http://hdl.handle.net/10023/108 2013-05-22T10:52:14Z http://hdl.handle.net/10023/3541 2010-09-01T00:00:00Z Riccobono, Rossella Maria http://hdl.handle.net/10023/3522 Abstract: This article demonstates that the earliest body of Italianisms in English, in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, was in large measure of Venetian origin. After establishing and dating the fifty Venetianisms that entered English in this period the study goes on to analyse Venetian lexical influence in John Florio's Italian-English dictionaries (1598 and 1611), in Thomas Coryate's travel book (the "Crudities") (1611) and in Ben Jonson's play "Volpone" (1607) set in Venice. 2012-11-26T00:00:00Z Ferguson, Ronnie This article demonstates that the earliest body of Italianisms in English, in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, was in large measure of Venetian origin. After establishing and dating the fifty Venetianisms that entered English in this period the study goes on to analyse Venetian lexical influence in John Florio's Italian-English dictionaries (1598 and 1611), in Thomas Coryate's travel book (the "Crudities") (1611) and in Ben Jonson's play "Volpone" (1607) set in Venice. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/3521 Abstract: Interpretations of Italian films about migration tend to refer to the historical experience of emigration or of colonialism as the historical coordinates through which these films are best understood. This article looks at four recent films featuring migrants in prominent roles that appear to elide such an interpretive framework. While the past and its intrusive effects do feature strongly in these films, it is difficult to produce a predictable linear and causal narrative that would link past, present, and future in predictable ways. Stylistically, the four films also represent a notable move away from the realist political agenda and aesthetic that has tended to dominate Italian film production on the topic of migration. This article argues that their adoption of the features that recall those of film noir (in its Italian manifestation) suggests a new range of thematic and social concerns that refer as much to possible futures as well as known pasts. There is a particular focus on the topic of bodily reproduction which is no longer limited to the sphere of the sexual. The opportunities offered by technology for the body to reproduce in new ways alters the parameters of how the nation might be imagined. 2011-01-01T00:00:00Z Duncan, Derek Egerton Interpretations of Italian films about migration tend to refer to the historical experience of emigration or of colonialism as the historical coordinates through which these films are best understood. This article looks at four recent films featuring migrants in prominent roles that appear to elide such an interpretive framework. While the past and its intrusive effects do feature strongly in these films, it is difficult to produce a predictable linear and causal narrative that would link past, present, and future in predictable ways. Stylistically, the four films also represent a notable move away from the realist political agenda and aesthetic that has tended to dominate Italian film production on the topic of migration. This article argues that their adoption of the features that recall those of film noir (in its Italian manifestation) suggests a new range of thematic and social concerns that refer as much to possible futures as well as known pasts. There is a particular focus on the topic of bodily reproduction which is no longer limited to the sphere of the sexual. The opportunities offered by technology for the body to reproduce in new ways alters the parameters of how the nation might be imagined. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/1920 Abstract: The present dissertation investigates the role of television advertising in shaping the cultural values of the Italian society in the circular process of mirroring pre-existing societal values yet inducing new ones, thus contributing to its evolution. It questions its role within the society, its relationship with families, women and youngsters, the kind of language used in communicating, between 1957-1977, the age of Carosello programme. A corpus of two thousand five hundred television adverts was viewed and filed, of which a hundred were selected according to the more frequent themes, their cultural and semiotic relevance, and twenty-two analysed by a semiotic approach, together with some more considered alongside. Chapter One deals with methodology, an overview of the main concepts and tools of applied semiotics and the socio-semiotic perspective adopted. Chapter Two, then, contextualizes television advertising into its broader socio-cultural milieu and the history of television. The following three chapters analyze the selected adverts according to five main recurring themes: Chapter Three, the first steps of TV advertising, its auto-referentiality and its language; Chapter Four, the family and its inner relationships, the couple and the institution of marriage; Chapter Five women‘s emancipation, the new generation of youngsters and new myths. Commercials are analysed by shots and sequences from a narrative and visual perspective in search of their deep underlying generative values. The approach is a holistic one, adapting itself to the prevailing characteristics of every occurrence, although the peculiar nature of the ads of the period entails a prevailing narratological model. All findings are then connected together to identify the main semantic areas indicating cultural values present in the Italian society of the period. The end findings consist of a set of interesting cultural values identified. At first a self-assertiveness of advertising as a way to popularity; then its preferred mode of communication through verbal language rather than pictures; a representation of families according to either the patriarchal or the consumerist model; a fundamental disbelief in marriage and a sexist attitude to women‘s representation; finally, a mistrust in the values of the new generations. All of these eventually pointing to the main semantic area of tradition, an index to the fundamental conservative yet contradictory role of the Carosello adverting which, while contributing to preserve traditional values, it also tended to replace them with its only main consumerist value. At a higher level, on a socio-semiotic perspective it is the role of that semiosphere which, while drawing from society it also contributes in shaping it. 2011-06-21T00:00:00Z Casarini, Rita The present dissertation investigates the role of television advertising in shaping the cultural values of the Italian society