Italo-Romance Dialects in the Linguistic Repertoires of Immigrants in Italy (Palgrave Studies in Minority Languages and Communities) 3030993671, 9783030993672

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PALGRAVE STUDIES IN MINORITY LANGUAGES AND COMMUNITIES

Italo-Romance Dialects in the Linguistic Repertoires of Immigrants in Italy Edited by Francesco Goglia · Matthias Wolny

Palgrave Studies in Minority Languages and Communities

Series Editors Gabrielle Hogan-Brun, Vytautas Magnus University, Kaunas, Lithuania Stephen May, Faculty of Education & Social Work, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand

Worldwide migration and unprecedented economic, political and social integration present serious challenges to the nature and position of language minorities. Some communities receive protective legislation and active support from states through policies that promote and sustain cultural and linguistic diversity; others succumb to global homogenisation and assimilation. At the same time, discourses on diversity and emancipation have produced greater demands for the management of difference. This series publishes new research based on single or comparative case studies on minority languages worldwide. We focus on their use, status and prospects, and on linguistic pluralism in areas with immigrant or traditional minority communities or with shifting borders. Each volume is written in an accessible style for researchers and students in linguistics, education, politics and anthropology, and for practitioners interested in language minorities and diversity. We welcome submissions in either monograph or Pivot format.

Francesco Goglia · Matthias Wolny Editors

Italo-Romance Dialects in the Linguistic Repertoires of Immigrants in Italy

Editors Francesco Goglia Department of Modern Languages and Cultures University of Exeter Exeter, UK

Matthias Wolny Department of Culture Studies, Tilburg School of Humanities and Digital Sciences Tilburg University Tilburg, The Netherlands

ISSN 2947-5880 ISSN 2947-5899 (electronic) Palgrave Studies in Minority Languages and Communities ISBN 978-3-030-99367-2 ISBN 978-3-030-99368-9 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-99368-9 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover credit: © Alexander W Helin/Getty Images This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Contents

1

Introduction Francesco Goglia and Matthias Wolny

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Palermo 2000–2020: Sicilian in Old and New Migrations Mari D’Agostino and Egle Mocciaro

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Neapolitan, Regional and Standard Italian in the Linguistic Repertoire of Ukrainian Private Carers in Naples: Sociolinguistic Competence and Attitudes Towards a Complex Linguistic Context Paolo Della Putta The Linguistic Repertoires of Immigrant School Children in Udine: A Sociolinguistic Study Fabiana Fusco New Speakers of Venetan: The Case of Igbo-Nigerians in Padua Francesco Goglia

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Contents

Ghanaian Immigrants and the Twofold Potential of Italo-Romance Dialects Federica Guerini

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Language Attitudes of Cameroonian Immigrants Towards Italian Dialects Raymond Siebetcheu

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The Senegalese Diaspora in Rome: Romanesco and Other Nonstandard Varieties in the Face of Standard Language Ideologies Maya Angela Smith Immigrants as New Speakers of Italo-Romance Dialects: A Study of Sociolinguistic Representations in the Emilia-Romagna Region Valeria Villa-Perez

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10 The Venetian Dialect in the Communicative Repertoires of Moldovan Migrant Caregivers Matthias Wolny

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Index

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Notes on Contributors

Mari D’Agostino is Full Professor of Italian Linguistics at the University of Palermo. She directs the School of Italian language for Foreigners at the same University. Her present research interests are in sociolinguistics of present-day Italian and sociolinguistics of migration. Fabiana Fusco is Full Professor of Linguistics at the University of Udine, where she holds courses on General Linguistics and Gender Studies. She studied at the University of Udine, Zürich and Graz. She has specialized in languages contact, focusing on contact between Italian and other European languages. Her main areas of research include plurilingualism, plurilingual education and linguistic minorities in the Friulian territory. She also carries out teaching activities in the field of Italian education as L2 and linguistic consultancy on gender equality issues. Francesco Goglia is Associate Professor of Migration and Multilingualism in the Department of Modern Languages and Cultures at the University of Exeter. His research interests are multilingualism, language maintenance and shift and language contact in immigrant communities in particular in Italy, UK, East Timor and Australia. His current research,

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supported by the Leverhulme Trust, focuses on the process of onward migration from Italy to the UK and its sociolinguistic implications. Federica Guerini is Associate Professor of General and Historical Linguistics at the Department of Letters, Philosophy, Communication of the University of Bergamo. In 2005 her Ph.D. Dissertation was awarded the IX International Competition Price for Studies and Research into Bilingualism sponsored by the Office for Bilingualism and Foreign Languages of Provincia Autonoma di Bolzano (Italy). Her research interests include language variation and language contact, multilingual communication, language policy in multilingual settings and the analysis of the linguistic landscape. Egle Mocciaro is Assistant Professor of Italian Linguistics at the Masaryk University of Brno (Czech Republic). She obtained her Ph.D. in Linguistics at the University of Palermo (Italy), where she taught Linguistics and Second Language Acquisition from 2009 to 2019. Her present research interests are in Italian linguistics and L2 Italian spoken by migrants. Paolo Della Putta is a researcher in Second Language Acquisition and Second Language Teaching at the University of Turin. His main research interests include the relationship between language teaching and language acquisition, the empirical measurement of the effectiveness of Focus on Form techniques and the acquisition of (second) languages in complex sociolinguistic contexts. Raymond Siebetcheu is Lecturer at the University for Foreigners of Siena. He holds a Ph.D. in Linguistics and Language Teaching of Italian as a Foreign Language from the University of Foreigners of Siena. Since 2011 he has been a visiting professor in the Italian Unit of the University of Dschang in Cameroon. He has been involved in the working groups of several research projects focusing on the following issues: language diversity, linguistic landscape, language and sport, language and migration (especially African migration), language and colonization, plurilingualism in Italian schools, linguistic and cultural mediation, Italian language abroad, especially in Africa.

