Language policy and ideology in Italy

2018

Italian) Questo saggio inquadra all’interno della politica linguistica nazionale il ruolo delle istituzioni che si occupano della lingua italiana in Italia. La lunga storia della lingua italiana richiede di precisare lo sfondo culturale e linguistico sul quale oggi si innestano le posizioni riconducibili alla politica del paese, pertanto il saggio si apre con uno sguardo alla storia recente della politica linguistica italiana (1). Seguono una riflessione sulle questioni attualmente più rilevanti della politica linguistica contemporanea (2.) e la descrizione delle attività alle quali contribuiscono alcune università, la Società Italiana Dante Alighieri (2.1) e l’Accademia della Crusca (2.2).

This book offers a detailed account of the impact that contact with the English language has had on Italian language and society. The first chapter places the Italian case within the current sociolinguistic and language policy debates on the spread of English as a global language. The following chapters focus on how English influences have contributed to the historical development of certain grammatical structures of the Italian language, from phonology to word-formation and syntax. Finally, Chapter 5 turns to lexical influence in order to assess the specific contribution of American English, as opposed to other varieties of English. The book as a whole shows how the impact of English on the history of the Italian language is linked to the social stratifications and hierarchies of prestige and power within the community that uses Italian, and how these hierarchies and stratifications are in turn affected by the spread of English.

PORTAL Journal of Multidisciplinary International …, 2008

Forum Italicum

In the European linguistic landscape Italy stands out for its high stratification and rich diversity, with evolving identities, and with evolving relations between its language and dialects, alloglot languages, and a great number of immigrant tongues. While Italy boasts one of the historically most prestigious civilizations, its national language, unlike English, does not have the status of a language for international communication, and, unlike Spanish or Chinese, it does not span entire continents. Yet the language has spread across continents without an empire and armies, primarily through migrations of people who left the country at different times and with different purposes.

Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of …, 2008

International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 1989

The linguistic composition of Italy 1 includes: i. regional Systems (the Gallo-Italic, Veneto, Friulan, Tuscan, 'median', 'intermediate southern', 'extreme southern', and Sardinian), subdivided further into a number of local varieties, which roughly correspond to the geographic-administrative divisions of the peninsula and its islands. Except for the Tuscan and Roman varieties, these 'dialects', äs they are called in Italy, are not varieties of Italian, the national-official language of Italy; 2 they constitute, however, a medium of communication which is still used extensively, especially in certain areas. A recent direct survey, carried out by Doxa in 1982, 3 offers a statistical estimate on the basis of self-evaluational answers: within the family, dialect Speakers amount roughly to 46.7%, Italian Speakers amount to 29.4%, and Speakers who alternate between Italian and dialect amount to 23.9%. Outside the family, in friendship interactions, Speakers who use mostly dialect amount to 36.1%, and Italian Speakers amount to 44.9%. Even in the knowledge that these figures may not be considered reliable, the passive-active use of dialects still appears very strong, particularly in certain geographic areas such äs the Triveneto' area, Sicily, Campania, Abruzzi, and Sardinia; 4 ii. 'alloglot idioms' (Franco-Provengal, Provengal, Ladin, German, Slovene, Catalan, Greek, and Serbo-Croatian) which exist side by side with the regional Systems and the regional varieties of Italian. In these cases, too, an estimate of the quantity and quality of their active and passive use is highly problematical; iii. the presence, in certain dialect contexts, of so called Oases-isles' where dialects, quite different from the dialect spoken in the surrounding context, are used: Emilian in Tuscany; the Sassari variety of Sardinian, composed of a mixture of Italian, Pisan, and Genoan dialects, the Gallura

PORTAL Journal of Multidisciplinary International Studies, 2008

Language issues loom large in current debates on Italian identity/identities, indigenous minorities in Italy and, of course, immigration. While the context of language debates in early 21st century Italy presents new realities and challenges, the fundamental issues are the same as those originally defined by the first European language planner, Dante, and reworked by successive theorists. The debates turn on exclusions and inclusions, on levels of multiple identities, on understandings of otherness. It is no accident that language is at once as a provocation for debates on identity and a metaphor of those debates, for the tensions that run through the debates lie at the heart of language itself. All cultures have a narrative that explains diversity among languages and cultures, either as the result of a mistake or as divine punishment. The Biblical accounts of Creation, Babel and Pentecost provide the framework for European understandings of language diversity. These accounts captur...

Language Problems and Language Planning, 2002

Topoi, 1985

Theory of language is an important factor in the plans of political and educational reform drawn by Italian philosophers of the eighteenth century. Analysis of language is a technique they often resort to when discussing the foundations of political philosophy and the ways and means of social communication. Interesting suggestions concerning philosophy of language can be found in the works of writers on political economy and philosophy of jurisprudence (Antonio Genovesi, Gaetano Filangieri, Cesare Beccaria, Melchiorre Gioia, Gian Domenico Romagnosi, among others), where subjects such as abuse of words and linguistic arbitrarism are connected to theoretical and practical problems of the transition from feudal to bourgeois r~gime.