in the circular process of mirroring pre-existing societal values yet inducing new ones, thus contributing to its evolution. It questions its role within the society, its relationship with families, women and youngsters, the kind of language used in communicating, between 1957-1977, the age of Carosello programme. A corpus of two thousand five hundred television adverts was viewed and filed, of which a hundred were selected according to the more frequent themes, their cultural and semiotic relevance, and twenty-two analysed by a semiotic approach, together with some more considered alongside. Chapter One deals with methodology, an overview of the main concepts and tools of applied semiotics and the socio-semiotic perspective adopted. Chapter Two, then, contextualizes television advertising into its broader socio-cultural milieu and the history of television. The following three chapters analyze the selected adverts according to five main recurring themes: Chapter Three, the first steps of TV advertising, its auto-referentiality and its language; Chapter Four, the family and its inner relationships, the couple and the institution of marriage; Chapter Five women‘s emancipation, the new generation of youngsters and new myths. Commercials are analysed by shots and sequences from a narrative and visual perspective in search of their deep underlying generative values. The approach is a holistic one, adapting itself to the prevailing characteristics of every occurrence, although the peculiar nature of the ads of the period entails a prevailing narratological model. All findings are then connected together to identify the main semantic areas indicating cultural values present in the Italian society of the period. The end findings consist of a set of interesting cultural values identified. At first a self-assertiveness of advertising as a way to popularity; then its preferred mode of communication through verbal language rather than pictures; a representation of families according to either the patriarchal or the consumerist model; a fundamental disbelief in marriage and a sexist attitude to women‘s representation; finally, a mistrust in the values of the new generations. All of these eventually pointing to the main semantic area of tradition, an index to the fundamental conservative yet contradictory role of the Carosello adverting which, while contributing to preserve traditional values, it also tended to replace them with its only main consumerist value. At a higher level, on a socio-semiotic perspective it is the role of that semiosphere which, while drawing from society it also contributes in shaping it. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/737 Abstract: Two distinct conditional paradigms are available to speakers of Italian, derived from the Latin periphrases cantare habui/cantare habebam. The aim of this thesis is to describe and explain their patterns of attestation in the earliest northern Italian and Tuscan texts, which date from between 1200 and 1400. Textual analysis showed that while the cantare habui periphrasis was native to both areas, the use of the cantare habebam periphrasis differed in the northern and central dialects. In the northern dialects, the cantare habebam periphrasis was attested in all genres over the whole time period, whereas in the Tuscan dialects it only appeared in literary genres. Moreover, although the northern texts attested both periphrases consistently over time in every genre, only Tuscan poetry followed this pattern. Other genres attested reflexes of the cantare habebam periphrasis for short periods in the fourteenth century. These results suggest that different influences resulted in different patterns of conditional use in the two areas. This thesis postulates that in the northern Italo-Romance dialects the cantare habebam periphrasis was introduced through the proximity to, and influence of, Provençal. Although the use of reflexes of cantare habebam was reinforced in the north by the Sicilian school of poets, the dual nature of the sources meant that it was also retained in prose, and thence into modern dialect use. In contrast, reflexes of the cantare habebam periphrasis were introduced into central Italy through the Sicilian school alone. Although it appeared in prose texts, this was a sporadic phenomenon, resulting from imitation of the influential poetic texts. Because there was no prose source for reflexes of the cantare habebam periphrasis, it did not enter non-literary genres and quickly disappeared from literary prose genres. The cantare habebam periphrasis eventually disappeared entirely from Tuscan poetry as well, and is not attested at all in the modern central dialects. 2009-06-23T00:00:00Z Parkinson, Jennie K. Two distinct conditional paradigms are available to speakers of Italian, derived from the Latin periphrases cantare habui/cantare habebam. The aim of this thesis is to describe and explain their patterns of attestation in the earliest northern Italian and Tuscan texts, which date from between 1200 and 1400. Textual analysis showed that while the cantare habui periphrasis was native to both areas, the use of the cantare habebam periphrasis differed in the northern and central dialects. In the northern dialects, the cantare habebam periphrasis was attested in all genres over the whole time period, whereas in the Tuscan dialects it only appeared in literary genres. Moreover, although the northern texts attested both periphrases consistently over time in every genre, only Tuscan poetry followed this pattern. Other genres attested reflexes of the cantare habebam periphrasis for short periods in the fourteenth century. These results suggest that different influences resulted in different patterns of conditional use in the two areas. This thesis postulates that in the northern Italo-Romance dialects the cantare habebam periphrasis was introduced through the proximity to, and influence of, Provençal. Although the use of reflexes of cantare habebam was reinforced in the north by the Sicilian school of poets, the dual nature of the sources meant that it was also retained in prose, and thence into modern dialect use. In contrast, reflexes of the cantare habebam periphrasis were introduced into central Italy through the Sicilian school alone. Although it appeared in prose texts, this was a sporadic phenomenon, resulting from imitation of the influential poetic texts. Because there was no prose source for reflexes of the cantare habebam periphrasis, it did not enter non-literary genres and quickly disappeared from literary prose genres. The cantare habebam periphrasis eventually disappeared entirely from Tuscan poetry as well, and is not attested at all in the modern central dialects.