A corpus-based investigation of language change in Italian: The case of grazie/ringraziare di and grazie/ringraziare per

In Italian, grazie ‘thanks’ and ringraziare ‘to thank’ historically introduce a recipient by means of the preposition di ‘of’ (Renzi et al 1991: 545-548); when grazie and ringraziare introduce a subordinate infinite clause, they may all the same be followed by either di or per ‘for’, the latter being the habitual preposition introducing an implicit causal subordinate (Renzi et al ibid.). In light of these considerations, a general lower frequency of occurrence of collocations with per would be expected. However, a number of authors (e.g., Renzi 2000, Alfieri et al 2008: 331) have reported an increase in the use of constructions with per; though with differences in the approach and the framework employed, they have also hypothesised that such an increase may be due to language contact with English. A careful exploration of the relevant literature, however, has revealed that such claims of both an increase in the use of grazie/ringraziare per in Italian and of an influence from English as the cause of the increase have so far outpaced empirical substantiation. This study, on the contrary, uses verifiable and objective data such as diachronic language corpora of written, spoken and dubbed Italian to empirically investigate the distribution of both constructions through the history of Italian. The results will reveal that, from 1200 to 2011, the frequency of use of forms with per has indeed more than octupled in writing and that, from 1965 to 2004, has more than doubled in speech. Moreover, by analysing the distribution of the studied constructions in a corpus of dubbed Italian from (American) English, the article will also explore the possibility that language contact with English, mainly via dubbing translations, may have played a concurrent fundamental role for such changes

Stai scherzando? ‘Are you kidding?’: Investigating the influence of dubbing on the Italian Progressive

While it is not surprising that English would influence certain domains such as international trade, information technology, and academia, to name a few, the impact of English on non-domain specific elements remains less vigorously studied. In Italian, for instance, an increase in the use of present progressive constructions in dubbed products has been reported by a number of authors (i.e., Ferro & Sardo 2008) who have also hypothesised that such an increase may have passed into real use Italian and that it may be due to the influence from English during the translation process. In consideration of the fact that in Italian the progressive form is not obligatory and that there are limitations on the possible semantic and morphosyntactic combinations, a general low frequency is expected. However, in this study, the diachronic quantitative investigations from written and spoken data of real use Italian have revealed that, from the Unification of Italy (1861) to 2011, the frequency of use of such a construction has more than quadrupled in writing and that, from 1965 to 2004, has more than tripled in speech. The paper also explores the hypothesis that such a phenomenon may go beyond a mere frequency increase; our data show that the process may be so deep that it has affected formulaic expressions such as scherzi? [do you joke?] Ǯare you joking?ǯ, which traditionally existed only at the simple form, by generating a progressive variant (e.g., stai scherzando?). The preliminary findings from the diachronic investigations also show plausible correlations with an English influence via dubbing

Towards an empirical approach to the study of dubbing-induced language change in Italian

This study develops an innovative method to researching translation interference and language change through dubbing and it takes the Italian language as a case study. By employing an empirical methodology, this research overcomes some of the limitations of previous approaches to the subject and identifies the object of study with much more clarity. The analysis also makes a valid contribution to cognitive research on media-induced language change, indicating that repetition over time, rather than, or as well as, media engagement, is a decisive factor in assimilating and subsequently diffusing innovative linguistic features into the language. First, I carefully explore current practices and identify a number of limitations in the relevant fields of study. Second, I develop a methodology which encompasses the need for a more precise methodology and empirically substantiates the argument of dubbing-induced language change proposed before. Finally, I apply such a method to 73 present-day Italian linguistic expressions thus demonstrating the method’s effectiveness and applicability

