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Abstract –In communication a great deal of meaning is exchanged through body language, including gaze, posture, hand gestures and body movements. Body language is largely culture-specific, and rests, for its comprehension, on people’s sharing socio-cultural and linguistic norms. In cross-cultural communication, L2 speakers’ use of body language may convey meaning that is not understood or misinterpreted by the interlocutors, affecting the pragmatics of communication. In spite of its importance for cross-cultural communication, body language is neglected in ESL/EFL teaching. This paper argues that the study of body language should be integrated in the syllabus of ESL/EFL teaching and learning. This is done by: 1) reviewing literature showing the tight connection between language, speech and gestures and the problems that might arise in cross-cultural communication when speakers use and interpret body language according to different conventions; 2) reporting the data from two pilot studies showing that L2 learners transfer L1 gestures to the L2 and that these are not understood by native L2 speakers; 3) reporting an experience teaching body language in an ESL/EFL classroom. The paper suggests that in multicultural ESL/EFL classes teaching body language should be aimed primarily at raising the students’ awareness of the differences existing across cultures. Keywords: ESL/EFL teaching; body language; cross-cultural communication; speech; gestures. Abstract –Nella comunicazione una buona parte del significato viene trasmetto attraverso il linguaggio del corpo, che include lo sguardo, la postura, i gesti delle mani e i movimenti del corpo. Il linguaggio del corpo è per lo più specifico di ciascuna cultura e si affida, per la sua comprensione, sulla condivisione di norme socio-culturali e linguistiche. Nella comunicazione interculturale l’uso del linguaggio del corpo da parte dei parlanti di L2 può trasmettere significati che non vengono compresi o vengono malinterpretati dagli interlocutori, con effetti sulla pragmatica della comunicazione. Nonostante la sua indiscussa importanza per la comunicazione interculturale il linguaggio del corpo è trascurato nell’insegnamento di ESL/EFL. Questo lavoro sostiene che lo studio del linguaggio del corpo dovrebbe essere integrato nel curriculum dell’insegnamento e dell’apprendimento di ESL/EFL. A tale scopo, questo studio: 1) fa una rassegna della letteratura che mostra lo stretto collegamento tra lingua, parlato e gesti e dei problem che potrebbero sorgere quando, nella comunicazione interculturale, i parlanti usano e interpretano il linguaggio del corpo secondo convenzioni diverse; 2) riporta dati da 2 studi pilota che mostrano il transfer dei gesti dalla L1 alla L2 e come i gesti trasferiti nella L2 non vengano compresi dai parlanti native della lingua target; 3) riporta una esperienza di insegnamento di linguaggio del corpo in un corso di ESL/EFL. Il saggio suggerisce che nelle classi multicultural di ESL/EFL l’insegnamento del linguaggio del corpo dovrebbe essere mirato in primo luogo a fare crescere la consapevolezza degli studenti delle differenze esistenti tra culture diverse. Keywords: insegnamento ESL/EFL; linguaggio del corpo; comunicazione interculturale; parlato; gesti.

Abstract - The aim of this paper is to explore the ‘literary’ in literary translation. It begins with a discussion of what makes a text literary, focussing on some very famous literary works which did not (and indeed do not) necessarily fit what is generally considered the literary canon. The features that translators should identify when first reading a text, on the look-out for potential literary value, are then outlined. These features are both textual (covering non-casual language, rhetorical features and equivalences) and contextual (connotations, implicatures, intratextual and culture-bound associations). The paper then discusses changing translation theory and practice, in particular illustrating points with comments made by translators and theorists in this book and elsewhere. Importance is also given to the profession itself, to literary translator beliefs about their role, the changing importance of the model reader and to changing beliefs about accepted style, making reference also to results of a global survey recently carried out on the subject. Riassunto -L’articolo si propone di esplorare il “letterario” nella traduzione letteraria. Si parte da una discussione di ciò che rende letterario un testo, facendo riferimento ad alcune opere letterarie molto famose che non rientravano (e non rientrano tuttora) in ciò che viene generalmente ritenuto il canone letterario. Si definiscono, poi, gli aspetti che i traduttori dovrebbero individuare leggendo un testo per la prima volta nella prospettiva di ricerca di un potenziale valore letterario. Tali aspetti sono sia testuali (il linguaggio ‘non casuale’, le figure retoriche e le equivalenze) sia contestuali (connotazioni, implicature, associazioni intratestuali e legate alla cultura). L’articolo discute, poi, l’evolversi della teoria e pratica della traduzione, illustrando in particolare alcuni punti commentati da traduttori e teorici di questo volume e al di fuori. Si sottolinea inoltre l’importanza della professione del traduttore e della percezione che il traduttore letterario ha del proprio ruolo, mettendo in evidenza come l’importanza del lettore modello e dei valori relativi a uno stile condiviso stia cambiando, facendo anche riferimento ai risultati di una recente intervista globale sull’argomento.

Abstract – This paper will analyze the ‘historical’ novel Gould’s Book of Fish (2001) by the Tasmanian writer Richard Flanagan with the aim of reflecting upon the power of the creative word as a means to forge reality, shape identities, mask or unmask truths, and also to prefigure a different, alternative world order based on commonly negotiated and thus shared values. The postmodernist revisiting of the traditional genre of the historical novel does not compromise the postcolonial commitment of the writer: Flanagan’s incursions into the Australian colonial past are informed by his concern for urgent social and political causes which has characterized his unswerving fight against all systems of inequality and exploitation. In his novel, the subversion of the linear causal relation of events which calls into question the truthfulness and objectivity of history, together with the foregrounded metanarrative reflection on the art of writing, contribute to the revisiting and re-discussing of the myth of progress and the cult of rationality at the very roots of Western civilization and of its imperialistic enterprise. Flanagan’s ‘anti-historical’ historical novel tackles urgent questions about modernity interrogating the founding narratives of the Australian national identity, in order to explore the uncontrollable and shifting areas of the contemporary ‘transnation’ in which the traditional categories shaping subjectivities are disrupted. As the paper will demonstrate, the writer digs into the past of his nation not simply in order to unravel its hidden histories but to detect the profound, inextricable interconnections with the present across different times and spaces. Feelings and experiences that exist above and beyond historical contingencies and cultural differences represent the writer’s privileged area of investigation as they trespass upon conventional and artificial boundaries revealing what it is that makes us all human.

Abstract - The luxury fashion is an important industry from both the economic and socio-cultural perspectives, since the high sales volume marks it as a crisis-proof sector, where the luxury fashion brands trigger specific cognitive, emotional, and behavioural effects on their end users. Yet, marketing and semiotics literatures still have to fully enquire into the use of multimodality in the production of advertisements. This paper explores this multimodal construction of print advertising of luxury brands, focusing on the semantic dimensions of “textual silence”. In particular, the qualitative analysis carried out by this study exemplifies how the choice between “offer” and “demand” images and their disposition as visual vectors are meant to activate specific interpretations and reactions by receivers, without resorting to written language. Besides the application of the theoretical background of multimodality to the luxury fashion industry, this paper has practical implications as well, for it develops a framework for the analysis of the advertising discourse which encompasses semiotic, linguistic and motivational aspects.

Abstract – Translation has always been viewed as a virtuous circle throughout history. The present paper examines one of the oldest translation strategies, namely borrowing which also come to be employed by language users to fulfill communicative transaction in daily use of the language. The paper also explores re-borrowing as a translation method used by translators to render borrowed words usually integrated in a Source Language (SL) text by SL author to relay his/her ideology via micro-/macro-signs. The data consists of selected examples from the translation of The Square Moon: Supernatural Tales (SMST) by Ghada Samman. The writer employs borrowing to steer the SL readership towards her ideology. The findings of the paper show that re-borrowing may bring about optimal translation in the target language (TL), but reveal discrepancies between the SL and the TL caused by failure to render the ideology. Keywords: translation, borrowing, re-borrowing, English, Arabic.

UN EPISODIO DEL PENSAMIENTO FRANCÉS DE LA AUTONOMÍA Benjamin Constant y las idées très ingénieuses Francisco Gelman Constantin Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, Universidad de Buenos Aires Abstract – This paper attempts a consideration of the significance of Benjamin Constant’s aesthetic thoughts within the context of the history of the concept of “aesthetic autonomy”. With that in mind it reevaluates his transformation of the German tradition, by way of its binding to the social theory corresponding to the cultural and historical analysis of early French Romanticism. Taking the coinage of the expression “art for art’s sake” as a starting point, this paper reconstructs the whole of Constant’s thought-system, as well as its exchanges with some of his contemporaries –namely Mme. de Staël and Henry Crabb Robinson– in the means of understanding the proper reach of the conceptual novelties brought in by him, as can be seen from the standing point of Begriffsgeschichte. The paper deals not only with his postulates referring specifically to a negative relationship towards the mercantile society, but also with the analogies he establishes between art, love, religion and morality, while it furthermore examines his theory of social autonomy. The reflexive setting together of this different elements, assembled from his political essays, his journals, the novel Adolphe and other writings, brings to the light a general form of a thought of the autonomous, which explains the manner in which Constant understands aesthetic autonomy in particular, by way of his collaboration and dissent with his European colleagues. Keywords: autonomy; Constant; art for art’s sake; Begriffsgeschichte; religion Resumen – Este trabajo se propone reconsiderar la importancia de las reflexiones estéticas de Benjamin Constant en el contexto de la historia del concepto de autonomía estética. Para ello reevalúa las transformaciones efectuadas sobre la tradición alemana en correlato con una teoría social marcada por el análisis cultural e histórico propio del primer Romanticismo francés. Partiendo de la acuñación de la expresión “arte por el arte”, reconstruye el conjunto del pensamiento de Constant, así como sus diálogos con algunos de sus contemporáneos –especialmente Mme. de Staël y Henry Crabb Robinson– en vistas a la comprensión de la alcance preciso de sus innovaciones conceptuales, desde el punto de vista de la Begriffsgeschichte. En este sentido, el trabajo no sólo considera los postulados referidos específicamente a la relación negativa del arte respecto de la sociedad mercantil, sino que también investiga las analogías establecidas en el interior del pensamiento de Constant entre arte, amor, religión y moralidad, así como examina su teoría de la autonomía de lo social. A partir de todos elementos, sobre la base del análisis de sus ensayos políticos, diarios, la novela Adolphe y otros de sus textos, se infiere una forma del pensamiento de lo autónomo que explica el modo en que Constant concibe en particular la autonomía estética, en conversación y disputa con sus interlocutores europeos. Palabras claves: autonomía; Constant; arte por el arte; Begriffsgeschichte; religión

This paper investigates the mechanism of argument movement in the derivation of grammatical Tiv construction. It examines Tiv as a syntactically ergative language and how ergative case is valued as well as the feature computation of T in ergative constructions. Raising constructions in Tiv is defined as hy­per-raising and this paper also provides insight on how features in such constructions are valued so as to avoid a situation which this paper also identifies as feature roaming. The paper also considers the effects of phase heads: whether strong phase heads block movement or not; it also seeks to account for the features re­sponsible for copy movement where it is operational in Tiv especially in subject to object movement. Using the framework of the Minimalist program, this work submits that DPs ergative constructions value their case in relationship with the verb before movement which makes the movement not for greed but to value the edge feature of T; therefore, T in ergative constructions is identified as mere Ts. In raising constructions, the mechanism of case delay has to be employed so as to avoid “feature roaming”. In this case copies left at the extraction sites, overt or covert are still useful in valuation of case in raising constructions in Tiv. In cases of copy movement, the paper accounts for such instances in terms of strong structural features such as Edge feature and complementation. The paper recommends that narrow syntax condition such as Earliness condi­tion is too strict for Tiv syntax and the syntax of other related languages and therefore should be relaxed.

