STUDI ITALIANI DI LINGUISTICA TEORICA E APPLICATA

Introduzione

Carla Bagna — 2026-03-09

Osservare le lingue nello spazio pubblico significa interrogarsi su come le società contemporanee rendano visibili, o invisibili, le proprie tensioni interne. Le lingue, infatti, vengono impiegate nella comunicazione pubblica non sempre e non solo come mezzo per trasmettere messaggi commerciali, regolativi o trasgressivi (Scollon & Scollon, 2003), ma proprio in quanto potenti sistemi semiotici, in grado di per sé di far circolare valori simbolici ed economici, di negoziare identità e influenzare ideologie e atteggiamenti. Le scritture esposte, in tal senso, non si limitano a riflettere repertori linguistici preesistenti (Vandenbrouke, 2015), come l’“ethnolinguistic assumption” (Blommaert, Leppänen, Spotti, 2012: 3) darebbe per scontato, ma partecipano attivamente alla costruzione dei luoghi.

Typographic Landscaping and Material Culture in Plurilingual Settings: Discussing data from Sardinia

Laura Linzmeier — 2026-03-09

This article explores the visual and material factors that can carry, highlight, and orient verbal elements within the linguistic landscape, with a particular focus on typography and materiality. The study concentrates on the multilingual context of Sardinia, an island marked by long-standing multilingualism and cultural diversity. Although both the autochthonous and allochthonous minority languages spoken on the island did not develop their own vernacular writing systems, typographic choices — from subtle microtypographic strategies to the inclusion of images and materials evoking the island’s cultural heritage — play a crucial role in shaping Sardinia’s linguistic landscape, especially in the bottom-up sector and the tourism domain. Drawing on examples collected during our fieldwork, including signage related to restaurants, souvenir shops, and tourist service providers, we discuss the potential of typography and materiality to enhance and display the symbolic value of Sardinia’s cultural and linguistic heritage.

Impieghi simbolici (e non solo) del dialetto bergamasco nel paesaggio linguistico locale

Federica Guerini — 2026-03-09

This chapter focuses on the public display of Bergamasco, an Italo-Romance dialect of the Eastern Lombard group spoken in Northern Italy. It will be argued that the introduction of road signs displaying both the Italian and the Bergamasco version of place-names by some of the local municipal authorities may have shaped community members’ attitudes and, possibly, encouraged the use of Bergamasco in other (both offline and online) written domains, thus substantiating the view that «being visible may be as important for minority languages as being heard» (Marten et alii, 2012: 1). The presence of Bergamasco in the local linguistic landscape began in the second half of the 1990s with a prevalently symbolic function, i.e. to express a local identity as opposed to the national one, and gradually paved the way for the public display of signs fulfilling a communicative function. The analysis suggests that a diachronic approach to the study of the linguistic landscape, i.e. the possibility to cover developments over a longer time span, may deepen our understanding of the language beliefs, attitudes and practices which may influence the public display of languages and dialects (e.g., Blackwood, 2018).

Il dialetto nel paesaggio linguistico: un caso di gentrificazione?

Neri Binazzi — 2026-03-09

This study explores the potential for defining a form of linguistic gentrification regarding the use of dialect within the linguistic landscape of Florence. A functional stratification of the local variety is highlighted through a qualitative analysis of the inscriptions on display: on the one hand, an identity use is visible in graffiti and stickers; while on the other hand, a use for predominantly commercial purposes is evident in shop signs. With regard to the latter, particularly in cases where dialect is not aimed at the local community, the study hypothesises the existence of a process of linguistic gentrification. In order to define this process, the study attempts to demonstrate how the local language can also undergo expropriation by its ideal speakers and re-functionalisation in a commercial key, starting from the original concept of gentrification. To support this hypothesis, dialect occurrences in the linguistic landscape were analysed from a social, spatial, and economic perspective. From this analysis, it emerges that dialect increasingly appears in contexts where ideal speakers are declining and is used to ennoble products, also in economic terms, distinguishing them as authentic, local, and not globalised, and thus making them less accessible.

Paesaggi linguistici e contesti migrati: variabili temporali e spaziali nella vitalità delle scritture esposte

Barbara Turchetta — 2026-03-09

This study investigates how public and linguistic spaces shape the construction and negotiation of collective identity within long-established migrant communities. Focusing on Manhattan’s Little Italy, Milan’s Chinatown, and Rome’s Esquilino, it explores public space as a site of interaction and meaning making, supported by linguistic space as a dynamic hierarchy of codes and varieties. The analysis of displayed writing – institutional, commercial, and spontaneous – reveals the gradual incorporation of heritage languages into the urban landscape. Migrant districts emerge as arenas of memory and symbolic innovation, where belonging is renegotiated through hybrid and transnational practices. Findings show that settlement duration, language function, and the interaction of space and writing drive the absorption of migrant features. These dynamics generate complex, evolving cultural landscapes within the urban networks.

Istanbul tra eredità e reinvenzione. L’italiano nel paesaggio linguistico urbano

Bora Avsar — 2026-03-09

The city of Istanbul, shaped by centuries of multilingual coexistence and cultural contact, offers fertile ground for the study of linguistic landscapes. This article examines the visibility of Italian and Italian-sounding elements in public signage across three districts of the city. While Italian is not widely spoken in Turkey today, it emerges in commercial spaces as a symbolic resource linked to style, taste, and heritage. Drawing on a corpus of photographic data and informal interviews, the study identifies the linguistic forms and semantic domains in which Italian is most frequently mobilized. Particular attention is paid to pseudo-Italian coinages and hybrid formations that reflect local appropriations of Italian for branding and aesthetic purposes. These phenomena are discussed in light of the long history of Italo-Turkish contacts and the semiotic reconfiguration of Italian as a visual and cultural signifier in a multilingual urban environment.

