PROFESSIONAL WRITING (ITALIAN LANGUAGE)

This course is part of the Bachelor Degree in Humanities (Lettere), curriculum of Science of the literary text and communication. The course aims to provide students with skills in academic and professional writing by means of frontal teaching and practical exercises.

1. Knowledge and comprehension:
1.1 to get familiar with some basic notions of textual linguistics applied to the Italian language;
1.2 to be aware of the socio-linguistic contexts of use of Italian and of the dynamics of variation, especially as far as the diaphasic and diamesic axes are concerned;
1.3 to undesrtand the linguistic peculiarities of textual operations such as paraphrase and summary;
2. Capability of applying knowledge and comprehension:
2.1 to understand the importance of textual typologies in relation to text planning;
2.2 to be able to write informative, descriptive, argumentative texts;
3. Judgement ability:
3.1 to be able to analyse texts (both academic and professional) belonging to different textual typologies;
4. Communicative abilities:
4.1 to be able to communicate the specific characteristics of the discipline by making use of a convenient scientific terminology;
4.2 to be able to use a clear and effective language (written and spoken);
5. Learning abilities:
5.1 to be able to study critically the reference texts, hierarchize information and allow notions to interact mutually.

Basic skills in Italian grammar.

This course covers, among others, the following topics: text: its structure and fundamental requirements; differences between written and spoken Italian; paraphrase (with a focus on the language of bureaucracy); summarizing information; text typologies, with a focus on argumentative texts; introduction to special languages. The course includes practical exercises.

F. BRUNI, G. ALFIERI, S. FORNASIERO, S. TAMIOZZO GOLDMANN, Manuale di scrittura e comunicazione. Per l’università. Per l’azienda, edited by A. COTUGNO and F. MALAGNINI, Bologna, Zanichelli, 2013.
L. SERIANNI, Italiani scritti, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2012.

Further readings:
RIF – Repertorio italiano di famiglie di parole. Dagli etimi ai significati per arricchire il lessico, ed. by M. COLOMBO and P. D’ACHILLE, Bologna, Zanichelli, 2019.

Non-attending students will add:
L. SERIANNI, Leggere, scrivere, argomentare. Prove ragionate di scrittura, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2014.

Students will have to pass an oral exam. During the exam, students will demonstrate their knowledge of the topics discussed in class and illustrated in the reference texts. In particular, students are expected to deal with questions concerning topics such as the notion of textuality and text tipologies, the differences between written and spoken Italian, paraphrasing and summarizing a text (or a plurality of texts); special languages.

Frontal teaching and exercises. All materials (texts in photocopies) will be available in the e-learning platform moodle.unive.it. Feedback from students will be constantly solicited, according to an interactive and dynamic idea of teaching.

Italian

Class attendance is strongly recommended.

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