This paper intends to analyse the relationship between lexicology and terminology in the use of language within the Spanish parliament. It moves forth from the methodological approach of the Cultural Theory on Terminology, without disregarding the Communicative or the Socio-cognitive Terminology. The fieldwork begins with the analysis of two linguistic corpora of the Spanish parliamentarian language, and a corpus of generic language. From the comparison of these two corpora the author has drawn the basic terminology for the definition of the participants, the areas of action and communication, and the organisation of communication and of political action within the Spanish parliament. The results of this terminological extraction have been studied following the principles of the International Organisation for Standardization, and this has brought to prominence the need for a cultural study of the terminology of parliamentarian language, due to the special characteristics of this particular language: the consequences of its action on the general public, the variety in denomination, and the fact that concepts and ideas are here a matter of negotiation as much as of linguistics. Three major monolingual dictionaries have then been researched to verify the presence and the lexicographic setting of the extracted terminology. These studies have revealed that dictionaries often incur into problems with polyrhematic units and with the labelling of the knowledge-units. The paper's conclusion focuses on the need for an onomasiological approach of lexicography, and on the use of specialized corpora, in addition to those already used as reference, in the elaboration of generic language dictionaries.

ENThe current paper analyses the way India and its cultural universe are re-interpreted and represented in Brazilian telenovela Caminho das Índias (2009). An analysis of this audio-visual product shows that linguistic and cultural ‘translation’ processes are at work. In particular, the paper will discuss the following features: constant code-mixing (Brazilian Portuguese-Hindi); and forms and processes of hybridization which are highly interesting from a cultural point of view.Keyword: Brazilian telenovelas, code-mixing, translation, cultural stereotypes, Bollywood PTEste trabalho, com base na análise das formas de representação do universo cultural indiano presentes na novela brasileira Caminho das Índias (2009), pretende investigar as modalidades de releitura novelística da cultura indiana, evidenciando, nesse processo de tradução e transposição, desde um ponto de vista linguístico, frequentes fenômenos de code-mixing (português brasileiro-hindi) e desde um ponto de vista cultural, interessantes formas de hibridismo.Keyword: Novela brasileira, code-mixing, transposição, estereótipo cultural, Bollywood

ENThe fabrication of a popery charge, which in August 1578 Edward Rokewood was subjected to while hosting Queen Elizabeth in the East Anglia, has been dubiously dealt with in the field of gender studies (Dovey, 1996; Brownlow, 2003) or overrated by historians of Puritanism to corroborate how the queen’s Privy Council ruled the kingdom through a manipulation of her weak will and female simple-mindedness (MacCulloch, 1986; Collinson, 2007). My paper proposes to substantiate how the intrigue against Rokewood arose from a wider social group of officers than the Lord Chamberlain Sussex and the royal favourite Leicester’s clique. Some days after the papist had been jailed in the castle of Norwich, mayor and aldermen commissioned public speeches and a composite biblical pageantry which, though allusively, both staged Rokewood’s conspiracy in favour of the Spanish king’s invasion and urged Elizabeth to inflict a death penalty. But the queen did not only turn a deaf ear to these pressures, presiding over the trial proceedings to get a time of forced reform for Rokewood. Some letters from the judge of assizes Francis Wyndham will help me to suggest that she was nor manipulated neither prevented from seeing that the case had been invented by the municipal corporation to advoke their bishop’s means of control and persecution of dissent.ITL’invenzione di un’accusa di papismo, che ad agosto del 1578 Edward Rokewood subisce mentre ospita la regina Elisabetta nella regione orientale dell’Anglia, è discussa con grande scetticismo nel settore dei gender studies (Dovey, 1996, pp. 54-55; Brownlow, 2003, pp. 11-13), oppure sopravvalutata da storici della cultura puritana convinti che il Privy Council tenga le redini del regno manipolando volontà e credulità della regina (MacCulloch, 1986, pp. 218-219; Collinson, 2007, p. 131). Questo paper si propone di documentare come la macchinazione ai danni di Rokewood si estenda ben oltre la cerchia del ciambellano di corte Sussex o del favorito regio Leicester. Infatti, alcuni giorni dopo che il papista veniva imprigionato a Norwich, la fanatica municipalità commissiona orazioni pubbliche ed uno spettacolo di sacre rappresentazioni che, sia pure in maniera allusiva, drammatizzano come Rokewood cospiri a favore dello sbarco di Filippo II sull’isola e istigano Elisabetta a comminare una condanna a morte. La destinataria non solo resiste alle pressioni giustizialiste, ottenendo che il processo si concluda con un periodo di arresto ‘riabilitativo’. Alcune lettere del giudice di assise mi aiuteranno a segnalare come, a dispetto della corrente storiografia, Elisabetta non è né manipolata né ignora che il caso di eresia sia stato inventato per avocare il potere di sorveglianza e punizione del dissenso che il vescovo è titolato ad esercitare nella diocesi.

The language of adolescents has always been of particular interest to linguists mostly for being extremely creative. Adolescence is, in fact, a transition stage that coincides with the entrance into secondary school, where teenagers strive to construct their own identity, mainly through linguistic innovation (Eckert 1989, 1997, 2004). In this sense, language becomes a strong identity marker (Edwards 2009) whose role becomes crucial in the portrayal of adolescent characters in films. The present paper aims at investigating the language of American adolescents diachronically in three famous movies of different decades from the 1980s to 2000s, namely Sixteen Candles (1984, Hughes), Clueless (1995, Heckerling) and Juno (2007, Reitman), which revolve around teenagers’ life at high school. The first step in the analysis consists in the identification of some characterising features of teen talk, especially focusing on word formation. Then, the analysis will be carried out contrastively and cross-culturally from a translational perspective, since these phenomena will be also investigated in Italian dubbing. More specifically, it will be ascertained whether or not these features are transposed into Italian, if so, pinpointing the most common strategies employed as well as the strategies used for compensation when, on the contrary, the complexity and difficulty in rendering certain linguistic and cultural specific phenomena hamper to find efficient translating solutions in the target text. Finally, problems deriving from this type of audiovisual translation, like lip synch, will also be taken into account and it will also be checked if the dubbed version succeeds in depicting the characters in the same way as in the original text.

Abstract – The present paper aims at analysing the deep pragmatic equilavence relation existing between the so called Spanish support verb constructions formed by a verb + noun (hacer+sugerencia; dar+permiso). We will focus our attention on the functioning of such expressions as speech acts in order to demonstrate that on the basis of their semantic characteristics, there no always exists a parfect equivalence between the verbal expression and the verb as such in terms of realizing a speech act.

Abstract – This paper analyses how Patient Information Leaflets (PILs) of over-the-counter medical products convey information. More precisely, the article focuses on “instructions” on how to use medicines and related “instructional information” (Trimble 1985). The latter is used in PILs to explain why consumers should follow the instructions. The aim is to show, then, how and whether the PILs sampled help consumers to translate effectively the information contained into actions. The first part of the article examines the deontic devices employed in 8 English and Italian PILs of the most common over-the-counter medicines for human consumption used to relieve the same symptoms. The second part, instead, analyses whether and how the eight leaflets sampled followed the ‘instructions’ contained in one of the authoritative works by Sless and Shrensky in this field (2006). Both Australian authors, indeed, provide useful advice on how to write directives and related explanations in PILs.Riassunto – Questo lavoro si propone di analizzare come i foglietti illustrativi dei medicinali da banco veicolano le informazioni. Nel caso specifico, l’attenzione è rivolta alle “istruzioni” per l’uso (dei medicinali) e alle “informazioni sulle istruzioni” (Trimble 1985). Quest’ultime vengono utilizzate nei foglietti illustrativi per spiegare ai consumatori perché seguire specifiche istruzioni. L’intento è quello di mostrare, quindi, come e se i foglietti illustrativi dei medicinali presi a campione aiutino i consumatori a tradurre in modo efficace le informazioni in azioni. La prima parte dell’articolo è incentrata sulle strategie deontiche utilizzate in 8 foglietti illustrativi di medicinali da banco inglesi e italiani per uso umano, usati comunemente per curare la stessa tipologia di sintomi. La seconda parte, invece, analizza se e come gli otto foglietti illustrativi presi a campione hanno seguito, a loro volta, le ‘istruzioni’ contenute in uno degli lavori considerati più autorevoli nel campo dei foglietti illustrativi dei medicinali (Sless e Shrensky 2006). Entrambi gli autori australiani, infatti, offrono una serie di consigli utili su come scrivere le istruzioni e le relative spiegazioni.

Abstract – The debate which surrounds the role of English as a lingua franca has been lively and extensive over the last twenty years or so. Numerous conferences and specific publications in the field testify to the interest and importance that the question of the development of a possible international functional language has stimulated. The present article aims to critically reassess the claims made for ELF and, at the same time, highlight the profound significance of the issues the debate has raised. Discussion of ELF has touched upon the perception of linguistic diversity, (in)accuracy and variation, intelligibility and the potential functions of an international language. Other topics of profound importance that are part of the debate relate to the role of any language in creating and maintaining identity, enabling social mobility and empowering its users. Some criticisms of ELF proposals have been easily rebutted, but this paper aims to underline the serious linguistic and socio-linguistic aspects of the debate in order to emphasize the need for a theoretical underpinning to our understanding of how language can operate in the global environment. Clarification of what we can and cannot know about language change and behavior will also contribute to ideas as to future research in ELF but will also bring us to the conclusion that predictions of the future development of ELF are of little purpose beyond the curiosity value they may possess. Keywords: English1; lingua franca2; non-native speaker3. Abstract– Il dibattito intorno al ruolo di inglese intesa come lingua franca è vivace e largo da almeno venti anni. Le conferenze e pubblicazioni specifiche sull’argomento sono numerose e sono testimone di quanto è interessante e importante la questione dello sviluppo di una lingua internazionale funzionale e utile. L’articolo qui presentato ha lo scopo di valutare a rivalutare le speranze che si sono formate per l’inglese come lingua franca e, nello stesso tempo, enfatizzare l’importanza profonda delle idee che sono state chiamate in causa durante il dibattito. La discussione ha coinvolto la percezione della diversità linguistica, errori possibili e la variazione, la comprensibilità e le funzioni potenziali di una lingua internazionale. Altri temi significativi sono collegati al ruolo di ogni lingua nel creare e mantenere identità, nell’aiutare la mobilità sociale e nel dare opportunità ai suoi utenti. Alcune critiche dell’uso di inglese come lingua franca sono state superate con facilità, ma questo articolo intende sottolineare gli aspetti linguistici e sociolinguistici del dibattito per dimostrare il bisogno di una base teorica per nostra comprensione di come una lingua può operare nel mondo globale. Rendere chiaro quello che si può sapere dei processi di cambiamento linguistico e dell’uso delle lingue ci aiuterà a trovare altre idee per le ricerche nell’ambito del futuro della lingua inglese come lingua franca e ci porterà alla conclusione che non ha tanto senso ipotizzare sugli sviluppi futuri eventuali della lingua inglese al di là di una certa interessa che ci sia nelle loro stranezze curiose. Keywords: English1; lingua franca2; non-native speaker3.