Doing or undoing Italian? Multilingual practices in Berlin’s superdiverse restaurants

Marta Lupica Spagnolo — 2026-03-09

This study investigates the use of Italian in Berlin’s Italian restaurants managed by non-Italian speakers. Drawing on data from the RestITA corpus, which includes extensive documentation of linguistic landscape signs and narrative video interviews with restaurant owners and staff, we identify a correlation between the strategic positioning of languages in the linguistic landscape and the stances adopted by local workers toward monolingual ideologies versus hybrid linguistic practices. Our analysis reveals two distinct language regimes. In the first, Italian is symbolically foregrounded while German plays the more significant semantic role; in the second, linguistic boundaries tend to blur, as is typical of cases of «Italian in Transit» (Lupica Spagnolo, 2023). By examining how language is displayed and discussed, we explore whether these actors are «doing languages» by reproducing monolingual norms or «undoing languages» through translanguaging.

Il paesaggio linguistico tra ricerca e didattica. Esperienze nelle città di Torino, Genova e Verona

Marco Forlano — 2026-03-09

This paper presents a project aimed at mapping the linguistic landscape of the cities of Turin, Genoa, and Verona, involving the participation of students from the University of Pavia. It has a twofold aim: first, to document a university-level teaching project centered on linguistic landscapes; and second, to summarize the initial findings of the study, particularly those concerning Turin and Genoa. The investigation targeted neighbourhoods with varying degrees of multilingualism and involved photographic documentation of visible linguistic signs, with particular attention to languages other than Italian, including Italo-Romance dialects, international communication languages and immigrant languages. The results reveal the dominance of English, a clear distinction between top-down and bottom-up signage, the limited visibility of immigrant languages despite their demographic significance, and the symbolic use of Italo-Romance dialects. From an educational perspective, the project provided students with the opportunity to engage directly with the complexities of urban multilingualism.

Exploring migrant Linguistic Landscapes through multilingual school texts

Martina Bellinzona — 2026-03-09

This article presents the findings of the PRISMA project, a multilingual writing initiative implemented in Italian public schools that adopt a multilingual pedagogical framework. The initiative involved students aged 11 to 14 to produce original texts recounting real migration stories using their full linguistic repertoires and a wide range of semiotic resources. Drawing on a corpus of 109 student-authored texts, the study explores how migration is narrated. The analysis develops across three complementary dimensions: the textual morphologies and multimodal layouts employed by students, the multilingual and translingual practices activated in their writing, and the multisensory representations of migratory experiences. The results demonstrate that these texts do not merely describe migration as movement through space, they act it as an embodied, emotional, and semiotic experience. Each text is approached both as a linguistic landscape and as a dynamic site where migrant landscapes are constructed and performed. The study proposes a theoretical and methodological expansion of linguistic landscape studies by extending the notion of landscape beyond static urban signage to include narrative and textual spaces. Furthermore, it introduces the concept of migrant landscapes evoked through student narratives. By doing so, the article contributes to current debates in applied linguistics and education, highlighting the potential of multilingual writing pedagogies to serve as both a tool for critical literacy and a lens through which to observe migration as a lived and narrated experience.

Reframing Virtual Linguistic Landscapes: making the most of multimodal signs in Twitter/X to enhance contexts and meanings. A multilingual overview

Francesco Meledandri — 2026-03-09

Linguistic landscapes (LLs) have become an important field of study, especially in intertwining a wide range of disciplinary backgrounds (Kallen, 2023). In recent times, a tight connection between LLs and online communication is observed. In particular, Social Networking Sites (SNSs) canalise different forms of communication in a twofold perspective: a direct, one-to-one communication and a more public, discursive interaction addressed to a community. Against this background, the idea put forward in this study is that SNSs are proper forms of LL spaces, since they are able to convey signs that become information and discourse-related practices as soon as they are decoded properly by a given discursive community. A particular case study involves the analysis of contents posted on Twitter/X. In a reframed perspective in which SNSs are perceived as virtual LLs (Lyons, 2017; Biró, 2018), users make the most of some specific features that allow continuity of interaction, guiding addressees and whole audiences towards a complete retrieval of contents that otherwise would be fragmented, in step with messages and signs in ‘traditional’ LLs. An example is represented by a growing use of threads and specific hashtags; such elements, along with other semiotic markers such as emojis (Zappavigna and Logi, 2024) or fixed patterns shape a linguistic landscape in SNS contexts. The analysis shows some examples in a multilingual perspective by comparing similar contents conveyed in several languages (e.g., Italian, English, Spanish, French, etc.) trying to look how repeated VLL patterns (especially non-verbal, such as emojis) convey a universal sequence of signs decoded in a communicative and universal perspective just as in conventional LL scenarios.

The IncluInstIT corpus: initial considerations for tagging genderinclusive language in Italian

Irene Caiazzo — 2026-03-09

In this paper we introduce IncluInstIT, a novel corpus of Italian genderinclusive language curated from Instagram, alongside an innovative tagging system tailored to identify inclusive morphological strategies. Unlike existing corpora, IncluInstIT captures emergent gender inclusive language forms – such as, universal feminines, ə, u, x, and split forms – used in informal digital communication. Comprising over 4,800 pre-processed posts, this corpus reflects a dynamic spectrum of inclusive expressions across hashtags, offering a diachronic view of evolving gender representations. We here present an initial annotation scheme, enriched with newly defined gender tags, with the goal of discussing ways in which NLP tools can investigate fairness and inclusivity