Tra imperi e leggerezza: l’italiano lingua illustre? / Among empires and lightness: Italian, illustrious language?
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Francesco Bruni
Sommario
Intellectual achievements, which were barely conceivable until very recently, are now possible in our contemporary global society. However, the world of Internet and its digital inhabitants raise new issues in several fields. In this paper, I will focus on the role written language plays on the social and educational stage dominated by cell phones, computers, and other electronic devices. This new human framework, strongly ego-centered and deictic (i.e. the emphasis is on I-here-now) poses questions related to the role of reading, writing, and thinking. Proposing a new approach to European humanistic tradition should be, in my opinion, the main target at this time in schools and universities. So far, the bulk of linguistic research has been devoted to oral communication as the foremost or unique subject worth studying. Writing competence and more generally the “superior” functions of human language (written communication, fluency in projecting and writing professional texts, adequate comprehension of written texts and, last but not least, so-called critical thinking), deserve greater attention from linguistic research as well as a new approach to teaching at all levels of instruction. For many years, the Girona School has devoted special attention to language in a cultural dimension. The historical development of Catalan or Italian is, needless to say, different. Furthermore, in Italian culture literary and, more precisely, intellectual language played a fundamental role in literature, politics, court life in early modern society, artistic and musical terms, and so on. However, as we are now in a global deictic society, poor in meanings and ideas (what would involve a ruthless dictatorship), conveying meanings and the values of humanistic culture is a major task for education.
Sommario
Intellectual achievements, which were barely conceivable until very recently, are now possible in our contemporary global society. However, the world of Internet and its digital inhabitants raise new issues in several fields. In this paper, I will focus on the role written language plays on the social and educational stage dominated by cell phones, computers, and other electronic devices. This new human framework, strongly ego-centered and deictic (i.e. the emphasis is on I-here-now) poses questions related to the role of reading, writing, and thinking. Proposing a new approach to European humanistic tradition should be, in my opinion, the main target at this time in schools and universities. So far, the bulk of linguistic research has been devoted to oral communication as the foremost or unique subject worth studying. Writing competence and more generally the “superior” functions of human language (written communication, fluency in projecting and writing professional texts, adequate comprehension of written texts and, last but not least, so-called critical thinking), deserve greater attention from linguistic research as well as a new approach to teaching at all levels of instruction. For many years, the Girona School has devoted special attention to language in a cultural dimension. The historical development of Catalan or Italian is, needless to say, different. Furthermore, in Italian culture literary and, more precisely, intellectual language played a fundamental role in literature, politics, court life in early modern society, artistic and musical terms, and so on. However, as we are now in a global deictic society, poor in meanings and ideas (what would involve a ruthless dictatorship), conveying meanings and the values of humanistic culture is a major task for education.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Languages as a construction 1
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I. Rules to linguistic delimitation
- El idioma, construcción social e ideológica de la lengua / Language, social and ideological construction of the tongue 9
- Tra imperi e leggerezza: l’italiano lingua illustre? / Among empires and lightness: Italian, illustrious language? 23
- The Spanish Quarter of Naples 39
- Le lingue, ponti o frontiere? Appunti sulla Sicilia linguistica / Languages, bridges or borders? Notes on linguistics Sicily 57
- La construcció de la norma cancelleresca catalana / The construction of standard chancellery Catalan 83
- Codification and prescription in linguistic standardisation 99
- The importance of prescriptivism in the development of “schemes for respelling” in 18th century pronouncing dictionaries 131
- Els discursos sobre la llengua literària en la Renaixença valenciana / Discourses on literary language in the Valencian Renaissance 145
- Anàlisi del discurs de la Gramàtica catalana (1933), de Pompeu Fabra / Discourse analysis of Pompeu Fabra's Catalan Grammar (1933) 163
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II. The myths and the authenticity of languages
- Le mythe de la langue mère / The myth of the mother tongue 181
- Language myths and the historiography of French 199
- Modern Greek 215
- Nommer l’ennemi: la “question de la langue” en Grèce et les termes désignant les variétés linguistiques / Naming the enemy: the “language issue” in Greece and the terms denoting linguistic varieties 229