Abstract in English The paper introduces a socio-cognitive enquiry into the hybridization processes occurring in the academic discourse of Islamic Finance as represented in a corpus of recently-published textbooks written in English as a ‘specialized lingua franca’ dealing with financial topics (cf. Iqbal and Mirakhor 2011). Hybridization involves the structural, textual and pragmatic choices identified in such textbooks reflecting as they do a specific attempt on the part of the text producers to make financial concepts informed by Shariah practices accessible (Widdowson 1991) and acceptable to Western/International university students, especially those from the expanding circle. The focus is placed on selected texts written by Islamic/Muslim scholars reformulating original texts in the L1-Arabic through ELF structures and pragmatics in order to provide explanations and clarifications to the original Islamic concepts. The objective of the enquiry, based on a systematic comparative analysis grounded on Halliday’s (1985) functional grammar, involves an identification of the strategies writers apply to: (a) make a text function in a cross-cultural perspective and (b) facilitate students to acquire content competences in a way that best fits their background knowledge of the discipline. Therefore, facilitating strategies such as definitions, periphrasis and repetitions of noun phrases shall be explored as triggers for Western students’ processes of schema redefinition, of cross-cultural revision of textuality standards (de Beaugrande and Dressler 1981) and of simplification rules (van Dijk 1980) which actually define a specialized ELF variety of hybrid academic discourse. Abstract in Italian Il presente studio introduce un’indagine socio-cognitiva sui processi di ibridazione in atto nel discorso accademico della Finanza Islamica rappresentato in un corpus di testi di recente pubblicazione in lingua inglese utilizzata come ‘lingua franca specialistica’ applicata al contesto della Finanza (Iqbal and Mirakhor 2011). Il concetto di ‘ibridazione’ è qui utilizzato in relazione a processi di ampio respiro, legati ad aspetti semantici, sintattici e pragmatici di questa varietà di ELF applicata a testi accademici, miranti a riflettere nel processo testuale il tentativo da parte dei produttori del testo di rendere concetti finanziari basati sulle pratiche della Shari’ah accessibili (Widdowson 1991) ed accettabili a studenti occidentali/internazionali, in particolare a quelli dall’ ‘expanding circle’. Il focus dello studio risiede in particolare su una selezione di testi composti da studiosi islamici coinvolti nel processo di riformulazione dei testi originali in arabo-L1, attraverso strutture e pragmatica di questa varietà di ELF, aventi l’obiettivo di fornire spiegazioni e chiarificazioni a concetti di origine islamica. L’obiettivo dell’analisi, basato sul metodo sistematico comparativo della grammatica funzionale di Halliday (1985), si identifica in una definizione delle strategie applicate dai produttori del testo, al fine di: (a) rendere il testo funzionale in una prospettiva cross-culturale, e (b) facilitare gli studenti all’acquisizione di competenze di contenuto in modo da facilitare gli studenti nel processo di comprensione in linea con gli ‘schemata originali’ della disciplina. Dunque, strategie facilitative di tale processo sono identificate in definizioni, perifrasi e ripetizioni di espressioni nominali da considerare stimoli di un processo più ampio di ridefinizione di schemi da parte di studenti occidentali, di revisione degli standards di testualità (de Beaugrande and Dressler 1981), e regole di semplificazione (van Dijk 1980), che contribuiscono ad identificare una nuova varietà di ELF del discorso accademico ibrido.

Abstract – English has been increasingly adopted as the Lingua Franca (ELF) by people with different L1s (cf. Crystal 2003; McArthur 2003; Seidlhofer 2004) and diverse lingua-cultural backgrounds (Cogo et al. 2011). Previous research into its syntax (Mauranen and Ranta 2009) has undoubtedly shed light on some recurrent features of intercultural communication in immigration and asylum contexts (e.g. negation, question formulation, if-clauses), but little attention has been paid to the correlation between personal pronouns, semantic verb types and tense within the communicative process and, more specifically, the report of any traumatic event (Tuval-Mashiach et al. 2004) to which immigrants have been exposed over time and which constitutes what is generally referred to as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD; Friedman et al. 2007; Liotti and Farina 2011). This paper is based on the analysis of a corpus of transcripts published on the internet by the Minnesota Historical Society. The site, Becoming Minnesotan, collects excerpts from oral interviews conducted between 1967 and 2011 with recent immigrants to Minnesota usually fleeing civil war and strife, and their American-born children. By adopting the quantitative research methodology typical of corpus linguistics (Biber et al. 1999; Meyer 2002; Sinclair 1991), we searched for and extracted all the instances of semantic verbs types as well as personal pronouns and mapped their frequencies by means of Wordsmith Tools 6 (Scott 2012). Drawing on Halliday’s (1994) and Scheibman’s (2002) semantic verb type taxonomy, we can observe the frequency of certain semantic verb categories and tenses, and make some general considerations which seem to back up the ‘trance-like level of public re-enactment’ (Guido 2008, p. 105) that the interviewees experience during interviews: their physical and interior ‘displacement’ thus appears to be iconically represented by means of a tense usage being ‘displaced’ with respect to the consecutio temporum and differ according to the traumatic event.

Abstract – In this paper I focus on the polylinguistic and polycultural landscape of Milan on the theoretical basis of daily life studies, the sociolinguistics of globalization, and intercultural pragmatics. The relevance of this field is determined by the need for urban anthropology to semiotize the urban spaces as an interpretative bridge between the microsystem (the individual level) and the macrosystem (the social level). More concretely, I investigate the presence of the Spanish language in the superdiversity of Milan and, methodologically, I collect ethnographically and interpret qualitatively a corpus of 700 daily life texts of various types of street writing. The results show the significant presence of Spanish in the urban landscape and a high level of hybridism which is, nevertheless, totally functional in communication. I also detect the emergence of linguistic, pragmatic and intercultural awareness in the writers. Finally, with some precautions, I confirm the scientific potential of the daily life documents to investigate complex urban dynamics.Resumen – El tema de este estudio es el panorama polilingüe y policultural de Milán y se plantea a partir de las bases teóricas de los everyday life studies, de la sociolingüistica de la globalización y de la pragmática intercultural. La relevancia del estudio descansa en la necesidad de la antropología urbana de elaborar una interpretación semiótica de los espacios urbanos, puesto que pueden constituir un puente interpretativo entre el microsistema (individuo) y el macrosistema (sociedad). Concretamente, el objetivo es investigar el papel del idioma español en la supediversidad milanesa; la metodología es de etnografía urbana con la formación e interpretación cualitativa de un corpus fotográfico de setecientos textos cotidianos de escritura callejera (pintadas, avisos, grafiti, ecc.). Los datos relevan una presencia significativa del español en el landscape milanés, con un alto nivel de hibridismo que, de todas formas, es funcionalmente adecuado y denota el emerger de la conciencia lingüística, pragmática e intercultural de los hablantes-escritores. Además, se confirma, con alguna precaución, el aporte científico de los documentos de la cotidianidad para interpretar la complejidad urbana.

Abstract – The purpose of this paper is to present the Clipflair project, a web platform for foreign language learning (FLL) through revoicing and captioning of clips. Using audiovisual material in the language classroom is a common resource for teachers since it introduces variety, provides exposure to nonverbal cultural elements and, most importantly, presents linguistic and cultural aspects of communication in their context. However, teachers using this resource face the difficulty of finding active tasks that will engage learners and discourage passive viewing. ClipFlair proposes working with AV material productively while also motivating learners by getting them to revoice or caption a clip. Revoicing is a term used to refer to (re)recording voice onto a clip, as in dubbing, free commentary, audio description and karaoke singing. The term captioning refers to adding written text to a clip, such as standard subtitles, annotations and intertitles. Clips can be short video or audio files, including documentaries, film scenes, news pieces, animations and songs. ClipFlair develops materials that enable foreign language learners to practice all four standard CEFR skills: writing, speaking, listening and reading. Within the project’s scope, more than 350 ready-made activities, which involve captioning and/or revoicing of clips, has been created. These activities has been created for more than 16 languages including English, Spanish and Italian, but focus is placed on less widely taught languages, namely Estonian, Greek, Romanian and Polish, as well as minority languages, i.e. Basque, Catalan and Irish. Non-European languages, namely Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Russian and Ukrainian are also included. The platform has three different areas: The Gallery offers the materials and the activities; the Studio area, offers a captioning and revoicing tools, in order to create or practice and learn languages by using the activities; the Social Network area, where the users can find materials – including activities, clips and tutorials – collaborate through groups, send feedback through forums, etc. Keywords: foreign learning language; translation; subtitling; dubbing; video. Riassunto – Lo scopo di questo articolo è quello di presentare il progetto Clipflair, una piattaforma web per l'apprendimento delle lingue straniere (L2) attraverso la risonorizzazione (revoicing) e il sottotitolaggio (captioning) nei filmati. L’uso di materiale audiovisivo nelle aule di lingua è una pratica frequente per gli insegnanti in quanto introduce varietà linguistiche, mostra elementi culturali non verbali e, ciò che è più importante, presenta aspetti linguistici e culturali della comunicazione nel loro contesto. Tuttavia, gli insegnanti che usano gli audiovisivi hanno la difficoltà di trovare attività che permettano un ruolo attivo degli studenti al di là della semplice visione del film. ClipFlair permette di lavorare con materiale audiovisivo in modo produttivo e anche motivante, chiedendo agli studenti di fare il revoicing o il sottotitolaggio di un filmato. Revoicing è un termine usato per riferirsi alla risonorizzazione di un filmato, come sarebbe il doppiaggio, il libero commento, l’audiodescrizione o il karaoke. Il termine captioning fa riferimento all’inserimento di un testo scritto sul filmato come nel caso dei sottotitoli convenzionali oppure i commenti o gli intertitoli. I filmati possono essere brevi file di video o audio, compresi i documentari, scene di film, notizie, animazioni e canzoni. ClipFlair sviluppa materiali che permettono agli studenti di lingue straniere di mettere in pratica le quattro abilità basilari del QCER: scrivere, parlare, ascoltare e leggere. Nell’ambito del progetto, sono state elaborate più di 350 attività di doppiaggio e/o sottotitolaggio. Queste attività sono state create per più di 16 lingue tra cui l’inglese, lo spagnolo e l’italiano, ma soprattutto ci sono attività finalizzate all'apprendimento delle lingue meno insegnate, cioè estone, greco, rumeno e polacco, o delle lingue minoritarie, vale a dire basco, catalano e irlandese. Inoltre, il progetto comprende anche attività rivolte a lingue non europee come l’arabo, il cinese, il giapponese, il russo e l’ucraino. La piattaforma ha tre aree diverse: la Biblioteca offre i materiali e le attività; l'area Studio offre gli strumenti per sottotitolare e doppiare i filmati per imparare la lingua portando a termine le attività o creandone altre nuove; l'area Social Network è uno spazio dove gli utenti possono trovare i materiali - tra cui attività, filmati e tutorial - collaborare attraverso i gruppi, inviare commenti attraverso i forum, cercare informazioni sul progetto, ecc. Parole chiave: apprendimento della lingua straniera; traduzione; sottotitolaggio; doppiaggio; video.