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Maya Angela Smith is a sociolinguist and associate professor in the Department of French and Italian Studies at the University of Washington. Her scholarship broadly focuses on the intersection of racial and linguistic identity formations among marginalized groups in the francophone African diaspora. For instance, through a critical examination of language and multilingual practices in qualitative, ethnographic data, her 2019 book Senegal Abroad: Linguistic Borders, Racial Formations and Diasporic Imaginaries shows how language is key in understanding the formation of national, transnational, postcolonial, racial and migrant identities among Senegalese in Paris, Rome and New York. Valeria Villa-Perez is Associate Professor in Sociolinguistics and Second Language Teaching and Learning at Jean Monnet University in SaintÉtienne (France). Her research focuses on the relations between migrations and (minority) languages, plurilingualism, social representations. Her studies also consider language education policy. Matthias Wolny is a Ph.D. Candidate at the Department of Culture Studies at the School of Humanities and Digital Sciences of Tilburg University (The Netherlands). His research interests include the sociolinguistics of migration, linguistic landscape research in migration and minority language settings, language policy, language and discourses in subcultural contexts as well as plurilingualism in digital communication.

List of Figures

Chapter 1 Fig. 1

Percentage of people who speak “only dialect” or “Italian and dialect” (ISTAT 2017)

6

Chapter 7 Fig. 1 Fig. 2

Third type linguistic repertoire (see Mioni 1988: 300) Pre- and post-immigrant repertoires of Cameroonians

154 154

Chapter 10 Fig. 1

Development of the Moldovan community in Venice 2000–2019 (Source www.demo.istat.it)

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List of Tables

Chapter 1 Table 1 Table 2

Use of Italian and dialect in different domains of use (ISTAT 2017) Largest groups of immigrants according to nationality in Italy, 1 January 2021 (Ministero del Lavoro 2021)

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Chapter 2 Table 1

Participants’ profiles (from Mocciaro 2020: 84)

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Chapter 3 Table 1

Biographical data of the informants

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Chapter 4 Table 1 Table 2

Foreign residents Students without Italian citizenship by province and type of school (school year 2017/2018)

81 83

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List of Tables

Table 3

Number of informants splitted into intermediate generations Numbers of languages spoken in the family Numbers of dialects spoken in the family The intrafamilial linguistic repertoire The linguistic dynamics of the sample’s daily interactions in various languages (receptive and productive uses) The linguistic dynamics of the sample’s daily interactions in Friulian (receptive and productive uses)

Table Table Table Table

4 5 6 7

Table 8

88 89 90 92 93 95

Chapter 5 Table 1

The largest immigrant communities by country of origin in the city of Padua

105

Chapter 6 Table 1

Ghanaian immigrants holding a staying permit (2010–2019)

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Chapter 7 Table 1 Table 2

Provinces of Italy with the highest number of Cameroonians (31st December 2019) Frequency of use of Italian dialects

151 155

Chapter 8 Table 1

Senegalese interviewees in Rome (in order of appearance)

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Chapter 10 Table 1

Top 10 migrant communities in Venice as of 31 December 2019

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1 Introduction Francesco Goglia and Matthias Wolny

1

The Rationale of the Volume

Following the beginning of mass immigration in the 1980s, sociolinguistic research in Italy has focused on the acquisition and use of Italian by first-generation immigrants (among others Bernini & Giacalone Ramat 1990; Giacalone Ramat 2003; Banfi 2003; Goglia 2004; Mori 2007). At the same time, in line with other European countries, some studies have focused on the use of code-switching in conversations F. Goglia (B) Department of Modern Languages and Cultures, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK e-mail: [email protected] M. Wolny Department of Culture Studies, Tilburg School of Humanities and Digital Sciences, Tilburg University, Tilburg, The Netherlands e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 F. Goglia and M. Wolny (eds.), Italo-Romance Dialects in the Linguistic Repertoires of Immigrants in Italy, Palgrave Studies in Minority Languages and Communities, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-99368-9_1

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involving Italian and immigrant languages (Guerini 2006; Berruto 2009; Goglia 2011). More recently, with the settling of many immigrant communities and the emergence of a second generation, researchers have started investigating language maintenance and shift (Chini 2011; Mazzaferro 2018; Chini and Andorno 2018). However, the Italian scholarship on the sociolinguistics of immigration has mostly ignored or just touched upon the acquisition and use of Italo-Romance dialects by immigrants. In line with a new interest in the acquisition and use of minority and regional language by immigrants (Pujolar 2010; Bermingham and Higham 2018; Cornips 2020; Augustyniak 2021), we believe it is now time to shed light on the acquisition and use of Italo-Romance dialects, non-official regional languages of Italy. Given the important role of Italo-Romance dialects, particularly in some Italian regions, in everyday communication and as markers of local identities (Dal Negro and Vietti 2011; Cerruti 2011; Berruto 2018), it seems appropriate to investigate their presence in the linguistic repertoires of immigrants. This volume brings together for the first time experts on the sociolinguistic of immigration in Italy who have also investigated the use of Italo-Romance dialects. Each chapter presents a particular case study with a focus on one dialect and its use by immigrants. The range of case studies varies in terms of cities, regions, immigrant communities, first/second generation and qualitative/quantitative approaches. Each chapter is based on an original corpus of material gathered through a wide range of field methods spanning from interviews and questionnaires to statistic-based analyses and ethnography-inspired observation. The combination of research on immigrant and minority languages on the one hand and the variety of case studies allow to compare and confront different realities, findings and different settings in which immigrants come into contact with Italo-Romance dialects.

