics (IACL)
• Editorial Board, Chinese as a Second Language Research
• Reviewer for ERC, Oxford University Press, and multiple international journals

She has supervised five doctoral students and organized major international conferences such as ISOCTAL-3 and CASLAR-3. Her academic service includes external examination roles at Dublin Institute of Technology and Maynooth University. She has been an active participant in international research groups, including the CASRI Initiative on modality acquisition.

Carlotta Sparvoli leads a vibrant research agenda and is deeply embedded in the global Chinese linguistics community. She has held teaching and leadership positions at institutions in Ireland, Taiwan, and Italy, reflecting her transnational scholarly impact.