Narratives of Italian Transatlantic (re)migration, 1897–1936

Remigration is typically envisioned as the final stage of the migration experience, a one-way movement from the host country to the country of origin. This article offers a novel, intimate view of historical return migration as a more complex and discursive process. The case study is Italian American migrants at the turn of the twentieth century, one of the groups which – according to historical statistics – was most actively engaged in Transatlantic remigration; more recent readings, however, show that many of these returnees eventually re-emigrated to the US. Using for the first time immigrant newspapers against the baseline of the Italian public discourse, the article analyzes Italian migrants’ own accounts of remigration as a way to access the more subjective dimension of migration. The integration of text mining and Critical Discourse Analysis will show that migrants were experiencing migration as a sense of identity crisis manifested through feelings of being misunderstood, rejected and unappreciated. These results indicate a less material reading of (re)migration, that is beyond economic reasons, and that for many individuals remigration was a bi-directional movement, only fully concluded when they were no longer experiencing a sense of identity crisis, be it in their homeland or the host society. The article will argue that this was the visible outward sign of a much more profound issue: the Italian Government’s view of (r)emigration –mainly through the lens of domestic economic advantage –deeply underestimated the complexity of migration as a social phenomenon and as a profoundly changing psychological experience. In the long run, this error of judgment deeply damaged Italy as many of those ritornati felt misunderstood and disillusioned and crossed the Atlantic again, this time never to return

Using word vector models to trace conceptual change over time and space in historical newspapers, 1840–1914

Linking large digitized newspaper corpora in different languages that have become available in national and state libraries opens up new possibilities for the computational analysis of patterns of information flow across national and linguistic boundaries. The significant contribution this article presents is to demonstrate how word vector models can be used to explore the way concepts have shifted in meaning over time, as they migrated across space, by comparing newspapers from different countries published between 1840 and 1914. We define a concept, rather pragmatically, as a key term or core idea that has been used in historical discourse: an abstraction or mental representation that has served as a building block for thoughts and beliefs. We use historical newspapers in English, Finnish, German and Swedish from collections in the UK, US, Germany, and Finland, as well as the Europeana collection. As use cases, we analyze how the different conceptual constructs of “nation” and “illness” emerged and changed between 1840 and 1920. Conceptual change over time is simulated by creating a series of overlapping word vector models, each spanning ten years. Historical vocabularies are retrieved on the basis of vector space proximity. Conceptual change across space is simulated by comparing the historical change of vocabularies in newspaper collections from different nations in several languages. This computational approach to conceptual history opens up new ways to identify patterns in public discourse over longer periods of time and across borders.</p

DH Benelux Journal 4. The Humanities in a Digital World

The fourth volume of the DH Benelux Journal. This volume includes seven full-length, peer-reviewed articles that are based on accepted contributions to the 2021 virtual DH Benelux conference. Contents: 1. Editors' Preface (Wout Dillen, Margherita Fantoli, Marijn Koolen, Marieke van Erp); 2. Introduction: The Humanities in a Digital World (Lorella Viola, Jelena Prokic, Antske Fokkens, Tommaso Caselli); 3. A Game of Persistence, Self-doubt, and Curiosity: Surveying Code Literacy in Digital Humanities (Elli Bleeker, Marijn Koolen, Kaspar Beelen, Liliana Melgar, Joris van Zundert, Sally Chambers); 4. Introducing the DHARPA Project: An Interdisciplinary Lab to Enable Critical DH Practice (Angela R. Cunningham, Helena Jaskov, Sean Takats, Lorella Viola); 5. Examining a Multi Layered Approach for Classification of OCR Quality without Ground Truth (Mirjam Cuper); 6. Modeling Ontologies for Individual Artists: A Case Study of a Dutch Ceramic Glass Sculptor (Victor de Boer, Daan Raven, Erik Esmeijer, Johan Oome); 7. Judging a Book by its Criticism: A Digital Analysis of the Professional and Community Driven Literary Criticism of the Ingeborg-Bachmann-Preis (Lore De Greve, Gunther Martens); 8. When No News is Bad News. News-Based Change Detection during COVID-19 (Kristoffer L. Nielbo, Frida Hæstrup, Kenneth C. Enevoldsen, Peter B. Vahlstrup, Rebekah B. Baglini, Andreas Roepstorff); 9. Combining Tools with Linked Data: a Social History Example (Ivo Zandhuis)

COVID-19 severity and mortality in patients with CLL: an update of the international ERIC and Campus CLL study

Patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) may be more susceptible to Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) due to age, disease, and treatment-related immunosuppression. We aimed to assess risk factors of outcome and elucidate the impact of CLL-directed treatments on the course of COVID-19. We conducted a retrospective, international study, collectively including 941 patients with CLL and confirmed COVID-19. Data from the beginning of the pandemic until March 16, 2021, were collected from 91 centers. The risk factors of case fatality rate (CFR), disease severity, and overall survival (OS) were investigated. OS analysis was restricted to patients with severe COVID-19 (definition: hospitalization with need of oxygen or admission into an intensive care unit). CFR in patients with severe COVID-19 was 38.4%. OS was inferior for patients in all treatment categories compared to untreated (p < 0.001). Untreated patients had a lower risk of death (HR = 0.54, 95% CI:0.41–0.72). The risk of death was higher for older patients and those suffering from cardiac failure (HR = 1.03, 95% CI:1.02–1.04; HR = 1.79, 95% CI:1.04–3.07, respectively). Age, CLL-directed treatment, and cardiac failure were significant risk factors of OS. Untreated patients had a better chance of survival than those on treatment or recently treated

The evolving landscape of COVID‐19 and post‐COVID condition in patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia: A study by ERIC, the European research initiative on CLL

In this retrospective international multicenter study, we describe the clinical characteristics and outcomes of patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) and related disorders (small lymphocytic lymphoma and high-count monoclonal B lymphocytosis) infected by SARS-CoV-2, including the development of post-COVID condition. Data from 1540 patients with CLL infected by SARS-CoV-2 from January 2020 to May 2022 were included in the analysis and assigned to four phases based on cases disposition and SARS-CoV-2 variants emergence. Post-COVID condition was defined according to the WHO criteria. Patients infected during the most recent phases of the pandemic, though carrying a higher comorbidity burden, were less often hospitalized, rarely needed intensive care unit admission, or died compared to patients infected during the initial phases. The 4-month overall survival (OS) improved through the phases, from 68% to 83%, p = .0015. Age, comorbidity, CLL-directed treatment, but not vaccination status, emerged as risk factors for mortality. Among survivors, 6.65% patients had a reinfection, usually milder than the initial one, and 16.5% developed post-COVID condition. The latter was characterized by fatigue, dyspnea, lasting cough, and impaired concentration. Infection severity was the only risk factor for developing post-COVID. The median time to resolution of the post-COVID condition was 4.7 months. OS in patients with CLL improved during the different phases of the pandemic, likely due to the improvement of prophylactic and therapeutic measures against SARS-CoV-2 as well as the emergence of milder variants. However, mortality remained relevant and a significant number of patients developed post-COVID conditions, warranting further investigations

Genome-wide identification and phenotypic characterization of seizure-associated copy number variations in 741,075 individuals

Copy number variants (CNV) are established risk factors for neurodevelopmental disorders with seizures or epilepsy. With the hypothesis that seizure disorders share genetic risk factors, we pooled CNV data from 10,590 individuals with seizure disorders, 16,109 individuals with clinically validated epilepsy, and 492,324 population controls and identified 25 genome-wide significant loci, 22 of which are novel for seizure disorders, such as deletions at 1p36.33, 1q44, 2p21-p16.3, 3q29, 8p23.3-p23.2, 9p24.3, 10q26.3, 15q11.2, 15q12-q13.1, 16p12.2, 17q21.31, duplications at 2q13, 9q34.3, 16p13.3, 17q12, 19p13.3, 20q13.33, and reciprocal CNVs at 16p11.2, and 22q11.21. Using genetic data from additional 248,751 individuals with 23 neuropsychiatric phenotypes, we explored the pleiotropy of these 25 loci. Finally, in a subset of individuals with epilepsy and detailed clinical data available, we performed phenome-wide association analyses between individual CNVs and clinical annotations categorized through the Human Phenotype Ontology (HPO). For six CNVs, we identified 19 significant associations with specific HPO terms and generated, for all CNVs, phenotype signatures across 17 clinical categories relevant for epileptologists. This is the most comprehensive investigation of CNVs in epilepsy and related seizure disorders, with potential implications for clinical practice