1 Introduction

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3

The Italian Linguistic Repertoire and Italo-Romance Dialects

When looking at the level of regional and dialect varieties, the Italian linguistic repertoire is incredibly rich and diversified. In fact, Italian, the national official language of Italy, coexists with several Italo-Romance dialects and officially recognised minority languages. The term ItaloRomance dialect (or simply dialect) used in the Italian context is a bit misleading for an English-speaking readership, to whom dialect refers to a variety of English, and therefore requires some clarification. ItaloRomance dialects are not varieties of Italian, but rather its sister languages “locally divergent developments of the Latin spoken in Italy” (Maiden and Parry 1997: 2). Both standard Italian and Italo-Romance dialects developed from Italo-Romance vernaculars which were spoken in the Italian peninsula since the Middle Ages. For historical and social reasons, the literary variety of Florentine as spoken in the fourteenth century acquired prestige and became the basis of standard Italian, whilst the other Italo-Romance vernaculars developed into unofficial, not standardised and elaborated regional languages (Dal Negro and Vietti 2011). Traditionally, following Pellegrini (1977) the Italo-Romance dialects are grouped into five major groups which show significant typological differences between each other and towards Italian: Northern dialects, Friulian, Tuscan, Central and Southern dialects and Sardinian. Minority languages, or minoranze linguistiche, refer to those historical linguistic minorities which are officially protected by the Italian Republic through the Law 482/99, “Norme in materia di tutela delle minoranza linguistiche storiche”. Twelve languages are listed in this law, but with the exception of Sardinian and Friulian, no Italo-Romance dialects are included. In Italian sociolinguistics and dialectology there have been many different attempts to describe the Italian linguistic repertoire and its varieties at different hierarchical levels (see Berruto [1993: 26] for an overview of different models of Italian linguistic repertoire). A general sketch of the Italian repertoire includes (near) standard varieties, regional varieties linked to the standard but influenced by Italo-Romance dialects, often referred to as italiano regionale (Telmon 1994), and Italo-Romance

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dialects or the minority languages . Italian, the high language, used both in high and low communicative domains and Italo-Romance dialects used only in low communicative domains, form a particular kind of diglossia that Berruto (1993) labelled dilalia.

3

Use of Italo-Romance Dialects Today

Today, following a process of language shift started at the time of unification of Italy, the majority of the Italian population speaks mainly Italian and the number of monolingual dialect speakers is decreasing (ISTAT 2017). Table 1 shows the change in the use of Italian and dialects in Italy in the last three decades. In the family domain, usually regarded as key for the maintenance of minority languages, 45.9% of the population speak only or mainly Italian, whilst 14.1% use only or mainly dialect (ISTAT 2017). The table also reveals an increase of bilingual modes (both Italian and dialect) in both the family and friendship domains (32.2 and 32.1% respectively). ISTAT (2017) also reveals that, at work, the majority of the Italian population uses exclusively Italian (77.5%), but 15.8% use both Italian and dialect. The use of dialect varies according to generations. The exclusive use of Italian is high among the young generations and decreases among the elder generations. The exclusive use of dialect, on the other end, increases among the elder generations. However, particularly among teenagers, the use of dialect and Italian is high and dialects are often being rediscovered by young generations and used as part of their italiano giovanile, “young people’s Italian”. Especially in some youth subcultures like hip-hop music, street art or in the banners of organised football supporters, dialects are used for localising effects. Another important variable that influences the use of dialects is the level of education. Dialects are still spoken more frequently by people with a low level of education. The use of dialects also varies according to regions. In some regions, dialects are still widely maintained and widely spoken, in others dialects are spoken less. Figure 1 shows that in the South and Sicily, 68% of the

1987/88 1995 2000 2006 2015

Year

41.5 44.4 44.1 45.5 45.9

32.0 23.8 19.1 16.0 14.1

24.9 28.3 32.9 32.5 32.2

0.6 1.5 3.0 5.1 6.9

Another language 44.6 47.1 48.0 48.9 49.6

26.6 16.7 16.0 13.2 12.1

Only or mainly dialect

Only or mainly Italian

Both Italian and dialect

With friends

Only or mainly dialect

Within the family

Only or mainly Italian 27.1 32.1 32.7 32.8 32.1

Both Italian and dialect 0.5 1.2 2.4 3.9 5.1

Another language

Table 1 Use of Italian and dialect in different domains of use (ISTAT 2017)

64.1 71.4 72.7 72.8 71.5

Only or mainly Italian

13.9 6.9 6.8 5.4 4.2

Only or mainly dialect

With strangers

20.3 18.5 18.6 19.0 12.9

Both Italian and dialect

0.4 0.8 0.8 1.5 2.2

Another language

1 Introduction

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Fig. 1 Percentage of people who speak “only dialect” or “Italian and dialect” (ISTAT 2017)

population use a dialect in the family domain, either in a monolingual mode or mixed with Italian, compared to 31% in the North-West. Focusing on the domain of work, the use of dialects appears to be more widespread in the North-East and the South than in the NorthWest. Italians’ attitudes towards dialects have mainly been negative in the past as dialects were perceived to be the languages of lower classes and

1 Introduction

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uneducated people, but also an obstacle for social advancing. Today, dialects are often valued and rediscovered by Italians as a way to express regional identities or to enrich communication mixed with Italian.

4

Immigration in Italy and Immigrants’ Linguistic Repertoire

Mass immigration started in the 1980s and particularly the 1990s saw the arrival of increasing numbers of immigrants to Italy. The trend has continued, and Italy has rapidly become a highly multicultural and multilingual country. Since the 2000s, there has been a rapid rise in migration to Italy to 5,036,000 (Ministero del Lavoro 2021). Five immigrant communities represent 50% of the total immigrant population in Italy: Romanians, Albanians, Moroccans, Chinese and Ukrainians (Ministero del Lavoro 2021). The remaining immigrants come from a variety of countries, making the picture of immigration in Italy highly varied (Table 2). Table 2 Largest groups of immigrants according to nationality in Italy, 1 January 2021 (Ministero del Lavoro 2021) NATIONALITIES

Romania Albania Morocco China Ukraine Philippines India Bangladesh Egypt Pakistan Moldova Nigeria Sri Lanka Senegal

2019

2020

Number

Var.% ‘18/’19

Number

Var.% ‘19/’20

1,143,859 423,212 406,112 283,43 227,867 158,049 147,153 131,023 119,864 116,631 122,762 114,096 104,763 105,277

−3.90% −3.90% −2.50% −2.50% −3.90% −5.80% −3.10% −0.70% 0.30% 2.10% −6.90% 7.60% −3.00% −0.60%

1,145,118 421,591 414,249 288,923 228,560 157,665 153,209 138,895 128,095 121,609 118,516 113,049 107,598 106,198

0.20% −0.40% 2.00% 1.90% 0.30% −0.20% 4.10% 6.00% 6.90% 4.3% −3.50% −0.90% 2.70% 0.90%

