Sociolinguistics of Italian

According to the Dublin descriptors, the Course intends to pursue the following aims:

 

1) Knowledge:

Acquire basic concepts of sociolinguistics;

Develop reflection on the variability of the Italian language;

Develop awareness of the functions of different languages in the urban linguistic landscape.

2) Ability to apply knowledge and understanding:

Acquire the main techniques of sociolinguistic investigation in order to be able to carry out field research.

3) Autonomy of judgement:

Knowing how to interpret socially situated language use data, in order to attain the ability to make personal and autonomous judgements, so as to be able to operate a critical reflection on social, ethical or professional issues (e.g.: evaluating the linguistic behaviour used by or towards a minority, judging the value of the variety of Italian used in a commercial communication, etc.).

4) Communicative skills:

Knowing how to apply sociolinguistic knowledge to one’s own communicative competence, to master the use of socially situated language, and to know how to interact in a conscious manner and communicate effectively (e.g.: respecting stylistic norms when writing an email, knowing how to adapt the diatopic markings of one’s speech to a given context.

5) Learning skills:

Developing basic learning skills that are necessary to undertake further studies with a high degree of autonomy (e.g.: knowing diamesic variation to adapt language use on a new social network, knowing the tends.

A)    Definition of Sociolinguistics (3 ECTS): scope, postulates and methods; linguistic repertoire and community; communicative situation and competence; social class, group and social network; types of linguistic varieties; standard language and dialect; linguistic prestige; opinions and attitudes, diglossia and dilalia; sociolinguistic variable.


B)    The sociolinguistic repertoire of contemporary Italy (3 ECTS): the sociolinguistic situation in contemporary Italy: Italian, dialects, and minority languages; historical development of the use of Italian and dialects; the “architecture” of Italian; restandardisation: literary standard and neostandard; diatopic varieties: Regional Italian; diaphasic varieties: registers and language for specific purposes; diamesic varieties: written and spoken Italian; diastratic varieties: “italiano popolare”.

C)     Techniques of sociolinguistic research; The linguistic landscape (3 ECTS). Definition, functions and analysis.

A) Berruto Gaetano, Prima lezione di sociolinguistica, Bari, Laterza, 2006 (189 pp.)

 

B) Berruto Gaetano, Sociolinguistica dell’italiano contemporaneo, Roma, Carocci, (ristampa aggiornata) 2012 updated reprint (280 pp.)
(except Chapter 5)  

C)

1) D’Agostino Mari, Sociolinguistica dell’Italia contemporanea, Il Mulino 2007:

Chapter I: Storie (pp. 13-22),

Chapter  3: L’Italia contemporanea, pp. 51-66.

Chapter 11: Progettare una ricerca, pp. 215-235.

 

2) Alfonzetti, Giovanna, Vuciata kitchen market. Il dialetto nel paesaggio linguistico sicilianom Centro di Studi Filologici e Linguistici siciliani 2023 (200 pp.)

 

The scheme of all lectures and other materials will be found on STUDIUM

 

Please remember that in compliance with art 171 L22.04.1941, n. 633 and its amendments, it is illegal to copy entire books or journals, only 15% of their content can be copied.

For further information on sanctions and regulations concerning photocopying please refer to the regulations on copyright (Linee Guida sulla Gestione dei Diritti d’Autore) provided by AIDRO - Associazione Italiana per i Diritti di Riproduzione delle opere dell’ingegno (the Italian Association on Copyright).

All the books listed in the programs can be consulted in the Library.