The characteristics of popular Italian, as compared to other types of Italian, are examined on the basis of a study by Spitzer (1921 [2016]) that revolutionized linguistics. For the first time, he shifted the interest of linguists from traditional writing to a type of writing strongly influenced by spoken language, which displayed features that were not dealt with in the grammars of the time. Spitzer leads us to reflect on a series of paradoxes regarding the Great War and the very nature of language: 1. The catastrophe of the war has always been considered unspeakable and unrepresentable (Amato 2015, Amato, Gorgone and Miglino 2017), but to what extent is this due to the obvious restrictions imposed by writing, as well as by censorship, on those who were in a position to describe it? 2. How is it possible to transcribe, and thus analyse, this material (letters written by the working classes) without manipulating them, without radically transforming them into something else? 3. How should we assess deviations from the standard found in such letters, and how should we interpret the many similarities between popular Italian and Italian Umgangssprache? The content of the letters confirms the inexpressibility of the war, since they rarely contain interesting historical information. Instead, their form, their signifier, tells us a great deal about the Italian population of the time and the differences between written and spoken language, between standard, substandard and neo-standard.
Where Linguistics Meets Historiography: The Great War and Popular Italian in the Works of Leo Spitzer
fabio rossi
2018-01-01
Abstract
The characteristics of popular Italian, as compared to other types of Italian, are examined on the basis of a study by Spitzer (1921 [2016]) that revolutionized linguistics. For the first time, he shifted the interest of linguists from traditional writing to a type of writing strongly influenced by spoken language, which displayed features that were not dealt with in the grammars of the time. Spitzer leads us to reflect on a series of paradoxes regarding the Great War and the very nature of language: 1. The catastrophe of the war has always been considered unspeakable and unrepresentable (Amato 2015, Amato, Gorgone and Miglino 2017), but to what extent is this due to the obvious restrictions imposed by writing, as well as by censorship, on those who were in a position to describe it? 2. How is it possible to transcribe, and thus analyse, this material (letters written by the working classes) without manipulating them, without radically transforming them into something else? 3. How should we assess deviations from the standard found in such letters, and how should we interpret the many similarities between popular Italian and Italian Umgangssprache? The content of the letters confirms the inexpressibility of the war, since they rarely contain interesting historical information. Instead, their form, their signifier, tells us a great deal about the Italian population of the time and the differences between written and spoken language, between standard, substandard and neo-standard.Pubblicazioni consigliate
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