Sociolinguistics of Italian

1) Knowledge and understanding
Acquiring basic concepts of sociolinguistics. Developing reflection on the variability of the Italian language. Developing awareness of the functions of a widespread behaviour in the Italian situation, also among young people, i.e. the alternate use of Italian, dialect and foreign languages in conversation and on the web (phenomena defined as code switching and polylanguaging).

2) Ability to apply knowledge and understanding
Acquiring the main techniques of sociolinguistic investigation in order to be able to carry out fieldwork. To be able to apply the acquired concepts and themes (e.g.: the varieties of Italian, the values of dialect on the web, etc.) to a given professional field. In other words, developing a sociolinguistic reading ability, which contributes to tackling problems and finding solutions to issues involving the use of language in a given field of work (e.g. adapting the variety of language used to prepare public communications of a company or activity, understanding the social meaning of the variety used by a given client, etc.).

3) Autonomy of judgement
Knowing how to interpret data of socially situated language use, in order to attain the capacity for personal and autonomous judgement, so as to be able to make 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 business 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 consciously 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 situational context, etc.).

5) Learning skills
Developing the basic learning skills that are necessary to undertake further studies with a high degree of autonomy (e.g.: to know diamesic variation in order to adapt one’s use of the language to a new social network, to know the trends in the re-standardisation of Italian in order to evaluate further particular innovations, etc.).

A)   Definition of Sociolinguistics: 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: 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; Communicative strategies: code switching and polylanguaging. Definition and functions.