Found in Translation: Gabriella Licata, Oct. 10

The Berkeley Language Center
Cordially Invites You to the Upcoming Meeting of Its

Found in Translation (FIT) Working Group 

Found in Translation: Gabriella Licata, Oct. 10

“Language Politics and Attitudes of the Genovese Variety”

Gabriella Licata

Ph.D. Candidate, Romance Languages and Literatures, UC Berkeley   

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Wednesday, October 10, 2018

12 p.m. ­‐ 1 p.m., B-4 Dwinelle Hall  

The current ideologies and politics of Genoese, dialect of Ligurian in the Northwestern Italian region of Liguria, reflect the status of many of Italy’s “dialects”—lingering in unofficial status with little institutional support but vibrant ties to and representation in regional identity. The study of language attitudes is vital to understanding what dynamics are in place for language restoration and revitalization. Genoese has approximately 400,000 speakers in Liguria and continues to lower with the passing of older generations. My recent matched guise experiment (cf. Lambert et al. 1967) with 60 Ligurian participants demonstrates that while Genoese receives high ratings on par with Italian on a number of social characteristics (i.e. solidarity, linguistic capabilities), these covert prestige marks are generally reserved for male speakers and not female ones. This holds with Labov’s gender paradox (2001:261–293) that women are expected to adhere to the standard variety (Italian) over the nonstandard variety (Genoese), as opposed to male speakers who may identify strongly with both. Gendered linguistic stigmatization and hence a lack of intergenerational transmission by women are some explanations as to what is occurring with regional languages all over Italy, which ultimately poses problems for the regional varieties’ future usage and transmission.

ABOUT FIT: We are a growing group of U.C. Berkeley community members interested in language, culture and cross-cultural communication.  We invite you to join us!  Refreshments and discussion to follow.   Questions? Contact: Elyse Ritchey  elyseanneritchey@berkeley.edu  and Vesna Rodic,  vrodic@berkeley.edu

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