Abstract – Nonverbal languages are an integral part of human communication since they transmit substantial information such as emotions and psychological conditions, and therefore they contribute to understanding. Culture affects nonverbal behaviours. The Indian subcontinent is highly multicultural, multi-ethnic, multi-religious and multilingual, and language diversity often makes communication difficult. In India alone, there are 22 official languages besides about 400 other languages. The populations of the southern area, who speak languages of Dravidian origins, do not have a common language to communicate with people living in the North, who speak languages of Aryan origins, and even people living in the same village often speak different dialects. English, which has the status of an L2 in the country, is spoken appropriately only by those who can afford to go to English-medium schools. The majority of people can be placed in a continuum going from highly creolised forms of English to a number of ‘trade pidgins’. Yet, in spite of the inability to communicate in a common language, Indians make use of nonverbal languages, such as hand and head gestures, facial expressions, eye movements, as well as less evident messages such as dress and their colours, posture and the space between speakers. Nonverbal behaviours that Indians display in daily communication are related to those found in traditional performing and aesthetic arts. The purpose of this paper is to suggest how the knowledge of nonverbal languages is useful for an appropriate intercultural competence for interaction with migrants coming from the Indian subcontinent.

Abstract – The huge increase in migration flows through the Afro-Mediterranean routes during recent decades has shaped previously homogeneous populations into linguistically and culturally diverse ethnoscapes. Migration has therefore made a notable contribution to the acquisition and the use of English as a first, second and foreign language and to the burgeoning of new Englishes all over the world (Crystal 1997; Trudgill et al. 2002; Jenkins, 2003) thus questioning our traditional knowledge of language as a social projection of territorial unity held together by shared behavioral norms, beliefs and values. Specifically, by examining the communicative and translation processes which twelve interviewed interpreters, translators and language mediators were involved in during their interaction with newly-arrived migrants in Southern Italy, this paper addresses three main research issues concerning: a) the use of English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) in the practice of language and cultural mediation and the extent to which this language may be perceived either as a barrier or as a bridge, thus affecting the relationship between the mediator and the migrant and the shaping of the politics of hospitality in the Mediterranean; b) the different linguistic and extra-linguistic strategies which mediators can adopt in the field of migration emergencies not only to serve communicative purposes, but also to humanize the migrants’ transfer to, and stay at the different camps across Italy; c) the interviewed language mediators’ narratives as a testimony of negotiation, activism and resistance to the strict institutionalized protocols of Italian immigration policies. Finally, in this chapter, we also intend to investigate the extent to which the interviewed mediators form not a mere aggregation of individuals achieving the task of translation as a mere linguistic transfer, but a community of practice held together by a conscious and critical sense of the performative power of their words and their mediation conceived as a way to create meanings which form and transform human reality.

Abstract – Finding their rightful place in the hosting country becomes easier to migrants if they acquire good knowledge of the country’s culture and language. Similarly, excellent knowledge of the hosting and the migrants’ cultures and languages – both general and technical – is required of cultural mediators, who find themselves operating in a range of highly sensitive specialised fields, such as the medical, educational, legal, and administrative contexts. The current paper outlines the specific features of TV and filmic productions and illustrates their educational potential, through a review of the existing literature. In fact, TV and narrative filmic productions have proven to be multifunctional and powerful tools for the teaching and (autonomous) learning of explicit as well as implicit culture, and also for improving listening-comprehension skills, reading skills and vocabulary. The ultimate aim of the chapter is to help mediators become informed and attentive viewers, able to take the greatest advantage from filmic productions in terms of language and culture learning, and to guide migrants in the use of these powerful tools for integration.

Abstract – This study arises from recent research within the context of a new Sicily, where the various ethnic groups inhabiting it have become EFL users who have different cultural and linguistic backgrounds and appropriate English without necessarily conforming to its grammatical and lexical norms. This phenomenon places Sicily in a complex position with regard to the construction of EFL speakers and English itself becomes the language which is used for everyday conversation and social interaction within and outside the migrant communities in Sicily. Though Sicily is not a former British colony, a high number of immigrants living there speak one of the so-called new Englishes as a result of British colonisation. In this perspective, their usage of English acquires peculiar linguistic and cultural connotations, which define the language they speak for communication as a hybrid global English, which is spoken by non-native English immigrant speakers in a variety of Anglo-English mixed with other languages and dialects. This chapter brings into focus two levels of communication that involve on the one hand, that of immigration – that is to say, non-native English speakers who communicate with one another in a double mixed linguistic variety which is the sum of their native language/dialect (French, Indian, Arab, etc.) and English and, on the other hand, that of societal and cultural contacts between immigrants and Sicilians in a triple mixed linguistic variety which is the combination between each immigrant's native language/dialect, a hybrid Sicilian/Italian language and a hybrid form of English which derives from colonial and postcolonial history. Specific case-studies will support this paper to testify to the use of English as a relexified, hybridised and cannibilised language, which is adapted to the immigrants’ phonological, syntactical, lexical and semantic necessities as a result of EFL practice which, apparently, subverts the binary oppositions centre/margin, self/other, national/international, local/global.

English has become the most influential language for international discourse (Weber 1997, Graddol 2010) and it is tempting to foresee a largely monolingual future at the international level, where other languages become irrelevant. Such a simplistic view sees the adoption of English as something universal and uniform with little room for variation, local identity, or other lingua francas. Data shows that other lingua francas are not inevitably in decline. Diverse languages – e.g. Chinese, Spanish, Arabic, Hindi, French – continue to be important regionally or in certain discourse contexts (Weber 1997, Ostler 2010, Ronen et al. 2014) and on the internet. In this paper, we look at recent data from a variety of recent sources (Ronen et al. 2014,Olivié et al. 2015,) in an attempt to examine the situation regarding languages and their influences in the world today. In particular, we will attempt to take into account the fact that much language distribution is today no longer tied in with territorial dimensions. New media such as the internet, as well as mass migration between countries, have made it less easy to identify specific langugaes with precise geographical areas. Furthermore although the world is increasingly globalised, significant regional divisions still exist in the use of media (especially in the case of China) making it difficult at present to make direct comparisons about language use. In this complex scenario, it is also apparent that as English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) variations emerge and gain in influence (see Seidlhofer 2011), the identity of English will change and come to become itself a reflection of a plurilingual reality in which speakers typically have at their disposal a repertoire of different languages

Abstract - Evidence of Shakespeare’s interest in food preparation and cooking is recurrent throughout his works, though the difficulties provided by the translation of such figurative language have attracted much less interest among scholars. Building on some earlier research (Scarpa 1995a, 1995b) and some more recent publications (Fitzpatrick 2007, 2011) on the language of food, taste and cooking in Shakespeare’s plays, the paper discusses some instances of the translation into Italian by different translators of this often very culture-specific knowledge and terminology in terms of the difficulty of translating such imagery in the target language when trying to maintain the language of food. This specialized language may in fact be considered to fall into the Bard’s language of “things” and, as such, stands most in danger of becoming archaic and posing a problem for translators with a different historical and cultural background. The examples will mainly be drawn from the two practical operations of the baking of bread, cakes and pastry, and the preparation and cooking of meat. It will be argued that the translation approach most suited to all food references in Shakespeare’s plays is a reader-centred approach and in the conclusion some remarks will also be made on other reader-centred approaches to Shakespeare’s language outside the boundaries of Translation Studies which can have a positive impact on revitalizing Shakespeare for a contemporary audience. Riassunto - Sebbene l’interesse di Shakespeare nei confronti delle diverse modalità di preparazione e cottura del cibo sia ben documentato in tutta la sua produzione, la difficoltà di tradurre le immagini legate al linguaggio culinario – figurato e non – nelle sue opere è una tematica che ha tuttavia attratto relativamente poco interesse da parte degli studiosi di traduzione. Traendo spunto da una ricerca intrapresa molti anni fa (Scarpa 1995a, 1995b) e da alcune pubblicazioni più recenti (Fitzpatrick 2007, 2011) sul linguaggio shakespeariano in riferimento al gusto, al cibo e alla sua cottura, nell’articolo vengono presentati alcuni esempi delle diverse traduzioni in italiano del linguaggio e della terminologia – storicamente distanti da noi e spesso culturalmente connotati – che veicolano il sapere culinario di Shakespeare, evidenziando le difficoltà incontrate dai traduttori per cercare di mantenere le immagini gastronomiche anche nella lingua di arrivo. Questa lingua altamente specializzata può infatti essere fatta rientrare in quel più ampio “linguaggio delle cose” del Bardo che è maggiormente a rischio di diventare arcaico e di diventare quindi un problema di traduzione per epoche e contesti culturali diversi. Gli esempi sono stati tratti soprattutto dalle fasi di due diverse operazioni culinarie: la preparazione e cottura del pane e dei dolci, e la preparazione e la cottura della carne. L’approccio del traduttore che viene considerato più adatto a tradurre i riferimenti al cibo nelle opere di Shakespeare è quello che si incentra sul lettore di arrivo. In sede di conclusione verrà fatto riferimento anche ad altri approcci al linguaggio shakespeariano che, pur essendo al di fuori dei confini dei Translation Studies, sono anch’essi incentrati sul destinatario in quanto finalizzati a rivitalizzare il teatro di Shakespeare per un pubblico contemporaneo.

Abstract - This study aims to investigate publishing trends in literary translation from English into Italian in Italy and from Italian into English in the UK and the USA over the 2000-2008 time span. The data were retrieved from the Index Translationum, an international bibliography of translations managed by UNESCO, and were then stored in three Microsoft Access databases, one for each country. The databases were analysed according to specific criteria, in order to determine trends concerning the amount of translated literature in the three countries, the main publishing houses dealing with translated works, and the most translated genres and authors. This paper is meant to provide a mainly descriptive, but necessary basis for future investigation of socio-cultural as well as market-led processes underlying publishers’ choices and gate-keeping in literary translation. Riassunto - Il presente studio si propone di ricavare e analizzare tendenze caratterizzanti il mercato della letteratura tradotta dall’inglese all’italiano in Italia e dall’italiano all’inglese in Regno Unito e negli Stati Uniti. I dati sono stati estratti da Index Translationum, una database bibliografico internazionale di traduzioni gestito dall’UNESCO, e sono stati inseriti in tre database Microsoft Acess, uno per ciascun Paese. I database sono stati analizzati secondo criteri specifici al fine di ricavare trend relativi alla quantità di letteratura tradotta nei tre Paesi, le maggiori case editrici che si interessano di letteratura tradotta, i generi e gli autori più tradotti. Questo studio intende fornire una base essenzialmente descrittiva ma necessaria per studi futuri sui processi socio-culturali e sulle dinamiche di mercato che influenzano le scelte degli editori, determinando così forme di controllo sul mercato della traduzione letteraria.

Abstract - Chick lit is a genre comprised of books chiefly written by women for women. These books are mainly characterized by the tone, which is very confidential and personal, and often relies on the use of colloquial and slangy (and occasionally obscene) expressions, by the use of humour, and by the numerous references to popular culture. This paper aims at analyzing the strategies used in the Italian translation of one of the best-known examples of the genre, Helen Fielding’s Bridget Jones’s Diary, taking two frames of reference. First of all, the analysis will try to identify in the target text the distinctive universal features observed in computer-based corpus translation (Baker 1996), namely explicitation, simplification and normalization. Secondly, it will consider the translation in terms of Venuti’s dichotomy of translation strategies into domestication and foreignization (1995). Riassunto -Il chick lit è un genere letterario costituito principalmente da romanzi scritti perlopiù da autrici donne per un pubblico femminile. I romanzi chick-lit sono caratterizzati dal tono confidenziale e personale, dall’uso di espressioni colloquiali e slang (e occasionalmente volgari), dalla presenza costante di humour e dai numerosi riferimenti alla pop culture contemporanea. Questo saggio intende analizzare le strategie utilizzate nella traduzione italiana di uno degli esempi più rappresentativi del genere, ovvero Bridget Jones’s Diary di Helen Fielding, utilizzando due modelli di riferimento. Innanzitutto, lo studio tenterà di identificare la presenza degli universali traduttivi osservati nei corpus-based translation studies (Baker 1996), ovvero explicitation, simplification e normalization. Successivamente, si analizzerà la traduzione secondo la teoria delle strategie traduttive proposta da Venuti (1995), ovvero domestication e foreignization.

