Abstract
In this article, we investigate the explicit signalling of causal relations by means of causal connectives in Italian student writing. We compare four groups of students divided by their language background (L1 or L2) and grade level (8th vs. 12th grade) to see whether writers with different backgrounds a) differ from each other and b) develop in different ways from lower to upper secondary school. In particular, we analyse the number, variety, sophistication and range of causal connectives employed by the students and explore the types of causal connectives typical of each group using correspondence analysis. Our results show that sophistication and range of causal connectives increase in upper secondary schools and for L1 students, while the number decreases in both L1 and L2 students’ texts from lower to upper secondary school.