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National statistics only provide information on the nationalities of immigrants; they fail to provide a clear picture of the languages used in their linguistic or ethnic subgroups. For example, as noted by Bagna et al. (2018), Arabic may be one of the languages spoken by Moroccans, Egyptians and Tunisians, although they speak different varieties of Arabic, and Albanian may be spoken by immigrants from Albania and Kosovo. Furthermore, immigrant groups sharing the same nationality are not homogeneous, but are often composed of several ethnic, religious and linguistic subgroups. Nigerian immigrants in Italy, for example, belong to several ethnic groups (mainly Yoruba, Edo and Igbo) who speak completely different languages (Goglia 2011). Indian immigrants in Italy are mainly Punjabi speakers. In recent years, the process of family reunion has increased the number of children and teenagers of immigrant origin, and the number of children born in Italy whose parents are first-generation immigrants. According to Italian law, children born in Italy of foreign parents hold their parents’ citizenship (ius sanguinis) until the age of 18, when they are entitled to apply for Italian citizenship. Media and institutions refer to them as the seconda generazione, “the second generation”. Many immigrants arrive in Italy with already complex linguistic repertoires, including local languages and more widely used national languages in their country of origin. In the case of former European colonies, linguistic repertoires may also include a variety of a European language and a pidgin (or creole). This is the case, for example, of Ghanaians (Ghanaian English and Ghanaian Pidgin), Nigerians (Nigerian English and Nigerian Pidgin English) and Cape Verdeans (Portuguese and Cape Verde Creole). In Italy, the linguistic repertoire of families of immigrant origin includes Italian, as the main language of the host country, and the heritage language(s) of the parents. Italian is the second language for the parents and the first language for the second generation in the majority of cases (cf. Bagna et al. 2018). Depending on various factors, the second generation may maintain the languages spoken by their parents, start a process of language shift or engage in code-switching practices in interactions with family members and members of the same immigrant community. Italo-Romance dialects may also become part

1 Introduction

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of the linguistic repertoire of these families although official statistics do not mention this possibility. As we will see in Sect. 5, even studies of multilingualism and code-switching in immigrant communities have not taken Italo-Romance dialects use into account or have claimed that code-switching with dialect is infrequent or non-existent.

5

Sociolinguistic Research and Italo-Romance Dialects

Sociolinguistic studies on specific immigrant communities or immigrants from different countries of origin in various cities have provided initial insights into immigrants’ awareness, perception and use of dialects (Amoruso 2002; D’Agostino 2004; Mosca 2006; Amoruso and Scarpello 2010; Pugliese and Villa 2012; Villa 2014; Vitolo and Maturi 2017; Mattiello and Della Putta 2017; Goglia 2018; Guerini 2018; Chini and Andorno 2018; Lombardo 2021). While their settings and immigrant groups involved differ, these studies have, nevertheless, identified common themes. Some studies reported on the negative attitudes of first-generation immigrants towards the Italo-Romance dialects as side-results of their research (Bernini 2001; Cuzzolin 2001). Some immigrants state that they do not want to learn the dialects because of their perceived low prestige; for example, the Ivorian immigrants in Palermo studied by Amoruso and Scarpello (2010) linked the use of Palermitano to lower classes in the historical city centre of Palermo (cf. Pugliese and Villa 2012; Mattiello and Della Putta 2017; Guerini 2018). Dialects are also perceived as secret languages deliberately used by local Italians to exclude or even offend immigrants (D’Agostino 2004; Amoruso and Scarpello 2010; Pugliese and Villa 2012; Guerini 2018). The geographical restriction of dialects is the main reason why some immigrants prioritise the acquisition of Italian (Pugliese and Villa 2012; Villa 2014; Guerini 2018; Goglia 2015). This is the case, for example, for immigrants who have not settled and are considering re-migration, such as Sri Lankan Tamil immigrants in Palermo (Amoruso and Scarpello 2010).

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Positive attitudes towards the dialects have also been found, particularly when immigrants perceive the knowledge of the dialects to be useful. For example, the Tunisians and Moroccans in the study of Amoruso and Scarpello (2010) use dialect in the market in the historical city centre of Palermo (cf. D’Agostino 2004). For them, dialect is as important as Italian because it represents a vital resource for their sales activity. Other studies have also highlighted the link between immigrants’ knowledge of dialects and effective interactions with customers in the market or shops. Pugliese and Villa (2012: 194) reported on a Bengali shop owner in Bologna who wanted to learn the Bolognese dialect as a business strategy to interact more effectively with his elderly customers. Mosca (2006: 231) reported a similar attitude about using the Piedmontese dialect from a Senegalese seller in the city of Vercelli. These opposing views mirror the conflicting attitudes of Italians themselves towards dialects. On the one hand, they are perceived as substandard varieties of Italian, not to be used and linked to a backward or rural way of life; on the other, they are important markers of regional identities and considered worth maintaining, and in some regions, dialects are still widely used in both informal and formal domains, despite lacking any official status. Sociolinguistic studies so far have shown that the degree of dialect use by immigrants may vary according to the different areas and the respective vitality of dialects, which are less used in the north-western regions (Cuzzolin 2001; Guerini 2018) and more used in southern regions (D’Agostino 2004; Amoruso and Scarpello 2010). However, besides these dialectological aspects, social factors should also be included, as immigrants whose jobs involve interactions with middle- and upper-class families have fewer opportunities to learn and speak dialects. This is the case, for example, of Natalia, a Ukrainian carer in Naples, discussed in Mattiello and Della Putta (2017), and the Sri Lankan Tamil immigrants in Palermo who work as domestic helpers (Amoruso and Scarpello 2010). On the other hand, immigrants who reside and work in lower-class neighbourhoods use the local dialect more, as with the above-mentioned Moroccans and Tunisians in the dialect-speaking historical city centre of Palermo (Amoruso and Scarpello 2010).

1 Introduction

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In cities where Italian is the unmarked code, immigrants have only little dialect input (or none at all), as local Italians tend to speak to them in Italian. According to Guerini (2018), Ghanaians in Bergamo do not receive enough input in Bergamasco from local Italians because local Italians speak in Italian to immigrants as they do with all outsiders and regard Bergamasco as we-code of the local community. The study of the Italo-Romance dialects in the linguistic repertoire of immigrants’ children (the second generation) is even more recent. So far, studies on multilingualism among the second generation have mainly used surveys on the use of immigrant languages that have revealed, as a side-product, also the attitudes towards and knowledge of dialects (Chini 2004; Massariello Merzangora 2004, Goglia and Fincati 2017; Chini and Andorno 2018).