Abstract - John Banville’s talent as a prose stylist is widely recognized. The polished elegance of his phrases constitutes a continuing and fascinating challenge for his translator, due to the intricacies of the source text, its manifold registers and lexical choices. In his novel The Infinities, in Italian Teoria degli Infiniti, John Banville takes cue from Kleist’s Amphytrion to devise a novel where classicality interweaves with science and science fiction through the invention of a world where the ancient gods intermingle with the humans while waiting for the death of Adam Godley, a famous mathematician who explained how an infinity of worlds exist and interact with each other. To translate this book I had not only to work extensively on lexis and style, but also to do considerable research to render the many literary and non literary references. Some examples of these struggles with the source text during the translation process are given in the present paper. Riassunto - John Banville, autore irlandese noto per la sua prosa raffinata, scrive in una lingua che rappresenta una sfida continua e affascinante per chi lo traduce. La sua complessità stilistica, che sfrutta molteplici registri linguistici e si avvale di scelte lessicali cui spesso è arduo trovare un traducente italiano soddisfacente, costringe il traduttore a fare ricorso a tutte le sottigliezze del proprio mestiere per restituire quanto più possibile l’eleganza dell’originale nella propria lingua. Nel romanzo The Infinities, tradotto in italiano come Teoria degli infiniti (Guanda, Parma 2011), Banville prende spunto dall’Anfitrione di Kleist per costruire un romanzo che guarda alla classicità sconfinando in un misto di scienza e fantascienza con la concezione di un’infinità di mondi paralleli teorizzata dal matematico Adam Godley, il protagonista morente al cui capezzale si radunano uomini e antichi dei in attesa che il cerchio della vita e della morte si compia e ricominci. Per tradurlo si è reso necessario accompagnare al lavoro sul lessico e sulla forma, di cui si discutono alcuni esempi particolarmente pregnanti, una consistente opera di ricerca per rendere i molteplici riferimenti letterari e non.

Abstract - Ezra Pound’s Cantos, a Modernist classic, present many challenges for the translator, who has to follow in Pound’s footsteps and often divine the intention and context of the fragments that compose his historic and lyric collage. A new Italian translation of the first extensive installment of the poem, XXX Cantos (1930), appeared in 2012; a previous Italian rendering of the same work, by the poet’s daughter Mary de Rachewiltz, was published in 1961. By comparing representative excerpts of the two translations, this paper discusses different approaches to one source text. While the 1961 target text aimed at concision at the expense of fluency, the 2012 text employs a more colloquial style, attempting to make an arduous and complex work more reader-friendly. However, the two translations adopt the same strategy when rendering the many passages Pound paraphrased from medieval and renaissance Italian writings. Rather than retranslating Pound’s English, they print excerpts from the Italian originals he worked from, with their quaint spellings and often obscure wording. Just as Pound asks his readers and translators to work with him on the texts he presents in the poem, so the translators presuppose a reader who is also a collaborator, and who will be intrigued by the old documents appearing opposite Pound’s modernist paraphrases. Translation is always a work in progress, but this is particularly the case when approaching the uniquely intricate and collaborative project of Pound’s Cantos. Riassunto - XXX Cantos (1930) di Ezra Pound, un classico del modernismo anglo-americano, è stato tradotto in italiano nel 1961 dalla figlia del poeta, Mary de Rachewiltz, con risultati assai notevoli e curiosi, data la sua lunga collaborazione col padre. Nel 2012 è apparsa una nuova versione che tenta di rendere il poema in una lingua più scorrevole e colloquiale e così guadagnare ad esso un più vasto pubblico. Molti di questi trenta canti trattano di cronache dell’Italia rinascimentale, in particolare del condottiere Sigismondo Malatesta, in un collage di testi antichi, commenti, divagazioni liriche, il tutto a sua volta alternato con immagini della modernità, fra cui un inferno neodantesco. Quando Pound cita antiche cronache interpretandole nel suo inglese, il traduttore può ritradurre i rifacimenti poundiani in italiano moderno oppure risalire agli originali quattrocenteschi e introdurre questi in luogo della traduzione, dando così la possiblità al lettore di udire le antiche voci e vedere come il poeta novecentesco le ha interpretate. Questa è stata la scelta comune dei traduttori del 1961 e 2012, pur nella diversità delle soluzioni particolari. La vicenda traduttiva del poema poundiano permette di riflettere sui modelli di traduzione e getta luce sulla complessa intertestualità dell’originale, che è in effetti un laboratorio di poesia offerto al lettore.

Abstract - The aim of this paper is to investigate the reader’s reception of translated literary texts and to explore the reader’s expectations about literary works. For this purpose, three comparable corpora of British, American and Italian online book reviews commenting on the English version of Andrea Camilleri’s La forma dell’acqua (The Shape of Water) and on the Italian version of Stephen King’s Joyland were assembled and analysed. The way active target language readers perceive and evaluate a translated literary work was then explored by taking the language they actually used in book recommendation websites. The analysis demonstrates that the Anglo-American and Italian readers’ reception of the translated text is different, in terms of focus and perception. Riassunto - Il presente articolo esplora il modo in cui i lettori recepiscono testi letterari tradotti e quali sono le loro aspettative. A tale scopo sono stati raccolti e analizzati tre corpora comparabili di recensioni online scritte da lettori britannici, americani e italiani sulla versione inglese de La forma dell’acqua di Andrea Camilleri e sulla versione italiana di Joyland di Stephen King. In particolare, l’articolo esplora il modo in cui i lettori della lingua di arrivo percepiscono e valutano un’opera letteraria tradotta partendo dal linguaggio da usato dai lettori nei siti web di recensioni di libri. L’analisi dimostra che i lettori anglo-americani e italiani percepiscono un testo tradotto in modo differente e ne commentano aspetti differenti.

Abstract - This paper provides a list of Verga’s English translators and their works together with discussion principally of D.H. Lawrence’s 1925 translation of the novel Mastro-don Gesualdo (1889) and some consideration of the author’s own 1995 translation of Una peccatrice (1873). Emphasis throughout is placed on the particular nature of literary translation, an activity often and inevitably influenced by factors that go beyond purely linguistic concerns. Riasssunto - Oltre ad un elenco dei traduttori anglofoni di Verga e le loro traduzioni pubblicate, questo saggio fornisce principalmente una discussione della traduzione del 1925 che D.H. Lawrence fece del romanzo, Mastro-don Gesualdo (1889), ed alcune considerazioni della traduzione di Iain Halliday, pubblicata nel 1995, della novella, Una peccatrice (1873). Il filo conduttore è la natura particolare dell’attività della traduzione letteraria, attività spesso ed inevitabilmente influenzata da fattori che vanno ben oltre questioni puramente linguistiche.

Abstract - Italian writer Italo Calvino has played an important role in defining and supporting a new criticism of translation, which, he believed, should be based on rigorous scientific criteria. This new criticism of translation is illustrated here, along with the importance given by Calvino to the cooperation between author and translator, and especially with reference to his relationship with William Weaver. The aim of this paper is to analyse the theories on which the Italian writer bases his “traduzione inventiva” [inventive translation] and the method of translation that he proposes in his “Nota del traduttore” for his Italian translation of Queneau’s novel Les fleurs bleues. Finally, Weaver’s adhesion to Calvino’s method and his own strategies are discussed in relation to the translation of Mr. Palomar. Riassunto - Lo scrittore italiano Italo Calvino ha avuto un ruolo centrale nella definizione di una nuova critica della traduzione letteraria, che riteneva dovesse essere basata su rigorosi criteri scientifici. Nel presente articolo, l’autrice discute ampiamente la critica della traduzione calviniana e evidenzia l’importanza data da Calvino alla collaborazione fra autore e traduttore, con speciale riferimento al suo rapporto con William Weaver, traduttore in lingua inglese di quasi tutte le sue opere. Lo scopo di questo studio è analizzare le teorie sulle quali lo scrittore italiano basa la sua traduzione inventiva e il metodo di traduzione che egli propone nella sua Nota del traduttore a I fiori blu, la sua resa in italiano del romanzo Les fleurs bleues di Raymond Queneau. Infine, analizzando alcuni passaggi di Mr. Palomar, traduzione in inglese di Palomar, l’autrice verifica l’adesione al metodo calviniano e rileva le strategie traduttive adottate da Weaver.

Abstract - This paper examines Shakespeare’s Henry V from the perspective of the play’s deep concern with languages and with the dynamics of their interaction. The drama is characterised by linguistic heterogeneity of various kinds, from the blatant bilingualism that sets it apart from other plays in the canon, to the welter of regional dialects, personal idiolects, and stylistic registers that are also played off against one another within it. At the same time as it enacts a confrontation between the English and French tongues, and the mentalities and cultural codes they respectively encode, it also juxtaposes different voices articulating contrasting evaluations of events and discrepant perceptions of the protagonist himself. The linguistic multiplicity of the play is therefore part and parcel of the ambivalence of attitude with which recent criticism of the play has increasingly been concerned. At the same time, it also implicates issues having to do with translation and other forms of cultural negotiation, as well as those of names and of the mechanisms through which these are conferred. If on the one hand the king is implicitly attempting to establish linguistic uniformity through his military conquest of France, he is unable to curb the tendency towards linguistic fragmentation that is manifest among his own subjects and even in his own use of language.

