SCIENZE UMANISTICHEClassical philologyAcademic Year 2022/2023

1011392 - LINGUISTICA E DIDATTICA DEI TESTI

Teacher: Gabriella ALFIERI

Expected Learning Outcomes

1)Knowledge and understanding
By adopting principles and methods of text linguistics (textuality requirements; procedural approach; pragmatic competence), rhetoric, and stylistics, the course aims to provide the conceptual and methodological tools to understand, and then analyze and interpret texts
2) Ability to apply knowledge and understanding
Analysis will be proposed in the light of language and text teaching adapted to new cognitive dynamics and the complexity of the contemporary sociocultural context.
3) Autonomy of judgment.
The rhetorical, stylistic and pragmatic-textual knowledge and skills acquired in analyzing and interpreting texts are specifically aimed at enhancing students' critical and autonomous judgment and developing problem solving skills, also in view of their professional future
4) Communication skills
The training activity of the course involves group work and exposition in front of the class of the results of the text analysis work in order to verify and deepen the results in seminar discussion, to convey interpersonal skills and public speaking skills
5) Learning skills
Specific objectives are:
- developing socio-professional skills aimed at transmitting an advanced competence of the grammatical, lexical and syntactic structures of the Italian language and of the most relevant written and oral uses;
- providing cultural and methodological coordinates for teaching Italian: historical and ethnocultural framework, sociolinguistic bases, grammatical models and textual dimension;
- enhancing a conscious metalinguistic competence, overcoming the automatisms in the study of grammar;
- introducing lithe but functional frames for the linguistic and rhetorical analysis of various textual typologies, in which the literary text maintains the its fundamental role of raising awareness of the historical-linguistic value of tradition.

Course Structure

The approach adopted will be "experimental" and interactive in order  to make the study of textual analysis a moment of exciting discovery of the extraordinary potential of language. Through a careful analysis of the linguistic materiality of the texts, students will be sensitized to practice an innovative didactics, rediscovering and therefore applying with full awareness those "rules" of Italian language that they have internalized in their linguistic experience, which it is now necessary to make explicit.
In introductory lessons and in seminar activities students will follow the construction of “discovery” paths that can be therefore re-used, on the basis of models and instruments of interpretation of texts based on linguistics and typology of texts, as well as on rhetorics and style.
Special attention will be given to didactic functionalization of textual analysis carried out by students, for future professional activity. The ability to functionalize knowledge from the analysis and interpretation of texts into teaching-learning cues will be enhanced.

Required Prerequisites

Advanced knowledge of cultural and literary history in a European perspective; theoretical-methodological knowledge of the history of the Italian language; elements of general linguistics, Italian linguistics and Italian or Romance philology; elements of stylistics and rhetoric.

Active and passive knowledge of the grammatical, lexical and syntactic structures of the Italian language (ability to analyse grammar, logic and the period); 

Reflective knowledge of the communicative uses of the Italian language and their stylistic distribution; 

Ability to paraphrase texts.

Lack of knowledge of the prerequisites may jeopardise passing the exam. It is recommended to attend the tutoring activities that will take place during office hours.

Attendance of Lessons

Optional

Detailed Course Content

A.-B. Historical grammar and history of the language as a teaching aid to understand structural and cultural continuity between Latin and Italian on one hand, and Italian and other cultural languages on the other hand. Textual linguistics and rhetorics as verbal art and technique: models for text’s analysis, linguistics and typology of the texts, metrics, rhetorics, stylistics, philology. 

 

C. Teaching Italian as a first or a second language: historical, sociolinguistic grammatical and textual perspectives.

Textbook Information

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A. Language ideas and Texts Linguistics (1 CFU). 

Testi:

  • L. Serianni, Storia dell’italiano nell’Ottocento, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2013, capp. II-III (pp. 27-42), capp. V-IX (pp. 59-138), cap XI (pp. 153- 162), capp. XIII-XIV (pp. 169-204), cap. XVI (pp. 233-252) (totale pp. 157).
  • M. Palermo, Linguistica testuale dell’italiano, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2013, Capp. IV-VII, pp. 75-258 (totale pp. 139)

 

B. Linguistic analysis of texts (4 CFU).

Texts:

  • B. Mortara Garavelli, Le figure retoriche. Effetti speciali della lingua, Milano, Bompiani, 1993, pp. 180.
  • Luca Serianni, Le varianti fonomorfologiche de «I promessi sposi» 1840 nel quadro dell’italiano ottocentesco, «Studi linguistici italiani», in Saggi di storia linguistica italiana, Napoli, Morano, 1989, pp.141-213 (pp. 72)
  • C. Giovanardi – P. Trifone, La lingua del teatro, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2015, pp. 240.
  • Analisi guidata di testi in prosa della tradizione letteraria italiana.

