12 talks on the Italian language
“The most beautiful in the world” is supposed to be a supermodel and yet in Italy the expression is more often than not used to define Italian language. Is Italian truly the most beautiful language in the world? It is commonplace, due to either italophilia or nationalism, but is it only this?
A series led by Dr Stefano Jossa, author of La più bella del mondo. Perché amare la lingua italiana (Einaudi) and Reader in Italian at Royal Holloway University of London, will explore the relationships between Italian and other languages, the Italian words that have become key to interpret our contemporary world, the various languages of arts, music, technology, economy and politics.
Event in Italian with simultaneous translation in English
Wednesday 22 May, 7pm
La più bella del mondo – The most beautiful in the world #8
Language Contact: What Are the Challenges for Italian and Its Speakers?”
Dr Stefano Jossa and Dr Alessandro Carlucci in conversation
Is the Italian language only borrowing individual words from English? Is it true that the influence of English is also changing Italian grammatical structures? Is “the most beautiful language in the world” in danger because of this? Is it a matter of political and economic power, or of linguistic dynamics too? Alessandro Carlucci, the author of “The Impact of the English Language in Italy”, will explore the extent to which English influences have contributed to the historical development of certain grammatical structures of the Italian language, from phonology to word-formation and syntax. In conversation with Stefano Jossa.
Alessandro Carlucci is the author of The Impact of the English Language in Italy: Linguistic Outcomes and Political Implications (Munich: Lincom, 2018) and Gramsci and Languages: Unification, Diversity, Hegemony (Brill, 2013; Haymarket, 2015), co-winner of the Giuseppe Sormani International Prize for the best monograph on Gramsci (2017). He is Retained Lecturer in Italian at Pembroke College (University of Oxford) and works on multilingualism, language contact, the history of the Italian language, English influences in Italian, Tuscan dialectology and diachronic phonology, and the history of linguistic ideas. He has published widely on the linguistic views that the Italian philosopher and political leader Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937) expressed in his writings, and on previously neglected aspects of Gramsci’s life.