HISTORY OF THE ITALIAN LANGUAGE

This module is one of the characterizing activities of the master's degree program in Italian Philology, Linguistics and Literature.
The course aims to provide advanced skills in the linguistic analysis of written texts, ancient and modern, and their historical and cultural contextualization. Achieving the objective will enable students to independently apply the methodologies and instrumentation proper to historical and textual linguistics, discourse analysis, rhetoric and stylistics, and intellectual history to past and contemporary, literary and non-literary texts.

Expected outcomes.
1. Knowledge and understanding:
1.1 Knowledge of the linguistic debate between "Toscani" and "Lombardi".
1.2 Knowledge and historical and cultural framing of the examined texts.
1.3 Understanding of the longue durée that characterizes this dispute.
2. Ability to apply knowledge and understanding:
2.1 Ability to distinguish different linguistic theories in relation to the different genres and textual traditions investigated, so as to grasp similarities and differences.
3. Judgment skills:
3.1 Ability to critically evaluate the examined authors' linguistic ideas.
3.2 Ability to correctly interpret the linguistic and rhetorical vocabulary of the examined texts.
4. Communication Skills:
4.1 Ability to communicate in appropriate technical language the expressive and rhetorical features of the texts examined.
5. Learning skills:
5.1 Know how to critically study reference texts, hierarchizing information and making connections between various notions.

Students should have met the educational objectives of History of the Italian Language I and II (or Italian Linguistics I and II) and Italian Literature I and II.

Course title: "Toscani" and "Lombardi"

The dispute between "Toscani" (Tuscans) and "Lombardi" (which is to say 'people from Northern Italy', according to the ancient meaning of this word) runs through Italian linguistic and literary history, (1967) taking on different contents and expressive attitudes, responding to the different urgencies that, from time to time, trigger it. Such a tension, moreover, was reflected, even on Italian literary historiography, for a long time profoundly marked by a Tuscan-centric approach (to the detriment of other geolinguistic areas and cultural provinces), which would be shaken especially since the publication of Carlo Dionisotti's Geografia e storia della letteratura italiana, and the flourishing of philological, linguistic and critical ascertainments attributable to it. The course will review some moments of this conflict, starting from the early medieval linguistic situation and from there reviewing a series of episodes distributed over a chronological span covering four centuries of marked by changes and tensions on the political, institutional, social and cultural levels, which inevitably reflected on linguistic discussions and options.

A handout with the texts analyzed in class will be made available on the Moodle platform. A reference bibliography is given below (any bibliographical insights on authors and texts discussed in class will be provided during the course):

F. Bruni, Fra «Lombardi», «Tusci» e «Apuli»: osservazioni sulle aree linguistico-culturali [1990], in Id., Testi e chierici del Medioevo, Genova, Marietti, 1991, pp. 11-41.
F. Bruni, Italia. Vita e avventure di un’idea, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2010, chap. VIII.
F. Bruni, Idee d’Italia. Da Napoleone al Quarantotto, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2021, chap. II, § 1 (Madame de Staël e la meridionalizzazione dell’Italia).
A. Cotugno, La scienza della parola. Retorica e linguistica di Sperone Speroni, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2018, chapters 1 and 2 (Tra [neo-] latino e volgare; Dall'imitazione alla traduzione).
A. Cotugno, La natura e la regola (ancora su toscani e “lombardi”), in Apprendere una lingua tra uso e canone letterario. Gli esempi nella riflessione grammaticale in Europa (secoli XVI-XVIII), ed. by E. Pietrobon, A. Polo, Milano, Ledizioni, 2022, pp. 9-36.
A. Cotugno, Da un volgare all’altro. La novella in veneziano negli "Avvertimenti della lingua sopra ’l Decamerone" di Lionardo Salviati (Dec. I 9), in «L’umanesimo della parola». Studi di italianistica in memoria di Attilio Bettinzoli, ed. by V. Vianello, A. Zava, Venezia, ECF, 2023, pp. 155-173 (https://edizionicafoscari.unive.it/it/edizioni/libri/978-88-6969-653-4/ )
C. Dionisotti, Geografia e storia della letteratura italiana, Torino, Einaudi.
M. Vitale, Lombardi e Toscani nella questione del Vocabolario, in Id., La veneranda favella, Napoli, Morano, 1988, pp. 489-563.

20-30 minute oral exam. During the exams, students shall demonstrate knowledge of the topics covered in class and the ability to integrate them with the notions contained in the reference texts.

Frontal teaching. All materials read and commented upon during the lessons will be available in the e-learning platform moodle.unive.it. Although the course is not conceived as a seminar, feedback from students will be constantly solicited, according to an interactive and dynamic idea of teaching.

Italian

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