 

 

C. Teaching Italian language (1 CFU). 

Texts:

 

 

For students who don’t  have the prerequisites for studying the subject, or for the purposes of the activities foreseen by the course, it is advisable to consult:

 

- L. Serianni, Grammatica italiana. Italiano comune e lingua letteraria, Torino, UTET Università, 2005, pp. 754

-  O. Reboul, Introduzione alla retorica, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2002, pp. 192 (pp. 1-165; pp. 183-210).

- L. Cisotto, Didattica del testo, Roma, Carocci, 2015, pp. 352. 

 

 

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

Course Planning

 SubjectsText References
1- Course presentation Module C- Literary education between language education and aesthetic education; literary education in the national indications for the various school ordersLavinio, parte I, cap. 1
2Module B- Figures of speech: figures of rhythm and figures of sound - Poetic language: characters and method of analysis  Module A- The 18th century: school and language education - Perspectives on text analysis: The classification of literary genres. The text as a unit of meaning: presuppositions-implications-inferences, intertextuality, hypertextuality  Module C- Textuality between language and communication- Reboul, cap. VI, pp. 121-127- Serianni, cap. I, pp. 11-46- Matarrese, cap. I- Palermo, pp. 251-52 e cap. II- Lavinio, parte I, cap. 2
3Module A: - The eighteenth century: printing and standardisation - The text as a grammatical unit: the cohesives - Semiotics and pragmatics of the text; Grice's maxims; And and But at the beginning of a sentence Module B:- GUIDELINES FOR PARAFRASIS- Tools for paraphrasing: solidarity between words  Module C:- Literary textuality: coherence; coherence, cohesion; splitting of communication and its factors; literary fiction; intertextuality; non-paraphrasability; titles; communicative contexts and situations- Matarrese, cap. II- Palermo, cap. III- Palermo, p. 30 e pp. 211-217- Palermo, pp. 88-92- Lavinio, parte I, cap. 3
4Module B:- Figures of meaning: simple tropes (metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche - The poetic language: phonetics, vocalism - Figures of meaning: complex tropes (hyperbole, lithote) - The poetic language: phonetics, consonantism and various phenomena Module A- The 18th century: towards an 'average' Italian - Comic theatre - The architecture of the text (coordination and subordination: the role of semantic connectives; The classification of subordinates)- Reboul, cap. VI, pp. 128-132- Serianni, cap. II, pp. 47-90-Reboul, cap. VI, pp. 133-135- Serianni, cap. II, pp. 90-102; 102-142- Matarrese, cap. V- Matarrese, parte II, cap. VII- Palermo, cap. VI e pp. 194-197
5Module B- Figures of meaning: complex tropes (hypallage, enallage, oxymoron, continuous metaphor, metalepsis) - Poetic language: morphology and microsyntax, articles, prepositions, nouns, numerals, interjections - Poetic language: morphology and microsyntax, pronouns, possessives, allocutives, relative pronouns, indefinites, relatives; indeclinables Module A- The 18th century: the spoken language; language and writers - Deissi; deictics in Tuscan - The architecture of the text: textual functions of punctuation Module C- The debate on literary education; still valid indications and updates- Reboul, cap. VI, pp. 133-137- Serianni, cap. III, pp.143-178- Serianni, cap. III, pp.173-192- Matarrese, capp. VI-VII- Palermo, cap. IV e pp. 132-134- Palermo, cap. VI, pp. 217-233- Lavinio, parte I, cap. 4
6Module B- Figures of construction: ellipsis, asyndeton, aposiopesis, zeugma -Figures of repetition: epanalysis, antanaclasis, antithesis - Poetic language: morphology and microsyntax, verb forms (modes, tenses, persons)   Module A- The 18th century: poetic language Module C- Writing narrative texts - Verb tenses
7Module B- Various figures: chiasmus, anacoluth, hyperbate, gradatio- Elements of Phraseology- Poetic language: morphology and microsyntax, defective verbs and various forms  Module CThe analysis of the literary text and the story of Hermann Grosser- Reboul, cap. VI, pp. 142-145- slides di riferimento- Serianni, cap. III, pp. 223-243- Lavinio, parte II, cap. 6
8Module A- The 18th century: Comic theatre Module B- Figures of thought: allegory, irony, wit and humour - Poetic language: the eighteenth-nineteenth century  Module C- Grid texts - Interculture and narrative orality at school - Poetry at the bar- Matarrese, parte II, cap. VII- Reboul, cap. VI, pp. 145-149- Serianni, cap. IV, pp. 245-266- Lavinio, parte II, capp. 3-5
9Guided analysis of texts
10Module B- Figures of enunciation: apostrophe, prosopopoeia, preterition, epanorthosis, contrefision, epitrope- Guided analysis of texts- Reboul, cap. VI, pp. 149-153
11Module B- Figures of argument: prolexis, conglobation, expolitio, rhetorical question- Guided analysis of texts- Reboul, cap. VI, pp. 153-156
12Module B- Poetic language- Guided analysis of texts- Serianni, esempi di analisi di testi (nn. 20-25; pp. 348-374)
13Module B- Topic figures: cleuasmos, apodioxia, hypotyposis Module C- The didactic use of the literary text and the teaching unit - guided analysis of texts- Reboul, cap. VI, pp. 156-158- Delucchi, pp. 351-362
14Module B- The rhetorical system: inventio, dispositio, elocutio, actio  Module C- The pleasure of the text; Reading and listening; The specificity of the poetic text; Texts and authors- Guided analysis of texts- Reboul, cap. III- Delucchi, pp. 362-372
15Module B- History of rhetoric: from the Greek and Latin periods to the present day Module C- Examples of teaching activities- Reboul, capp. I, II, III- Delucchi, pp. 372-393
16Module B- The argument- guided analysis of texts- Reboul, cap. V
17Module B- How to find the topics? The arguments of the preliminary agreement and the quasi-logical ones- Idiomatic phraseology and pragmatic phraseology- Reboul, cap. VIII, pp. 183-197- slides
18Module B- How to find the topics? Arguments based on the structure of reality; those founding the structure of reality; arguments for dissociation of notions- Reboul, cap. VIII, pp. 191-210