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The Contributions to this Volume

By combining sociolinguistic and second language acquisition tools, Mari D’Agostino and Egle Mocciaro (Chapter 2) explore the status and functions of Sicilian in migration contexts over the last twenty years. In the recent past, Sicilian was seen by migrants as a “we code” shared by foreigners and locals who live in the same spaces within the city. In contrast, in the last years, there is a new form of migration with the following features: young age of the migrants, absence of family networks, inclusion in a reception system with strongly segregating aspects. As a consequence, linguistic contacts are extremely difficult because of the absence of shared places and tongues with both the autochthones and the old migration. Low interaction with the local community also means low exposure to Sicilian. In reception centres, most of the verbal exchanges of migrants take place with other migrants. Beyond this circuit of communication there is the Italian of the media, the simplified versions of spoken Italian used by professionals in reception centres and, sometimes, the Italian spoken as emerging L2 by other migrants. Sicilian is not in the input and, thus, it does not emerge in migrants’ speech. According to D’Agostino and Mocciaro, rather than revealing a change in the attitude towards the local languages, the

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lack of Sicilian in new migrants’ repertoires results from the restricted coordinates in which second language(s) acquisition occurs. Paolo Della Putta (Chapter 3) investigates the linguistic repertoire of Ukrainian citizens settled in Naples, a city in which standard Italian, regional Italian and Neapolitan coexist in everyday communication. Semi-spontaneous interviews were used to gather information on participants’ attitudes towards the use and status of Neapolitan. In particular, Della Putta analyses three typical standard/regional variants in the interlanguage of his participants: the presence or absence of the prepositional accusative, the alternation of essere/stare (be/stay) and the alternation of avere/tenere (have/keep). Della Putta also discusses instances of codeswitching between Italian and Neapolitan, and their communicative functions. Results show negative evaluations of the use and status of Neapolitan, rare use of code-switching and a strong preference of standard Italian, with very little variation towards regional Italian. Fabiano Fusco (Chapter 4) focuses on the city of Udine in the region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia where Friulian, an officially recognised minority language is spoken. The chapter presents the results of a research on the linguistic repertoires of school children of immigrant origin (including the knowledge and use of Friulian) through the use of sociolinguistic questionnaires. While Italian is the main language the informants use to communicate outside the family domain, Friulian adds an important value to the expressive repertoire available. According to Fusco, Friulian acts as we-code for local Italians, but it also allows the inclusion of children of immigrant origin and adolescents who live and study in the same places. Francesco Goglia (Chapter 5) discusses the use of Venetan by IgboNigerians living in the city of Padua. Venetan is one of the most widely spoken Italo-Romance dialects in everyday communication with local friends and outsiders. The study analyses interview excerpts in which participants talk about their knowledge and use of the dialect in two communicative domains: interactions with local Italians and the use of the dialect at work. They prioritise the acquisition of Italian, the language of wider communication, and do not actively choose to become new speakers of Venetan. However, differently from other settings in which a majority and minority language coexist, participants report the use of

1 Introduction

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Venetan in interactions with local Italians, particularly with the elderly, and at work. The use of Venetan at work makes it a necessity for immigrants to acquire some knowledge of the dialect and makes it part of their professional assets. By addressing and including immigrants in their interactions in dialect, even imposing it as the default language choice in some domains, Venetan speakers allow immigrants to become new speakers of the dialect. Federica Guerini (Chapter 6) focuses on Ghanaian immigrants in the city of Bergamo. The analysis of excerpts from a sample of faceto-face interactions and semi-structured interviews involving a group of first-generation Ghanaian immigrants, combined with the author’s longterm participant observation in the Bergamo community, reveals that the interplay of three main factors—i.e. lack of input, negative attitudes and lack of motivation—feed into a self-reinforcing dynamic, which makes the incorporation of Italo-Romance dialects into the linguistic repertoire of first-generation Ghanaian immigrants unlikely. Raymond Siebetcheu (Chapter 7) focuses on the function of Italian dialects in the Cameroonian community in Italy. The research has involved 528 immigrants residing in 15 Italian cities. Data were collected through the use of three investigation tools (questionnaire, interviews, and participant observation). Siebetcheu’s research reveals that Italian dialects, when declared by participants, appear in the low level of the linguistic repertoire of Cameroonian immigrants. Actually, only 8% of the participants report being able to use Italian dialects. Italian dialects are therefore playing only a secondary role in the Cameroonian community, who prefer to invest in French and Italian motivated by a belief in greater job opportunities and to avoid linguistic insecurity. Despite the low percentage of participants who claim to use Italian dialects, this study shows that Italian dialects are gradually finding their place in the linguistic behaviours of Cameroonians, especially thanks to the presence of Italian spouses in the family, but also thanks to the contact of Cameroonian children with other Italian children living in the cities where they were born and /or where they grew up. Maya Smith (Chapter 8) focuses on the Senegalese community in Rome. Through an ethnographic, sociolinguistic case study conducted during a three-month period in 2010, she discusses how Senegalese

