HISTORY OF THE ITALIAN LANGUAGE II

This course is part of the Bachelor Degree in Humanities (Lettere), curriculum of Antiquity and curriculum of Science of the literary text and communication.
It aims to provide students with a basic knowledge of the external linguistic history of Italian, from the Origins (transition from Latin to Romance, earliest written records in Italian vernaculars) to the Contemporary Era, with special regard to the most relevant periods of the linguistic codification (the Trecento, the "questione della lingua" in the 16th century, the 19th century, the national diffusion of written and oral Italian after 1861). The achievement of these objectives will enable students to apply autonomously the methods and tools of the history of the Italian language to the historical-linguistic analysis and contextualization of texts written in Italian vernaculars and the Italian language, in any of its varieties, between the Middle Ages and the 20th century.

By the end of the course students are expected to:
- know the basic bibliographical instruments of the discipline;
- be familiar with the most relevant events of the external linguistic history of Italian, from the Origins until the present;
- be able to contextualize linguistically a text in an Italian vernacular and in the Italian language, in any of its varieties, especially as far as the earliest written records of Italo-Romance vernaculars are concerned;
- be able to comment the texts read during the lessons, especially for what concerns the linguistic structures and the interpretative hypotheses proposed by scholars;
- be able to communicate the specific characteristics of the history of the Italian language, by connecting them with the political, social, literary and cultural history of Italy and Europe;
- make use of a convenient scientific terminology by analyzing texts, notably the texts read and commented upon in the classes.

Students are expected to have already attended the course History of the Italian language I. The final result of History of the Italian language (12 credits) will be the average of the evaluation of the two exams.

The course is divided into two parts. The first part deals with the main events in the history of the Italian language from its origins to present day, paying special attention to the so-called 'Questione della lingua'. The second part will focus on the earliest records of Italo-Romance vernaculars (within the 11th century), which will be read and commented upon during the lessons.

Claudio Marazzini, La lingua italiana. Profilo storico, 3rd ed., Bologna, il Mulino, 2002.
Ludovica Maconi, Mirko Volpi, Antichi documenti dei volgari italiani, Roma, Carocci, 2022 (Premessa & Introduzione [pages 9-38] + chapters 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.7, 1.14, 1.15, 2.3, 2.4).
Notes taken during the classes and learning materials uploaded to Moodle.

Students will have to pass an oral exam of 20-30 minutes. During the exam, students should demonstrate their knowledge of the topics discussed in class and illustrated in the reference texts. Students should also be able to analyse the texts read in class and commented upon in detail in the reference texts, as far as both the linguistic and the philological aspects are concerned.

Frontal teaching. All materials 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

Students not attending the classes will prepare the whole handbook by Maconi and Volpi.

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