Referential, vague or impersonal? Pronominal reference and identity. Evidence from the academic writing of Italian students of English

The issue of authorial stance has been the topic of much research. A rather obvious way to claim authorial presence is to use first person reference and the corresponding determiners. However, not only is the I emerging from the text plural, but different genres are associated with differing degrees of I-ism, and these conventions vary from culture to culture. In this paper I explore the issue of authorial stance in connection with identity by focusing on the use of the first person pronouns and their respective determiners in the academic writing of Italian students of English. The study shows that referential, vague and impersonal uses of personal pronouns are intertwined in a complex way and create shades of impersonality in a heteroglossic space in which a reconstruction of the self takes place

Come fare le cose con i testi: A Modell of Christian Charity di John Winthrop

Nelle analisi del Modell of Christian Charity, il sermone che John Winthrop pronunciò nel 1630, molto è stato detto relativamente al contesto storico-culturale alla base della produzione del testo. L’analisi proposta in questo saggio si concentra fondamentalmente sul testo, partendo dal presupposto che la sua essenza possa essere analizzata investigando ciò che, in prospetti­va azionale, il testo ‘fa’ in uno specifico dominio del discorso. L’approccio utilizzato è dunque pragmatico e basato sulla teoria degli atti linguistici. Esso prende in considerazione il contesto, sia nella dimensione oggettiva che cognitiva, ed esplora in che modo il testo del Modell svolga la sua funzione in un determinato ambito discorsivo. L’analisi considera tre livelli illocutori: il livello degli atti linguistici, la combinazione degli atti linguistici in unità superiori che chiamia­mo funzioni testuali, e la combinazione di queste funzioni testuali in un determinato profilo funzionale. Particolare attenzione viene data al livello intermedio delle funzioni testuali poiché esse, in particolare, mettono in luce le caratteristiche distintive del testo quale esemplare di un particolare genere. L’analisi è finalizzata a mostrare il modo in cui Winthrop crea i motivi per una azione collettiva attraverso l’uso magistrale del profilo funzionale del genere sermone, com­binato con l’uso, altrettanto magistrale, della polisemia lessicale. Il risultato è un testo in cui tout se tient, e che è unanimemente considerato uno dei testi fondativi della letteratura e della cultura americana

The role of inference in motion event encoding / decoding: A cross-linguistic inquiry into English and Italian

In this paper we compare motion event encoding / decoding in English and Italian using authentic data taken from translated texts, and we investigate how English sentences using a manner verb as main verb may receive a directional reading in a prevalently Verb-framed language like Italian, i.e. a language which lacks inherently directional particles, or other specific morphological means expressing telic directional meaning. We analyze directional boundary and non-boundary-crossing events and also use self-contained motion verbs as a comparative element. Analysis of our corpus shows that Italian uses manner verbs to encode dislocational events in about 42% of the cases, and that, contrary to our expectations, a similar percentage of manner verbs is used both in non boundary (42.6%) and boundary-crossing events (38.5%). Moreover, manner verbs are used in about 85% of Italian sentences expressing selfcontained motion events. In the discussion we illustrate how the semantic profiles of manner verbs differ in their availability to encode directional events: the encoding / decoding of dislocational meaning results from the interplay of inferential factors and linguistic means of different sorts distributed in the sentence which interact with the verb meaning

CLIL e formazione linguistica: alcune riflessioni

This article analyses the state of language training in Italy and in Europe, highlighting some of the critical issues arising in the Italian system, starting with the lack of an organic strategy for creating curricula and training foreign language teachers. The CLIL methodology, as proposed in secondary schools and Italian universities, is considered and an attempt is made to clarify some misunderstandings that make it difficult to apply correctl