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migrants in Rome navigate the societal language ideologies of their new home (e.g., Italian societal discourses about standard language and nonstandard varieties) and the language attitudes they bring with them (e.g., complex ideas about language developed through socialization, schooling, and national discourses in Senegal and other countries). Through reflections on their experiences with standard Italian, informal registers of Italian, Romanesco, and other Italo-Romance dialects, participants in Smith’s study demonstrate the ways in which they not only use and discuss language, but also how they position themselves linguistically in their new society. Valeria Villa-Perez (Chapter 9) provides an analysis of the sociolinguistic representations of dialects and Italian regional varieties as described by adult immigrants who come from different countries. The research is based on 50 interviews at the participants’ workplaces in the Emilia-Romagna region. The theory of social representation offers a new approach for studying the role of dialects and regional varieties in the social integration process and the language learning experience of immigrants in a multilingual country like Italy. Villa-Perez’ chapter also links sociolinguistic representations and endangered language vitality in the light of her major hypothesis about first-generation immigrants’ as “new speakers” who could contribute to the preservation and upholding of the regional minority languages. Matthias Wolny (Chapter 10) focuses on the use of Venetian by migrant caregivers of Moldovan origin in the city of Venice. Care for the elderly is very often provided by migrant caregivers who very often originate from Eastern Europe and in most cases live with their clients. In the city of Venice, where Wolny’s research is located, especially among the elderly population, who represent most of the clients of private caregivers, there are many (almost) exclusive dialect speakers. In everyday life, this communicative setting can be very problematic to the private carers who very often are at their first job in Italy and still struggle to get along linguistically. At the centre of Wolny’s analysis are the communicative repertoires of the caregivers, the value they assign to the Venetian dialect and the strategies they apply to deal with the communicative difficulties of everyday life, especially regarding the impact with the dialect-based everyday communication.

1 Introduction

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All chapters are self-contained with background information on both the sociolinguistic situation of the city or region and the immigrant community and languages under discussion. The collection also allows for comparison between different settings, Italo-Romance dialects and immigrant communities. It is hoped that the volume will not only highlight the role of Italo-Romance dialects in the linguistic repertoires of immigrants in Italy, but also seek to open a dialogue with the wider and growing research on immigrants as new speakers of minority languages.

References Amoruso, C. 2002. La comunità ivoriana a Palermo. Frammenti stranieri di una imagine urbana. In Percezioni dello spazio e spazio della percezione. La Variazione linguistica fra nuovi e vecchi strumenti di analisi, Palermo, Centro di studi filologici e linguistici siciliani, 111–133, ed. Mari D’Agostino. Amoruso, C., and Scarpello, I. 2010. Il dialetto nei discorsi degli immigrati: intrecci di sistema e scelte d’uso. In XXVe CILPR Congrès International de Linguistique et de Philologie Romanes. Innsbruck, 3–8 septembre 2007, 4– 1–4–12, ed. Iliescu, M. et al. Berlin/New York: De Gruyter. Augustyniak, A. 2021. Migrant learners of basque as new speakers: Language authenticity and belonging. Languages 6: 116. https://doi.org/10.3390/lan guages6030116. Bagna, C., Carbonara, V., Salvati, L., Perez M., and Dota, F. 2018. Le lingue dei cittadini stranieri. In Istat, Vita e percorsi di integrazione degli immigrati in Italia, ISTAT, 219–247. Banfi, E. 2003. Italiano/L2 di cinesi: Percorsi acquisizionali. Milano: FrancoAngeli. Bermingham, N., and Higham, G. 2018. Immigrants as new speakers in Galicia and Wales: Issues of integration, belonging and legitimacy. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 39 (5): 394–406. Bernini, G. 2001. Varietà di apprendimento di italiano L2 e varietà del repertorio dei nativi italofoni. In L’italiano e le regioni, ed. Fusco, F. and Marcato, 53–69. Udine: Centro internazionale sul Plurilinguismo. Bernini, G., and Giacalone Ramat, A. (eds.). 1990. La temporalità nell’acquisizione di lingue seconde. Milano: FrancoAngeli.

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Berruto, Gaetano. 1993. Le Varietà Del Repertorio. Introduzione All’italiano Contemporaneo. In La Variazione E Gli Usi, ed. Alberto Sobrero, 3–36. Roma / Bari: Laterza. Berruto, Gaetano. 2009. Ristrutturazione dei repertorie “linguefranche” in situazione immigratoria. Appunti di lavoro. Studi italiani di linguistica teorica e applicata 38 (1): 9–28. Berruto, Gaetano. 2018. The languages and dialects of Italy. In Manual of romance sociolinguistics, ed. Wendy Ayres-Bennett and Janice Carruthers, 494–525. Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter. Cerruti, M. 2011. Regional varieties of Italian in the linguistic repertoire. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 210: 9–28. Chini, M. (ed.). 2004. Plurilinguismo e immigrazione in Italia: Un’indagine sociolinguistica a Pavia e Torino. Milano: FrancoAngeli. Chini, M. 2011. New linguistic minorities: Repertoires, language maintenance and shift. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 210: 47–69. Chini, M., and Andorno C. (eds.). 2018. Repertori e usi linguistici nell’immigrazione: Un’indagine sui minori alloglotti, dieci anni dopo. Milano: FrancoAngeli. Cornips, Leonie. 2020. Dialect acquisition by ‘new speakers’ of Dutch and their linguistic othering. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development. https://doi.org/10.1080/01434632.2020.1730384. Cuzzolin, P. 2001. Percezione del contatto di lingue: arabo classico, arabo moderno, italiano, dialetto. In Lingue e culture in contatto: L’italiano come L2 per gli arabofoni, ed. Vedovelli, Massimo et al., 89–107. Milano: Franco Angeli. D’Agostino, M. 2004. Immigrati a Palermo: Contatti e/o conflitti linguistici e immagini urbane. In Città plurilingui: Lingue e culture a confronto in situazioni urbane, ed. R. Bombi and F. Fusco, 191–211. Udine: Forum. Dal Negro, Silvia, and Alessandro Vietti. 2011. Italian and Italo-romance dialects. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 210: 71–92. Giacalone Ramat, Anna. (ed.). 2003. Verso l’italiano: Percorsi e strategie di acquisizione. Roma: Carocci Editore. Goglia, F. 2004. The interlanguage of Igbo Nigerians immigrated in Italy, with particular attention to the interference with English language. In Il soggetto plurilingue. Interlingua aspetti di neurolinguistica, identità e interculturalità, ed. Baur S., 23–120. FrancoAngeli. Goglia, F. 2011. Code-switching among igbo-Nigerian immigrants in Padua (Italy). In Postcolonial linguistic voices: Identity choices and representations, ed. Eric Anchimbe/StephenMforte, 323–342. Berlin and Boston: DeGruyter.