Abstract – Fandom is a growing phenomenon in the contemporary user-generated mediascape, inasmuch as it is capitalizing on the unprecedented possibilities of publication, distribution and interaction made available by digital technologies (Hellekson, Busse 2006; Stein, Busse 2012). In transmedia storytelling, integral elements of a story are dispersed systematically across various delivery channels with the goal of creating a networked entertainment experience (Jenkins 2006, 2007). Stories are no longer experienced through linear narratives, but they are accessed through several “points of entries” that encourage a customized reading/viewing/writing practice: the global fanfiction experience. Fanfiction is explored of this study from two distinct but complementary theoretical and methodological standpoints. Building on previous studies on the matter (Thomas 2010; Sindoni 2013) and drawing on a mono-generic corpus, LJFic, the research questions that this paper addresses deal with diatypic variation (Halliday 1991) in fanfiction from both linguistic and multimodal perspectives. Keyness analyses have been carried out using two different reference corpora (FLOB and COCA), assuming that such analyses can shed light on a range of linguistic issues, for example with regard to spoken/written variation (approximating Biber’s MF/MD analysis, 1988) and with a focus on the most prominent lexical items for the investigation of the entries’ aboutness (Scott, Tribble 2006; Bondi, Scott 2010). However, a purely computational analysis cannot account for the multimodal nature of fanfiction. To fill this gap, a sample of entries will be analysed qualitatively, by unearthing and unpacking the multimodal resources involved.Abstract – Il fandom è un fenomeno in crescita nel panorama mediatico contemporaneo prodotto dagli utenti. Tale diffusione è legata alle possibilità senza precedenti di pubblicare, distribuire e interagire, resa possibile dalle tecnologie digitali. Nella narrazione transmediale, gli elementi integrali di una storia sono sistematicamente dispersi tramite vari canali di distribuzione per creare un’esperienza interconnessa e ramificata di intrattenimento (Jenkins 2006, 2007). Le storie cessano di essere delle esperienze di narrazione lineare, e i diversi punti di accesso alla storia incoraggiano una pratica di lettura, visione o scrittura personalizzata: l’esperienza globale della fanfiction. Questo studio si concentra sul fenomeno della fanfiction da due prospettive teoriche e metodologiche distinte, ma complementari. Partendo da studi precedenti (Thomas 2010; Sindoni 2013) e basandosi sui dati forniti da un corpus monogenerico, LJFic, le domande a cui questo studio tenta di rispondere riguardano la variazione diatipica (Halliday 1991) nella fanfiction da un punto di vista sia linguistico che multimodale. Si discuteranno gli esiti di un’analisi di keyness svolta con due corpora di riferimento (FLOB e COCA), ipotizzando che questa possa gettare luce su una serie di questioni linguistiche, per esempio riguardanti la variazione diamesica (approssimando i risultati che si sarebbero potuti ottenere tramite l’analisi multidimensionale di Biber 1988) e con un’attenzione specifica verso i lemmi più frequenti per comprendere l’aboutness dei testi (Scott, Tribble 2006; Bondi, Scotti 2010). Tuttavia, un’analisi puramente quantitativa non può rendere conto della natura eminentemente multimodale della fanfiction. Per colmare tale lacuna, un campione di post sarà analizzato qualitativamente tramite lo scavo e la dissezione delle risorse multimodali.

Abstract – This paper proposes an analysis of Edwin Abbott Abbott’s Flatland: a Romance of Many Dimensions (1884). In particular, it focuses on the first section of the novel, This World, which is interpreted as a satire of the Victorian society. In fact, the fictional world of Flatland appears to have been built exactly upon the middle class ideological standpoint. This is ironically translated into a series of strategies – both at a territorial and at a relational level – through which this group tries to maintain its hegemonic social position and, at the same time, to distance all those elements that may deviate from its image of respectability. This is investigated with special regard to the characters of the Irregular and of the isosceles triangle, towards which the middle class shows an attitude of closure. Such behaviour is nothing else but the satirical depiction of its ambiguous relationship with Otherness.Sommario – Questo saggio propone un’analisi di Flatland: a Romance of Many Dimensions (1884) di Edwin Abbott Abbott. Nello specifico, esso si sofferma sulla prima sezione del romanzo, This World, interpretata quale satira della società vittoriana. Difatti, il mondo fantastico di Flatland sembra essere stato costruito proprio sulla base dell’ideologia della middle class, che è ironicamente tradotta in una serie di strategie – su un piano sia territoriale sia relazionale – tramite le quali questo gruppo tenta di mantenere l’egemonia della sua posizione sociale e, al contempo, di allontanare tutti quegli elementi che potrebbero deviare dalla sua immagine di rispettabilità. Ciò è esaminato con particolare riferimento ai personaggi dell’Irregolare e del triangolo isoscele, verso i quali la middle class mostra un atteggiamento di chiusura. Tale comportamento non è altro che la satirica raffigurazione del suo ambiguo rapporto con l’Alterità.

This paper analyzes the interesting technique of adaptation of the film Becoming Jane, a biopic on the life of Jane Austen, released in 2007. Loosely based on Jon Spence's biography Becoming Jane Austen, the film faces the problem of the scarcity of information on Jane Austen's life through a technique that, if not original nor always satisfying, is nevertheless worth being studied. By recurring to the character descriptions and the anecdotes narrated in the novels, the film (and Spence's book too) "fills in the blanks" in Austen's life by adding touches of romance with questionable historical accuracy and fictionalizes the writer's biography in order to adapt it to the stereotype of modern romantic film heroines.

Abstract – Despite the considerable interest and the lively debate generated by dialect translation theory during the last years, results are still controversial and rather unsatisfactory. A possible explanation may be the disproportion between theoretical and descriptive studies, with the former being insufficient to allow the latter to be firmly rooted in principles, theories and models. A closer look at existing theories on this issue reveals how distant they are from daily practice when the translator finds himself alone in translating a complex dialectal text. Hence the title of the present article, which reverses the direction of the methodological approach with the aim of detecting objective data from which to go back to the roots of a shared theory. The multiple peculiarities of Camilleri’s multilingual enunciation may provide elements of representativeness suitable to generalize their translation procedures and draw meaningful conclusions. Accordingly, after a brief excursus on the evolution of dialect translation studies, the paper explores a new translation hypotheses in the Spanish language concerning Camilleri’s language, in the light of the classical levels of linguistic analysis (i.e., phonetic-phonological, morphosyntactic and lexical-semantic). It thus focuses, on the one hand, on the diastratic and diaphasic dimension, in order to transfer, through similar linguistic artifices, the comical and estranging effects that such a language may have on Italian readers, and, on the other, on the exploitation of the diatopic variation by means of the linguistic expedient of intra-sentential code-mixing. Riassunto – Pur avendo suscitato un notevole interesse ed avviato un ampio dibattito negli ultimi anni, come dimostrano i numerosi studi condotti sul tema, si può affermare che la teoria della traduzione dei dialettalismi non ha ancora raggiunto dei risultati soddisfacenti. È probabile che si debba essenzialmente alla sproporzione tra gli studi teorici e quelli descrittivi: l’esiguità dei secondi, dunque, non permette ai primi di elaborare dei principi, teorie e modelli che possano spiegare tali fenomeni in modo esaustivo. Una volta esaminate le pur rispettabilissime teorie traduttologiche formulate al riguardo, si ha una chiara percezione di quanto siano distanti dalla realtà della pratica giornaliera nel momento in cui il traduttore si ritrova da solo di fronte ad un testo dialettale particolarmente complesso. Da cui il titolo dell’articolo, che inverte la direzionalità dell’impostazione metodologica puntando sull’individuazione del dato oggettivo dal quale risalire sino all’elaborazione di un’eventuale teoria condivisa. Tuttavia, è anche lecito chiedersi se le molteplici peculiarità dell’enunciazione mistilingue di Camilleri possano fornire elementi di rappresentatività tali da permettere di generalizzarne i procedimenti traduttivi e di trarne delle conclusioni rilevanti. Nel presente lavoro, partendo da un breve excursus sull’evoluzione degli studi traduttologici sui dialettalismi si cercherà di esplorare nuove ipotesi traduttive in lingua spagnola del linguaggio di Camilleri, alla luce dei classici livelli di analisi linguistica, ovvero fonetico-fonologico, morfosintattico e lessico-semantico, puntando, da una parte, sulla dimensione diastratica e diafasica per trasferire, attraverso analoghi artifizi linguistici, gli effetti comici e stranianti che un tale linguaggio provoca nel lettore italiano, e dall’altra, sullo sfruttamento della variazione diatopica per mezzo dell’espediente linguistico del code-mixing intrafrasale. Parole chiave: Camilleri; spagnolo; traduzione; dialettalismi; code-mixing.

Abstract – This paper introduces the ‘Interactive Model’ of audiovisual translation developed in the context of my PhD research on the cognitive-semantic, functional and socio-cultural features of the Italian-dubbing translation of a corpus of humorous texts. The Model is based on two interactive macro-phases – ‘Multimodal Critical Analysis of Scripts’ (MuCrAS) and ‘Multimodal Re-Textualization of Scripts’ (MuReTS). Its construction and application are justified by a multidisciplinary approach to the analysis and translation of audiovisual texts, so as to focus on the linguistic and extralinguistic dimensions affecting both the reception of source texts and the production of target ones (Chaume 2004; Díaz Cintas 2004). By resorting to Critical Discourse Analysis (Fairclough 1995, 2001), to a process-based approach to translation and to a socio-semiotic analysis of multimodal texts (van Leeuwen 2004; Kress and van Leeuwen 2006), the Model is meant to be applied to the training of audiovisual translators and discourse analysts in order to help them enquire into the levels of pragmalinguistic equivalence between the source and the target versions. Finally, a practical application shall be discussed, detailing the Italian rendering of a comic sketch from the American late-night talk show Conan.Abstract – Questo studio introduce il ‘Modello Interattivo’ di traduzione audiovisiva sviluppato durante il mio dottorato di ricerca incentrato sulle caratteristiche cognitivo-semantiche, funzionali e socio-culturali della traduzione italiana per il doppiaggio di un corpus di testi comici. Il Modello è costituito da due fasi: la prima, di ‘Analisi critica e multimodale degli script’ (MuCrAS) e la seconda, di ‘Ritestualizzazione critica e multimodale degli script’ (MuReTS), e la sua costruzione e applicazione sono frutto di un approccio multidisciplinare all’analisi e traduzione dei testi audiovisivi, al fine di esaminare le dimensioni linguistiche ed extralinguistiche che contribuiscono alla ricezione dei testi fonte ed alla produzione dei testi tradotti (Chaume 2004; Díaz Cintas 2004). Il Modello è presentato come uno strumento utile alla formazione dei traduttori audiovisivi ed all’analisi critica del discorso multimodale, perché attraverso il ricorso all’Analisi Critica del Discorso (Fairclough 1995, 2001), all’approccio cognitivo (process-based) alla traduzione, ed all’analisi socio-semiotica dei testi multimodali (van Leeuwen 2004; Kress e van Leeuwen 2006) favorisce lo studio dei livelli di equivalenza pragmalinguistica tra i testi d’origine e le loro traduzioni. Infine, questo studio presenta un’applicazione pratica del Modello per la resa in italiano di uno sketch comico dal talk show americano Conan.

Abstract – Samuel Beckett's interest in St. Augustine is manifest throughout his oeuvre, both in terms of content and style, and can be traced from his very first works, such as Whoroscope, to his last plays and short stories. Although this interplay has been touched upon in the critical discourse on Beckett, a systematic analysis is still to be done. This paper represents a preliminary investigation into the Augustinian influence in the early Beckett, in particular Dream of Fair to Middling Women and Murphy. By considering the presence of the Confessions in these two novels I intend to show how St. Augustine's work played a significant role in the development of the young author, offering him the occasion to overcome his theory of habit as outlined in his early essay, Proust. In this text, Beckett posits habit as merely “the generic name for the countless treaties concluded between the countless subjects that constitute the individual and their countless correlative objects”. Dream still endorses this perspective, but already suggests a different dialectic of memory, will, and habit. This shift, I argue, can be connected to Beckett’s reading of Augustine's meditations, in book VIII of the Confessions, on the cleavage between the spirit and the flesh. In Murphy, we see Beckett’s 'Augustinian dialectic' fully formed: habit is no longer a veil of Maya that hides the real essence of the individual, but the condition of possibility for the subject's flight from the “mercantile Gehenna” world towards the truth of the inner self.Riassunto – L'interesse di Samuel Beckett per Sant'Agostino è evidente nell'intero corpus dell'autore – a partire dai suoi primissimi lavori, in particolare la poesia Whoroscope, fino agli ultimi drammi e racconti – e si manifesta sia sul piano del contenuto che dello stile. Nonostante il rapporto tra i due autori sia già stato oggetto dell'attenzione dei critici, una sua analisi sistematica deve essere ancora compiuta. Nel presente saggio si offre una proposta di lettura della presenza agostiniana nel primo Beckett, in particolare Dream of Fair to Middling Women e Murphy. Considerando la presenza delle Confessioni in questi due romanzi intendo mostrare come i lavori di Sant'Agostino abbino giocato un ruolo fondamentale nello sviluppo del giovane autore, offrendogli l'occasione di superare la sua teoria dell'abitudine così come l'aveva rappresentata nel saggio giovanile Proust. In questo testo, Beckett descrive l'abitudine come “il nome generico per gli innumerevoli accordi stipulati fra gli innumerevoli soggetti che costituiscono l'individuo e i rispettivi innumerevoli oggetti”. In Dream si presenta la stessa prospettiva, ma già si intravedono i segni di una differente dialettica fra memoria, volontà e abitudine. Tale slittamento può essere ricondotto alla lettura delle meditazioni agostiniane nel libro VIII delle Confessioni, nelle quali si tematizza la scissione fra la volontà dello spirito e quella del corpo. In Murphy la dialettica agostiniana di Beckett giunge a compimento: l'abitudine non è più il velo di Maya che nascone l'essenza reale dell'individuo, ma la condizione di possibilità per la fuga del soggetto dalla “mercantile Gehenna” verso la verità dell'interiorità.

