Articles

• Translate or not, foreign words

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  Maurizio Trifone

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  97

  In the early twentieth century, Gabriele D’Annunzio successfully proposed tramezzino instead of the English sandwich. Equally successful are some proposals formulated by Bruno Migliorini in the 1930s: autista and regista for the French chauffeur and régisseur. However, the original coinages of Arrigo Castellani in 1987 fail to take root: fubbia for smog, guardabimbi for babysitter, intredima for weekend, velopattino for windsurf, and vendistica for marketing. At the beginning of the 2000s, the volume by Giovanardi, Gualdo, and Coco Italian – English 1-1 reopened the debate among scholars. In 2015 the petition “Dillo in italiano”, launched by Annamaria Testa, achieved enormous success and demonstrated the intolerance of a large part of public opinion towards the massive influx of anglicisms. Following the petition, the Accademia della Crusca established the Incipit Group, a group of experts responsible for monitoring the entry of new anglicisms and suggesting possible Italian alternatives. In 2017, the Nuovo Devoto-Oli dictionary included in its lemmary the section Per dirlo in italiano, containing over 200 cards, that trace a brief history of as many English words or phrases that have penetrated Italian, explaining their meaning and context of use and suggesting a possible Italian equivalent. Il Nuovo Devoto-Oli broadly welcomes the most common anglicisms, helping those who do not know their precise meaning; but at the same time it has no reluctance to propose an Italian alternative, in the profound belief that such an approach is helpful to the reader and makes a positive contribution to the Italian language itself.

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  109

• Anna Banti's femmine sapute. From Artemisia to Il bastardo

  38-61

  Sonia Rivetti

  Views:

  39

  Between 1980 and 1981 on the third page of the «Corriere della Sera» Anna Banti published eleven portraits of women painters. The column opens with an article on Sofonisba Anguissola, the author of Autoritratto al cavalletto, a symbol of the reclamation of female identity which calls into question the role assigned to women in the 16th century. It is the culmination of a reflection that began in 1947 with the novel Artemisia. Famous in the news of the time for having been at the center of a rape trial, Artemisia Gentileschi is read as the figure responsible for a talent, the painting, defended at the cost of a loneliness that accompanies her until death. Le donne muoiono is the title of a collection of four stories published in 1951. In the last one, Lavinia fuggita, the theme of vocation returns. In 18th century Venice where composing music was considered a male profession, Lavinia cannot give up the natural inclination to manipulate the scores with jokes of her own invention. The latest female character who refuses to take the traditional way of marriage is Cecilia De Gregorio, protagonist of Il bastardo, the novel published in 1953. Through an austere path but not without doubts, it tells the story of a woman who finds fulfillment in her studies and becomes an engineer head of a company

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  16

• Italy between history and historiography. In search of national identity

  62-76

  Marco Trotta

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  24

  Starting from the fundamental studies of the historian Giuseppe Galasso and in the context of a close confrontation with the most experienced European historiography on these topics, the essay reconstructs some issues of the italian national identity through the different guidelines of the historiographical debate from the nineteenth century to today in a comparative and historical setting of european modernity. The centuries-old duration of the events related to the process of formation of the Italian identity, from the tradition of the Roman Empire to the Risorgimento and national independence, passing through the long domination of foreign powers, finally ended with the unification of the peninsula and the state-building in 1861. The most significant terms of the identity discourse are thus affirmed: territory and nation, whose underlying grounds, however, still struggle to find shared reasons for a unitary understanding of the national historical framework. In this respect the category of national identity starts its construction at the time of the Romantic ferments and remains intimately linked to those anthropological traits that would have provided to found in the mid-nineteenth century the community of Italians, finally rejoined under the frame of a new State. Not a single identity, therefore, but a multiplicity of references to the rich, centuries-old Italian cultural heritage, rethought in the light of a decisive season for national destinies.

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• Health Literacy, Migration Traumas, Narrative Medicine and the Language Desk. New practices in translingualism and educational processes

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  Andreina Sgaglione

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  34

  Health literacy (HL) is a complex field encompassing a range of public health education and communication activities that are crucial for interacting with the health care system. In a sustainable world, future healthcare must be accessible to all, and we must ensure that people from migrant backgrounds have got the resources to manage their health. Inequalities in immigrants’ health profiles, a sign of ineffective integration policies, could be mitigated by improving HL levels. The aim of the study was to investigate the space given to HL within formal immigrant learning contexts; the study featured a questionnaire that was intended as a probe into some specific needs and discomforts connected with the condition of translingualism and with the related trauma, which may have a negative impact on language learning. Such interweaving offers a different perspective that generates new teaching practices and the creation of a Language Desk that through language, health literacy and narrative medicine promotes equitable, safe and sustainable learning contexts that enhance the experience of translingualism in all its forms.

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