ITALIAN LINGUISTICS

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 a basic knowledge of the internal structures and socio-linguistic uses and contexts of Italian. Special attention will be given to the study of Italian lexicon and lexicography.

By the end of the course students are expected to:
- acquire the main principles of linguistics, as far as different levels of analysis are concerned, with regard to the specific features of the Italian language;
- be able to use correctly linguistic terminology concerning the internal structures of Italian and its different uses in the society (with special regard to semantics and lexicology);
- be acquainted with the main notions of lexicology, semantics and lexicography;
- know the basic bibliographical instruments of the discipline;
- be able to analyse the structure of a dictionary entry;
- be able to communicate the specific features of the Italian language (with special regard to its lexicon and semantics) by making use of a convenient scientific terminology;
- be able to study the reference texts, by hierarchizing information and allowing notions to interact mutually.

Students planning to attend this course should have already attended at least one course of Principles of Linguistics and/or History of the Italian language.

Introduction to Italian linguistics: lexicon and semantics.

This course aims to provide students with a basic knowledge of the internal structures and socio-linguistic uses and contexts of Italian. It gives special attention to issues of lexicology, semantics, and lexicography and aims at making students able to analyse the structure of a dictionary entry by comparing different typologies of Italian thesauri.

Massimo Palermo, Linguistica italiana, Bologna, il Mulino, 2015: parte I, capp. 2 Lessico, 3 Morfologia, 4 Fonetica e fonologia; parte II, cap. 6 L’italiano nello spazio sociale e comunicativo, §§ 1-4 (La competenza plurilngue; Le dimensioni della variazione; Scritto, parlato e trasmesso; Italiano standard [anche quadro 4.1 Sistema, norma e uso), 6 (Le lingue speciali); cap. VII Le varietà nello spazio geografico, §§ 1 (Le varietà in campo), 3 (Gli italiani regionali).
Marcello Aprile, Dalle parole ai dizionari, Bologna, Il Mulino.

Handouts given in class, which will be also available on Moodle.

Students will have to pass a written exam of one hour (with both closed and open questions). Students should demonstrate their knowledge of the topics discussed in class and illustrated in the reference texts. In particular, students are expected to demonstrate their knowledge in the general field of Italian linguistics with special attention to the Italian lexicon, semantics and lexicography. Students should be able to use of a convenient scientific terminology.
Assessment Criteria:
A. scores in the 18-22 range will be awarded in the presence of:
- acceptable but just sufficient or slightly more than sufficient knowledge of the program;
B. scores in band 23-26 will be awarded in the presence of:
- fair knowledge of the exam syllabus;
- fair text analysis and expository skills (some inaccuracy in the use of discipline-specific language is noted);
C. scores in the 27-30 range and honors will be awarded in the presence of:
- good, very good or excellent knowledge of the syllabus;
- good, very good or excellent text analysis and expository skills, with full mastery/knowledge of the technical language of the discipline (27-30) and personal critical contribution (30L).

Frontal lessons; all the texts discussed in class will be available on the e-learning platform moodle.unive.it.

Italian

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