Abstract – After Alfonso X’s accession to the throne in mid-13th-century Spain, the translating activity of scientific texts from Arabic changed route: Castilian, instead of Latin, became the language of science. Such a plan, ambitious though risky, was carried out through the writing of the huge Alfonsine corpus of texts, a fundamental contribution to medieval culture, which shaped the picture of Alfonso as “Emperor of Culture”. The aim of this paper is to provide, in the light of recent research, an overall view of the main translators and of the translations of scientific texts from Arabic into Castilian at Alfonso’s court.Abstract – Con l’avvento di Alfonso X nella Spagna della metà del XIII secolo, l’attività traduttiva di testi scientifici dall’arabo conobbe un significativo cambio di rotta: il passaggio dal latino al castigliano come lingua scientifica. Il progetto, ambizioso e rischioso, si realizzò nella redazione dell’immenso corpus alfonsino, fondamentale contributo alla cultura medievale, che ha creato l’immagine di Alfonso “imperatore della cultura”. Obiettivo di questo contributo è offrire, alla luce degli studi più recenti, una visione d’insieme sui principali traduttori e sulle traduzioni di testi scientifici dall’arabo in castigliano realizzate alla corte di Alfonso X.

Abstract – This paper aims tocontribute to the reflection on the use of reported speech in the judiciaryfield.The scenario of reference chosenis the trial following the “Erba Massacre” which took place on 11thDecember 2006. A linguistic analysis was conducted on the material used duringthe episodes of the TV programme “Un giorno in Pretura” that dealt with thiscase. A critical examination of the comments reveals from a linguistic point ofview the considerable incidence of reported speech in communicative contexts ofcontrolled public speaking.The introduction briefly outlinesthe theoretics behind the main forms of reported speech, i.e. “direct” and“indirect”, as well as the functions attributed to each. The next sectionprovides a detailed analysis of collected data samples, which point out howdifficult and at times impossible it is to pinpoint one particular function asthe main feature for any given form of reported speech.In conclusion, it may be saidthat also in the judiciary field, the need emerges to take into considerationthe fact that reported speech has a wide range of possible functions and tocarry out a functional analysis that may highlight the main functions on a caseby case basis, depending on the communicative context in which it appears.

Abstract - Afrofuturism is a transdisciplinary cultural movement based upon the unusual connection between the marginality of allegedly “primitive” people of the African diaspora and “modern” technology and science fiction. At a first glance, Afrofuturism may sound like an oxymoron. “Afro” and “Futurism” are likely to be considered as terms in opposition, the former which used to evoke images of primitivism and backwardness, the latter – ever since F. T. Marinetti’s definition in 1909 – celebrating instead speed and modernity. It is precisely to challenge this assumption that Afrofuturism works on a metaphorical level to reject a number of clichés that have commonly referred to people of African descent. Using a wide range of different genres and media, the creative contribution of Afrofuturist writers, musicians, artists, filmmakers and critics challenges the stereotypical historical view routinely applied to the Black Atlantic experience and proposes counter-histories that reconsider the role of black people in the Western society in the past and imagine alternative roles in the future. The paper aims to consider the different languages of Afrofuturism: music (Sun Ra), visual arts (Basquiat), film (John Coney’s Space is the Place) and especially literature − proto-Afrofuturist fiction such as W. E. B. Du Bois’s short story “The Comet” (1920) and more recent examples such as Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man (1952) and Octavia E. Butler’s Kindred (1979).

Abstract - Over the last twenty years, the interest in the disciplinary practices of history has been documented by a wide array of works. However, in spite of the inspiring nature of these rich accounts, only tangentially have scholars become interested in the inherently textual dimension of historical argumentation. In an attempt to bridge some of the gaps left by existing research, this paper calls for phraseology as a suitable candidate for the study of the argumentative peculiarities of historical prose. The qualitative and quantitative study of recurrent phraseology in a synchronic corpus of research articles from a set of specialised journals provides evidence that historians appear to be keenly observant of the practice of speculating about their own job in terms of either a successful quest for research answers or its potential dead ends. Moreover, data show that historians position themselves as disciplinary experts at a variety of levels, as they attempt to establish their credentials in the eyes of their intended readership: first, when they compare sources and thereby carve out a niche of expertise from their interpretation of them; secondly, when they proceed to singling out what they see as a key-moment in the historical processes under investigation; and finally, in the act of shaping their discourse from the viewpoint of an omniscient narrator.Riassunto - Nel corso degli ultimi vent’anni, l’interesse per le pratiche disciplinari della storia è stato documentato da una vasta gamma di lavori. Tuttavia, a fronte del grande interesse suscitato da molti di essi, solo in parte gli studiosi si sono interessati alla dimensione più propriamente testuale dell’argomentazione storica. Nel tentativo di colmare parte delle lacune lasciate dalle ricerche condotte finora su questo aspetto, questo studio si focalizza sulla fraseologia quale candidato per lo studio delle peculiarità argomentative dalla prosa storica. Lo studio qualitativo e quantitativo della fraseologia più ricorrente identificata in un corpus di articoli di ricerca tratti da riviste specialistiche internazionali mostra la consuetudine dello storico di riflettere sul proprio lavoro di ricerca, soffermandosi sia sugli aspetti positivi che sulle criticità che lo caratterizzano. Inoltre, i dati mostrano che gli storici si pongano quali esperti della propria disciplina a più livelli, contestualmente all’atto di stabilire le proprie credenziali di fronte ai destinatari della loro scrittura: in primo luogo, quando essi confrontano le fonti e costruiscono la propria credibilità nell’atto di fornirne un’interpretazione; in secondo luogo, quando essi si sforzano di identificare i momenti chiave dei processi storici di loro interesse; ed infine, nel tentativo di modellare il proprio discorso dalla prospettiva di ‘narratori onniscienti’.

Abstract – The existence of a relationship between frequency and polysemy in words is well known in statistical linguistics. Nevertheless, few data are available on the amount of polysemy in high-frequency words across languages, and no systematic investigation of the Italian lexicon has been carried out so far. This paper presents a detailed analysis of the number and types of senses of the about 7,000 highest frequency lexemes that constitute the basic vocabulary in Italian (vocabolario di base, VDB). Data confirm that frequency and polysemy are strongly related: the percentage of polysemic words in VDB (89%) is much greater than in the overall lexicon (19%); and within VDB, too, changes in frequency correlate with growth in polysemy. Verbs are found to be more polysemic than nouns, in the sense that there are less monosemic verbs than nouns; however, polysemic verbs and nouns give rise to a similar amount of senses (average number of senses is 7.3 in verbs and 6.6 in nouns). The crucial difference between verbs and nouns is to be found in the type, more than in the number, of their senses. In both classes the largest number of senses belongs to the area of basic/common vocabulary, but this area covers 77% of verb senses vs. 55% of noun senses. On the contrary, in nouns 34% of senses (vs. 8% in verbs) belong to the area of technical-scientific vocabulary, and 67% of nouns have at least one technical-scientific sense. Abstract - E’ ben nota alla statistica linguistica l’esistenza di una relazione tra la frequenza delle parole e la loro polisemia. Tuttavia sono disponibili pochi dati sulla diffusione della polisemia nel lessico di alta frequenza delle lingue, e nessuna indagine sistematica in tal senso è mai stata condotta per l’italiano. La ricerca che presento fornisce un’analisi dettagliata della quantità e del tipo di accezioni dei lessemi del Vocabolario di Base (VDB) dell’italiano. I dati ottenuti confermano la forte relazione tra frequenza d’uso e polisemia: la percentuale di lessemi polisemici nel VDB (89%) è molto maggiore che nel lessico nel suo insieme (19%) e anche all’interno del VDB la quantità di lessemi polisemici varia in base alla fascia di frequenza. Dall’analisi emerge che i verbi sono più polisemici dei sostantivi, nel senso che il numero di lessemi monosemici è minore tra i verbi che tra i sostantivi. Tuttavia, se si considerano solo i verbi e i sostantivi polisemici, la quantità di accezioni generate dai due gruppi è molto simile. La differenza cruciale nel comportamento di verbi e sostantivi rispetto alla polisemia va cercata non tanto nella quantità, ma nel tipo di accezioni cui danno luogo. Per entrambe le classi il numero maggiore di accezioni si ha nell’area del vocabolario comune/basico, ma mentre nei verbi rientra in quest’ambito il 77% delle accezioni, nei sostantivi vi rientra il 55%. Per converso, il 34% delle accezioni dei sostantivi (contro l’8% di quelle dei verbi) appartiene all’area del vocabolario tecnico-scientifico, e il 67% dei sostantivi ha almeno un’accezione di tipo tecnico-scientifico.