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Goglia, F. 2015. Multilingual immigrants and language maintenance: The case of the Igbo-Nigerian community in Padua. In Lingue e Contesti. Studi in onore di Alberto Mioni, ed. Sara Gesuato/Maria Grazia Busa, 701–710. Padova: Cleup. Goglia, F. 2018. Code-switching and immigrant communities: The case of Italy. In Manual of romance sociolinguistics, ed. W. Ayres-Bennett and J. Carruthers, 702–723. Berlin/Boston: Mouton de Gruyter. Goglia, F., and V. Fincati. 2017. Immigrant languages and the Veneto dialect in the linguistic repertories of secondary school pupils of immigrant origin in the Veneto region. Studi italiani di linguistica teoriace applicata XLVI/3: 497–517. Guerini, Federica. 2006. Language alternation strategies in multilingual settings. A case study: Ghanaian Immigrants in Northern Italy. Frankfurt: Peter Lang. Guerini, F. 2018. “It sounds like the language spoken by those living by the seaside”—Language attitudes towards the local Italo-romance variety of Ghanaian immigrants in Bergamo. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 254: 103–120. Gumperz, John J. 1964. Linguistic and social interaction in two communities. American Anthropologist 66: 137–53. ISTAT. 2017. L’uso Della Lingua Italiana, Dei Dialetti E Delle Lingue Straniere. https://www.istat.it/it/files//2017/12/Report_Uso-italiano_dialetti_altrel ingue_2015.pdf. Accessed 19 Dec 2021. Lombardo, E. 2021. Esiti del contatto linguistico in contesto migratorio: il caso dei romeni in provincia di Venezia. PhD Thesis. University of Pavia and University of Bergamo. Maiden, Martin, and Mair Parry, eds. 1997. The dialects of Italy. London and New York: Routledge. Massariello Merzangora, G. 2004. Le “nuove minoranze” a Verona. Un osservatorio sugli studenti immigrati. In Le città plurilingui: Lingue e culture a confronto in situazioni urbane, ed. R. Bombi and F. Fusco, 353–376. Udine: Forum. Mattiello, Francesca, and Paolo Della Putta. 2017. L’acquisizione dell’italiano L2 in contesti linguistici di forte variabilità interna. Competenze sociolinguistiche e metalinguistiche di cittadini slavofoni a Napoli. Italiano LinguaDue 1: 37–69. Mazzaferro, G. 2018. Language maintenance within new linguistic minorities in Italy. A translanguaging perspective. In Translanguaging as everyday practice, ed. G. Mazzaferro. Dordrecht, The Netherlands.

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Ministero del Lavoro. 2021. XI Rapporto Annuale. Gli stranieri nel mercato del lavoro in Italia. https://www.lavoro.gov.it/documenti-e-norme/studie-statistiche/Documents/Undicesimo%20Rapporto%20Annuale%20-% 20Gli%20stranieri%20nel%20mercato%20del%20lavoro%20in%20I talia%202021/XI-Rapporto-MdL-stranieri-REV-22072021.pdf. Accessed 20 Dec 2021. Mori, Laura. 2007. Fonetica dell’italiano L2: Un’indagine sperimentale sulla variazione nell’interlingua dei marocchini. Rome: Carocci Editore. Mosca, M. 2006. Varietà dialettale piemontese nelle esperienze linguistiche di immigrati senegalesi. In Problemi e fenomeni di mediazione linguistica e culturale. Atti del 5° Congresso internazionale dell’Associazione Italiana di Linguistica Applicata, Bari, 17–18 febbraio, ed. Banfi E., Gavioli L, Guardiano C. And Vedovelli M. Roma: Guerra. Pellegrini, Givan Battista. 1977. Carta dei dialetti d’Italia. Pisa: Pacini. Pugliese, R., and V. Villa 2012. Aspetti dell’integrazione linguistica degli immigrati nel contest urbano: la percezione e l’uso dei dialetti italiani. In Coesistenze linguistiche nell’Italia pre-e postunitaria, ed. T. Telmon, G. Raimondi, and L. And Revelli, 139–160. Roma: Bulzoni. Pujolar, J. 2010. Immigration and language education in Catalonia: Between national and social agendas. Linguistics and Education. Elsevier Inc., 21 (3), 229–243. Telmon, Tullio. 1994. Gli Italiani Regionali Contemporanei. In Storia Della Lingua Italiana. Volume Terzo. Le Altre Lingue, ed. L. Serianni and P. Trifone, 597–626. Turin: Einaudi. Villa, V. 2014. Dinamiche di contatto linguistico nelle narrazioni di immigrati: dialetti e varietà regionali. In Varietà dei contesti di apprendimento linguistico, ed. A. De Meo, M. D’Agostino, G. Iannàccaro, and L. Spreafico, 43–58. Milano: Officinaventuno. Vitolo, G., and P. Maturi. 2017. Migranti a Salerno tra italiano e dialetto. In L’italiano dei nuovi italiani, ed. Massimo Vedovelli, 423–441. Roma: Aracne.

2 Palermo 2000–2020: Sicilian in Old and New Migrations Mari D’Agostino and Egle Mocciaro

1

Sicilian and Migrants in Palermo

In the last two decades, sociolinguistic research on Palermo highlighted some phenomena that were also affecting other Italian regions, for instance the persistent exposure of the migrant population to local varieties different from Italian (D’Agostino 2015). For Sicily, this emerged

The article results from close collaboration of the authors. However, for practical reasons, Mari D’Agostino is responsible for Sections 1 to 3, Egle Mocciaro for Sections 4 to 6.

