Francesca Malagnini’s research activity spans several fields. Specifically, she has focused on the analysis of ancient literary texts, with particular attention to the linguistic-philological and codicological study of Giovanni Boccaccio’s autographs, on the analysis of nineteenth-century literary texts—especially on the prose of Manzoni, also in relation to the inclusion in the Quarantana edition of the vignettes by Francesco Gonin. Other areas of interest also concern the study of Tommaseo as a lexicographer, journalist, poet, and educator; as well as the teaching of Italian and Italian as a second language (L2). Regarding the latter, she has produced a monograph on the relationship between the history of the language and teaching; she has written a normative grammar relating it to everyday language; she has outlined a diachronic overview of the language of the semi-literate. In recent years, she has devoted herself to the study of semi-literate wall writings from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries preserved in the Tezon on the island of Lazzaretto Nuovo in Venice and to another volume dedicated to the epigraphic writings of the Lazzaretto Vecchio of Venice. She also deals with lexicographic studies, writing articles for the Lessico Etimologico Italiano based at Saarbrucken University, conceived and previously directed by Max Pfister and now led by Wolfgang Schweickard.

She is currently a member of the research team for the European Research Council (ERC) Advanced Grants 2020 project entitled “Graff-IT, Writing on the Margins. Graffiti in Italy, 7th to 16th century” (April 22, 2021).

She was National Scientific Coordinator (PI) and coordinator of the lead unit at the University for Foreigners of Perugia from January 12, 2021, for the PRIN project “PHRAME - Phraseological Complexity Measures in learner Italian. Integrating eye tracking, computational and learner corpus methods to develop second language pedagogical resources,” project code 20178XXKFY, replacing the originator Stefania Spina.

From October 5, 2023 to February 28, 2026, she was a member of the research unit of the PRIN (PI Massimo Fanfani, replaced from November 10, 2023 by Donatella Martinelli) at the University of Parma in the project Archive of the Lexicography of the Nineteenth-Twentieth Century (ALON), approved by decree no. 901 of 21/06/2023, project code 20222FC7A8.