Abstract - This paper investigates how the 'New Evangelization' process in the Roman Catholic Church is enacted through ELF by the Italian clergy offering spiritual and practical assistance to non-western immigrants newly-arrived in Italy. A case study explores how religious discourse reflects the two contact groups' different typological-syntactic, semantic and sociopragmatic features transferred to their respective ELF usage, as well as their different knowledge sustems and community values associated with the religious experience. It is argued that misunderstanding occurs when the clergy's culture-bound patterns of Possible-World Semantics, characterizing the counterfactual logic of their religious/metaphysical discourse in ELF, fail to account for the divergent ways by which non-western immigrants make religious sense of their existence. The conversational analysis shows how the New-Evangelization discourse requires from immigrants the activation of the two 'bimodal' cooperative maxims of 'suspension of disbelief', epistemically inducing them to believe that possible-world representations can be true, and 'experiential pliability', deontically compelling immigrants to adapt their actual-world experience to such counterfactual constructions, even though for the cultures of some African countries which immigrants come from religion is intrinsically connected with the referential domain of the actual world. Recognizing divergent ways of expressing the religious experience in different cultures may help 'new evangelizers' find alternative, 'hybrid' ways of conveying the Word of God through ELF, thus fostering true ecumenical communication.Riassunto - Lo studio esamina come il processo di 'Nuova Evangelizzazione' nella Chiesa Cattolica Romana è messo in atto dal clero italiano attraverso ELF quando offre assistenza pratica e spirituale ad immigrati non-occidentali appena giunti in Italia. Il caso di studio esplora i modi in cui il discorso religioso riflette sia le differenti strutture tipologico-sintattiche, semantiche e sociopragmatiche dei due gruppi in contatto, trasferite nei rispettivi usi di ELF, sia i loro differenti sistemi di conoscenza e valori di comunità connessi all'esperienza religiosa. Si sostiene che i malintesi nascono quando gli schemi culturalmente marcati della Semantica dei Mondi Possibili utilizzati dai membri del clero - schemi che caratterizzano la logica controfattuale del loro discorso metafisico-religioso in ELF, non riescono a giustificare i modi divergenti attraverso cui gli immigrati non-occidentali attribuiscono un senso religioso alla propria esistenza. L'analisi della conversazione dimostra come il discorso della Nuova Evangelizzazione richiede algi immigrati l'applicazione delle due massime 'bimodali' di cooperazione: la 'sospensione dell'incredulità', che sollecita gli immigrati ad adattare la propria esperienza del mondo reale a tali costruzioni controfattuali, anche se per le culture di alcuni Paesi africani da cui provengono gli immigrati la religione è intrinsecamente collegata agli ambiti del mondo reale. Riconoscere i modi diversi di esprimere l'esperienza religiosa in culture differenti può aiutare i 'nuovi evangelizzatori' a trovare modi alternativi e 'ibridi' di veicolare la Parola di Dio attraversso ELF, così da favorire una vera comunicazione ecumenica.

Abstract – It cannot be denied that Britain is normally seen as an awkward partner in EU affairs (George 1994), and in many ways the British have always been half-in: in the two-speed Europe slogan, Britain is seen as a slow traveller (Musolff 2004), as a member that makes slow progress, it if is at all on the European path. The purpose of this paper is to try and unveil, with evidence at hand, the sentiment of the British leaders with respect to the European Union. Interestingly, the current government includes both Conservatives and Lib-Dems leaders, and it is well known that the former have been, more often than not, against Europe whereas the latter are highly passionate about their pro-Europeanism. Interviews, statements and speeches proper are thus analysed and compared: first wordlists are generated, then keywords lists and finally key-clusters lists (Scott 2012), with the purpose of identifying "aboutgrams" (Warren 2010; Sinclair, Tognini Bonelli 2011), and see what the two governments have in common, but mostly what differentiates them with regard to the European Union, i.e. what is prioritized in one administration and was not in another, clearly signalling a change in priorities (Cheng 2004; Cheng et al. 2006; Cheng et al. 2009). The study is a diachronic analysis, in the attempt to see how previous discourses have been reinterpreted, given that forty years after joining the Union the British are still reluctant Europeans who still consider Europe "abroad", thus slowing the "ever-closer union" envisaged in the Treaty of Rome, and who still have been calling for referendums, even more so after the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty.Keywords: European Union, UK, political speeches, opt out, aboutgrams.

Abstract – This paper is about a business fable that was issued in 1998 by Spencer Johnson and has never stopped being a publishing success: Who Moved My Cheese: An Amazing Way to Deal With Change in Your Work and in your Life is a simple story, a fable, or as the genre is now called a business fable. In particular we would like to see what the book shares with fables and how it conveys to the reader the core theme, that is change. The analysis focuses on the (business) fable as a type of simple literature which is able to persuade the reader to change a “wrong” attitude and to adopt new points of view regarding change. My interest was mainly based on the language style and the type of words used by the author in order to reach his target as well as on the readability assessment of the text. This was possible thanks to the use of Textalyser, a simple tool of automated text analysis available on the Internet, very effective and useful to trace some linguistic and extra-linguistic observations of the content.Keywords: cheese, business fable, change, text analysis, word frequency Abstract - Questo articolo tratta di una business fable pubblicata nel 1998 da Spencer Johnson e che da allora non ha mai cessato di essere un successo editoriale: Who Moved My Cheese: An Amazing Way to Deal With Change in Your Work and in your Life è una storia semplice, una favola, o come viene ora definito il genere una business fable. In particolare vorremmo scoprire ciò che il libro condivide con le favole e come viene trasmesso al lettore il tema centrale, il cambiamento. L’analisi si concentra sulla favola (manageriale) come un genere letterario semplice che è capace di persuadere il lettore a modificare un atteggiamento “sbagliato” e ad adottare nuovi punti di vista in merito al cambiamento. Il mio interesse era principalmente basato sullo stile linguistico e sul tipo di lessico utilizzato dall’autore al fine di raggiungere il suo obiettivo nonché sulla valutazione della readability del testo. Ciò è stato possibile attraverso l’uso di Textalyser, uno strumento semplice di analisi automatica del testo disponibile in rete, molto efficace e utile per tracciare alcune osservazioni linguistiche ed extra-linguistiche del contenuto.

Abstract – This paper investigates the metaphorical conceptualization of peace by former leaders George W. Bush, Ariel Sharon, and Mahmoud Abbas. Specifically, it examines how peace/the peace process is conceptualized via metaphors through the notion of JOURNEY and MOVEMENT. The corpus in this study comprises twenty speeches given by the three politicians over a four-year period (2002-2005). The corpus data is analyzed using a combination of different methods. The tools are mainly Conceptual Metaphor Theory (Lakoff and Johnson 1980), the MIPVU procedure (Steen et al. 2010), and Critical Metaphor Analysis (Charteris-Black 2004). Findings reveal that JOURNEY metaphors are a vital and common part of the three politicians’ political discourse. Overall, there are very few metaphors for peace unique to the individual politicians. The main differences observed lie not in which metaphors are used, but in what aspects of peace or the peace process they are used to highlight.Keywords: metaphor identification, conceptual metaphor, Critical Metaphor Analysis, political discourse, peace.

Abstract – This paper examines the front pages of four printed newspapers (The Guardian, The Times, Corriere della Sera and la Repubblica) on the first day of the general election campaign in 2005 in the UK (4th April) and the Italian campaign in 2006 (11th February). The aim is to show first of all how the positioning of elements (i.e. pictures, cartoons, headlines, articles and even advertisements), on the left and on the right of the page, or in the upper or lower sections is not at random and in fact conveys specific information. Secondly, it will also illustrate how words, images and colours on the same page bond with each other by means of a common theme or “topic of the day” suggested by the newspaper itself. The second part of this work, instead, focuses on the language of the headlines (and their articles) adopted on the front pages of the four dailies during both the 2005 and 2006 election campaigns in the UK and in Italy respectively and how they are designed to affect and influence their readers, who are, after all, prospective voters.Keywords: newspapers, front page, headlines, topic, election campaign.

Abstract – By analysing the concrete example of an article published in the journal “Synergies Canada” n°3 (2011), which is representative of a bigger range affecting the historiography of Surrealism, this paper aims to give a contribution in the demystification of ontological (and therefore ideological) approaches reducing the accuracy and the seriousness of “scientific” appraisals of Surrealism, mainly when they prefer to follow less the facts and the documents than the metaphysical chattering, or even the slanders issued from enemies of the surrealist movement. The false image of Surrealism which derives from such methods will be discussed in three sections showing the deficiencies and the distortions of this very article from a historical, ontological and documentary point of view.Keywords: Surrealism, Breton, Bounoure, Schuster, Chénieux-Gendron.Résumé – En analysant l’exemple concret d’un article paru dans la revue “Synergies Canada” n°3 (2011), représentatif d’un ensemble plus vaste affectant l’historiographie surréaliste, cette étude veut contribuer à la démystification des démarches ontologiques (et donc idéologiques) qui réduisent notablement l’exactitude et le sérieux des appréciations “scientifiques” du surréalisme, surtout quand elles préfèrent s’en tenir moins aux faits et aux documents qu’aux bavardages métaphysiques, voire à des hostilités issues des ennemis du mouvement surréaliste. La fausseté de l’image du surréalisme qui en résulte sera analysée en trois volets révélant les carences et les distorsions de cet article du point de vue historique, ontologique et documentaire. Mots clés: surréalisme, Breton, Bounoure, Schuster, Chénieux-Gendron.

Abstract English language teaching materials usually reflect both the explicit and the implicit attitudes and beliefs of their authors, of the society and the culture of the times they live in. Attitudes and beliefs are bound to change over time and are affected by socio-cultural changes, particularly in areas such as power relationships, the image of women and that of identity construction. The first coursebook analyses in terms of women’s representations and sexist attitudes date back to the 70s and the 80s (e.g. Hartman, Judd 1978; Stern 1976; Porreca 1984; Schmitz 1975, 1984) and have been greatly influenced by language and gender studies (e.g. Sunderland 1992, 1994, 2000; Sunderland, Litosseliti 2002; Cameron 2005). This paper is aimed at presenting the results of a study on how women and their voices have been portrayed in ELT coursebooks addressed to Italian students over time. The analysis carried out in a diachronic perspective, have specifically focussed upon textbooks published between the 1950s and the beginning of the 80s in order to represent different historical perspectives. The proposed stretch in time to the 80s is aimed at investigating the most relevant shifts occurring in ELT coursebooks in the 70s as a consequence of changes in society and the influence of gender studies. The categories used to analyse the ELT materials have been: the representation (as well as the omission) of women and their roles in texts and illustrations; the language used to refer to women and its role in maintaining, diminishing or reinforcing sexist values. Despite a correspondence between gender representations and ongoing changes in society, the textbooks examined appear to represent more traditional than innovative views on women. Keywords: ELT course-books, women, attitudes, gender studies, diachronic study Abstract I materiali utilizzati per l’insegnamento dell’inglese di solito riflettono atteggiamenti e convinzioni dei rispettivi autori, della società e della cultura in cui vivono, che sono però destinati a mutare nel tempo in seguito a cambiamenti socio-culturali, in special modo in aree quali le relazioni di potere, l’immagine femminile, la costruzione identitaria. Le prime analisi di libri di testo relative alla rappresentazione delle donne e a atteggiamenti sessisti risalgono agli anni settanta e ottanta (ad es. Hartman, Judd 1978; Stern 1976; Porreca 1984; Schmitz 1975, 1984) e sono state fortemente influenzate anche dagli studi di genere (ad es. Sunderland 1992, 1994, 2000; Sunderland, Litosseliti 2002; Cameron 2005). Questo contributo si propone di presentare i risultati di uno studio su come nel periodo considerato le donne e le loro voci siano state rappresentate nei libri di testo per l’insegnamento dell’inglese destinati a studenti italiani. La prospettiva diacronica – dagli anni cinquanta e l’inizio degli anni ottanta - mira a meglio cogliere i cambiamenti storici. La proposta di estendere agli anni ottanta è finalizzata a investigare i cambiamenti più rilevanti determinati sia dai cambiamenti sociali sia dagli studi di genere degli anni settanta. Le categorie utilizzate sono state: la rappresentazione (e l’omissione) delle donne e dei loro ruoli nei testi e nelle illustrazioni; la lingua usata per riferirsi alle donne e al loro ruolo nel mantenere, diminuire o rafforzare I valori sessisti. Nonostante una certa corrispondenza tra cambiamenti sociali e rappresentazioni legate al genere, i materiali esaminati paiono offrire una visione più tradizionalista che innovativa delle donne. Keywords: Libri di testo per la didattica dell’inglese, donne, atteggiamenti, studi di genere, studio diacronico