Learning Assessment

Learning Assessment Procedures

In itinere test

One in itinere test is scheduled in the semester.

Rules and methods

the test will consist of the paraphrasing and linguistic-textual and rhetorical-stylistic analysis of texts in poetry according to a predefined grid, to be set out and discussed in seminar form, and to be set out in a written paper to be handed in at least 8 days before the final exam.

FINAL EXAMINATION

The examination will consist of two papers, one written and one oral.

Written examination:

1) term paper (to be handed in at least 8 days before the exam roll call), reporting the linguistic-textual and rhetorical-stylistic analysis of the texts in prose and poetry that the student will have carried out according to a predefined grid; students who have taken the in itinere exam must also hand in their term paper;

Oral test :

2) an interview on the thesis and parts of the textbooks, distributed as follows: module A = Matarrese; module B: Reboul, chapters I, II, IV, V, VIII; Serianni, chapters I and IV; module C: Lavinio in full.

For the assessment of the examination, account will be taken of the candidate's mastery of the contents and skills acquired, linguistic accuracy and lexical property, as well as the argumentative capacity demonstrated by the candidate.

Examples of frequently asked questions and / or exercises

- Rhetorical analysis (figures of sound, word, sense, thought, subject)

- Morphological analysis (marked forms, as indicated in the grid (e.g. he subject, only when preceding the verb; had/had; this vs. this, etc.)

- Lexical analysis (colloquialisms, aulicisms, technicalisms, forestierisms, regionalisms, Tuscanisms

- Phraseology (proverbs, idioms, sentences, etc.)

- Syntactic analysis (relationship between parataxis and hypotaxis)

- Interpretative synthesis and didactic functionality of textual analysis (identifying linguistic and rhetorical-stylistic constants, and attempting interpretative conclusions that can be made didactically functional)


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