- The role of narrative in shaping the semantic structure of certain expressions that belong to terminology as to one of the most important lexical groups 243
- Mitos de decadencia lingüística en la historia del neerlandés. Una exploración sociolingüística de la lengua en Flandes en los siglos xviii y xix / Myths of language decadence in Dutch history. A sociolinguistic exploration of language in Flanders in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries 265
- L’humanista Bernardí Gómez Miedes (1515-1589) i la percepció de la llengua catalana / The humanist Bernardí Gómez Miedes (1515-1589) and the perception of Catalan language 283
- De llengües, mites i emocions al xix català: el mite de la llengua del cor? / Language, myths and emotions in nineteenth-century Catalan: The myth of the language of the heart? 297
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III. Language emotions
- Factors emocionals en la formació de teories lingüístiques: el cas romànic / Emotional factors in the formation of linguistic theories: The Romanic case 321
- “El valencià no se pedrà mai”: la manipulació mediàtica de les emocions col·lectives en l’anticatalanisme valencià durant la transició (1976-1982) / “El valencià no se pedrà mai”: Media manipulation of collective emotions in Valencian Anti-Catalanism during the Transition (1976-1982) 337
- La representació nord-catalana de la llengua: entre refús del patuès i llengua de segona / The representation of Northern Catalan language: Between patois rejection and second-class language 353
- Amor, emoció i artifici de la llengua catalana a la Catalunya del Nord avui / Love, emotion and artifice of Catalan language in Northern Catalonia today 363
- El parlant multilingüe davant la llengua, el parlant monolingüe davant les llengües: a propòsit de dues autobiografies lingüístiques / The multilingual speaker facing language, the monolingual speaker facing languages: Two linguistic autobiographies 393
- Index 413
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Languages as a construction 1
-
I. Rules to linguistic delimitation
- El idioma, construcción social e ideológica de la lengua / Language, social and ideological construction of the tongue 9
- Tra imperi e leggerezza: l’italiano lingua illustre? / Among empires and lightness: Italian, illustrious language? 23
- The Spanish Quarter of Naples 39
- Le lingue, ponti o frontiere? Appunti sulla Sicilia linguistica / Languages, bridges or borders? Notes on linguistics Sicily 57
- La construcció de la norma cancelleresca catalana / The construction of standard chancellery Catalan 83
- Codification and prescription in linguistic standardisation 99
- The importance of prescriptivism in the development of “schemes for respelling” in 18th century pronouncing dictionaries 131
- Els discursos sobre la llengua literària en la Renaixença valenciana / Discourses on literary language in the Valencian Renaissance 145
- Anàlisi del discurs de la Gramàtica catalana (1933), de Pompeu Fabra / Discourse analysis of Pompeu Fabra's Catalan Grammar (1933) 163
-
II. The myths and the authenticity of languages
- Le mythe de la langue mère / The myth of the mother tongue 181
- Language myths and the historiography of French 199
- Modern Greek 215
- Nommer l’ennemi: la “question de la langue” en Grèce et les termes désignant les variétés linguistiques / Naming the enemy: the “language issue” in Greece and the terms denoting linguistic varieties 229
- The role of narrative in shaping the semantic structure of certain expressions that belong to terminology as to one of the most important lexical groups 243
- Mitos de decadencia lingüística en la historia del neerlandés. Una exploración sociolingüística de la lengua en Flandes en los siglos xviii y xix / Myths of language decadence in Dutch history. A sociolinguistic exploration of language in Flanders in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries 265
- L’humanista Bernardí Gómez Miedes (1515-1589) i la percepció de la llengua catalana / The humanist Bernardí Gómez Miedes (1515-1589) and the perception of Catalan language 283
- De llengües, mites i emocions al xix català: el mite de la llengua del cor? / Language, myths and emotions in nineteenth-century Catalan: The myth of the language of the heart? 297
-
III. Language emotions
- Factors emocionals en la formació de teories lingüístiques: el cas romànic / Emotional factors in the formation of linguistic theories: The Romanic case 321
- “El valencià no se pedrà mai”: la manipulació mediàtica de les emocions col·lectives en l’anticatalanisme valencià durant la transició (1976-1982) / “El valencià no se pedrà mai”: Media manipulation of collective emotions in Valencian Anti-Catalanism during the Transition (1976-1982) 337
- La representació nord-catalana de la llengua: entre refús del patuès i llengua de segona / The representation of Northern Catalan language: Between patois rejection and second-class language 353
- Amor, emoció i artifici de la llengua catalana a la Catalunya del Nord avui / Love, emotion and artifice of Catalan language in Northern Catalonia today 363
- El parlant multilingüe davant la llengua, el parlant monolingüe davant les llengües: a propòsit de dues autobiografies lingüístiques / The multilingual speaker facing language, the monolingual speaker facing languages: Two linguistic autobiographies 393
- Index 413
