NavigationView.setItemTextAppearance() not working

I built a NavigationView using Java code and then I set the text style to keep the text of my menu items in a specific color and font using the method setItemTextAppearance(int resId). But this method is not working. My text is not changing.

Note : All the other methods are working great, like setItemTextColor(), setItemBackground() etc.

Here is my code:

mNavigationView = new NavigationView(context);

mNavigationView.setId(R.id.nav_view);
mNavigationView.setFitsSystemWindows(true);

// This method works great!  
mNavigationView.setBackgroundColor(ContextCompat.getColor(context, R.color.colorPrimary));

// This too. 
mNavigationView.setItemTextColor(ColorStateList.valueOf(ContextCompat.getColor(context,  android.R.color.white)));

// This method is not working.   
mNavigationView.setItemTextAppearance(R.style.MenuTextStyle);

Here is my style code:

 <style name="MenuTextStyle">
        <item name="android:textSize">16sp</item>
        <item name="android:fontFamily">sans-serif-medium</item>
        <item name="android:textStyle">normal</item>
        <item name="android:textColor">#ffffff</item>
        <item name="android:lineSpacingExtra">0sp</item>
</style>

I suppose making your style a descendant of the default style that is applied to NavigationView's items would work out:

<style name="MenuTextStyle" parent="TextAppearance.AppCompat.Medium">
    <item name="android:textSize">22sp</item>
    <item name="android:textStyle">italic</item>
    <item name="android:textColor">#ff0000</item>
</style>

In Java code:

    navigationView.setItemTextColor(null);
    navigationView.setItemTextAppearance(R.style.MenuTextStyle);

Result