SOCIOLINGUISTICS OF ITALIAN

To develop students’ ability to reflect upon the variability of the Italian language in correlation with: communicative situation, geographical area, speaker’s gender, age and level of education; written or spoken channel. To acquire the main techniques of sociolinguistic research by carrying out some fieldwork. To develop students’ awareness of the communicative potentiality of using Italian, dialect and other languages in conversation and in the internet (code switching and polylanguaging).

1. Definition of Sociolinguistics: scope, postulates and methods.


2. The sociolinguistic repertoire of contemporary Italian: standard and neo-standard; written and spoken; Italian in mass media; geographical and social varieties of Italian.

3. Communicative strategies: code switching and polylanguaging. Definition and functions.

A) Introduction to Sociolinguistics

- Berruto G. e M. Cerruti, 2014, Manuale di sociolinguistica, Utet. (pp. 250).

B) Italian sociolinguistic repertoire

- Berruto G. 2012, Sociolinguistica dell’italiano contemporaneo, Roma, Carocci (ristampa rivista e aggiornata) (pp. 280).

C) Communicative strategies

- Alfonzetti G., 2012, Il Discorso bilingue, Milano, Franco Angeli (pp. 250);

- Alfonzetti G., 2012, I giovani e il code switching in Sicilia, Palermo, Centro di Studi Filologici e Linguistici Siciliani, pp. 170.