M. D’Agostino University of Palermo, Palermo, Italy e-mail: [email protected] E. Mocciaro (B) Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 F. Goglia and M. Wolny (eds.), Italo-Romance Dialects in the Linguistic Repertoires of Immigrants in Italy, Palgrave Studies in Minority Languages and Communities, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-99368-9_2

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from national (ISTAT 2002, 2007) and regional (Lo Piparo 1995) quantitative surveys, which confirm the presence of the Sicilian language in many aspects of the daily life of the local population. This presence (at least subjectively perceived as it is expressed by self-declarations) was testified by the very slow growth of exclusive use of Italian within the family, which went from 24% (ISTAT 2002) to 26% over the whole Sicily (ISTAT 2007). Therefore, we were far from the ‘collapse of dialects’ which, according to some analyses, preceded their substantial disappearance (cf. Berruto 2002, 2007). Other elements combined with the previous ones, which relate to the complex area of phenomena labelled ‘dialect legitimisation’ or ‘new uses of dialect’. Quantitative data on university students in Palermo indicated an increase in the self-reported local language use in the ‘domain of friends’, in contrast with the previous decades, testifying to the progressive erosion of the feature of ‘social disadvantage’ ascribed for a long time to the local language, the ‘dialect’ (D’Agostino 2004, 2006). If we would measure the state of health of Sicilian in those years by its presence on the walls, near the meeting places of young people, in railway carriages, on benches and public parks, or in trade union and student demonstrations, we could only get an impression of its remarkable strength and vitality. We are dealing not with texts produced by semicultured people, which we can still often see in local markets and in which local terms coexist alongside malapropisms and misspellings, but rather with conscious and controlled uses of Sicilian (D’Agostino 2015).1 In those years, this macro-sociolinguistic framework allowed migrants, mostly located within areas of Palermo’s historical centre abandoned by the locals, to experience a process of immersion in a very articulated input, in which regional Italian and Sicilian played the role of target languages of separate, though partly overlapping, acquisition processes. Several field research have brought to light forms of language mixing similar to those of the locals in the productions of those migrants who 1

The revival of the Sicilian song (in new and articulated forms ranging from song-writing to rap and traditional music; Sottile 2018) contributed to creating a scenario in which sounds and forms of two languages can be found side by side, and often inside each other, arranged on a continuum that presents very marked thickenings in some points of the linguistic and social space.

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were well integrated in Palermo’s labour market. Moreover, the role of Sicilian as a we code that unites foreigners and locals living and working in the same places often emerged from perceptual interviews. In (1), we report a fragment of an interview to Maciste, a Maghrebi fruit seller working in one of the city’s traditional open-air markets. In the excerpt, he first answers a question from the researcher and immediately afterwards intervenes during a spontaneous interaction with a client. The competence of Sicilian, also recognised by the client, is proudly claimed by Maciste as a symbol of his social position within the host community: (1) Maciste, male; born in Tunisia; education: low; married (with a compatriot), 2 children; job: fruit seller. Researcher: ma: secondo lei il siciliano:: | qualche volta i palermitani, parlano il dialetto con gli immigrati perché non si vogliono fare capire? Maciste: no no no. parlano per ti fare capire! per / ti inseriscono ne+ ne+ nel dialetto di loro. è un modo per t’inseriscono per parlare con loro! Client: mi capisce lui | lui a me mi capisce. io a lui pure a lui lo capisco. Researcher: ma lui come parla? Client: lui parla:: in dialetto suo. Researcher: come in dialetto suo? in dialetto siciliano! Client: no! già | è intrafittato siciliano lui! c’ha tre parti siciliane, e un quarto di | di suo paese! Researcher: Tunisia. / perché tre parti siciliane? Client: perché frequenta a noi! eh! Maciste: te l’ho detto io! nell’intervista che te l’ha ditto? xxx a loro, [sono diventato come loro!] Client: [una volta che frequenta a] | frequenta a noi, già / scippa | i paroli stessi le scippa della bocca! Maciste: m’arrubbai la vostra lingua! sono ladro!

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‘Researcher: but:: do you think Sicilian::: sometimes the Palermitans speak the dialect with immigrants because they don’t want to be understood?2 Maciste: no. They speak to make you understand! to / insert you ne+ ne+ into their dialect. It’s a way of inserting you to talk to them! Client: he understands me | he understands me. I understand him too. Researcher: but how does he speak? Client: he speaks:: in his dialect. Researcher: how in his dialect? In the Sicilian dialect! Client: no! He’s already a Sicilian! He’s got three Sicilian parts, and a quarter of a part of his country! Researcher: Tunisia. / Why three Sicilian parts? Client: because he hangs out with us! eh! Maciste: I told you! In the interview who told you? xxx to them [I became like them!] [Once you’re with us, you’ll already take the words out of your mouth!] Maciste: I’ll get your language! I’m a thief!’ The same symbolic value assigned to Sicilian as a sign of integration was attributed to children’s language skills, as emerged from the perceptive interviews carried out by D’Agostino (2004, 2006). The excerpt in (2) is by Sanissy, a 42-year-old Mauritian who has been working for a long time in Palermo residents’ homes and lives in an area far from the historical centre, in the Zen district, where he claims to have few social contacts. He did not experience full immersion in the linguistic context of the city as his children seem to be doing, to the evident satisfaction of their father.

2

Translations try to reproduce interviewees’ sub-standard speech.

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(2) Sanassy: male; born in Mauritius; education: high; married to a compatriot; two children; job: housekeeper. Researcher: I tuoi figli sanno parlare il dialetto siciliano? Sanassy: sì sì sì. mio figlio soprattutto, parla molto la dialetto siciliano. io tante volte quando lui è fuori con i suoi amici, che va a giocare calcio sulla strada- così io mette alla finestra così nel bordo, nel soglia della finestra e ascolto a lui che vedo a parlare, e mi mette a ridere da sola. sì perché c’è la zanzariera no? allora loro non mi vede di dentro- però io lo vedo loro fuori, sì e comincia a gridare tutte parole siciliane. Researcher: vero? e a te fa piacere che, insomma, sappiano parlare il dialetto? Sanassy: sì sì mi mette a ridere! sì sì io mi diverte- mi diverte, “ma guarda un po’. lui che è qua, io sono arrivato prima, non riesco a parlare il siciliano!” ‘Researcher: Can your children speak Sicilian dialect? Sanassy: yes yes yes yes. my son above all, he speaks a lot the Sicilian dialect. I, many times when he’s out with his friends, that goes to play football on the street- so I put at the window so in the edge, in the threshold of the window and I listen to him I see him talking, and I start laughing alone. yes because there is the mosquito net no? then they don’t see me inside- but I see them outside, yes and he starts to shout all the Sicilian words. Researcher: isn’t it? And you’re pleased that, in short, they can speak dialect? Sanassy: yes yes he makes me laugh! yes yes I’m amused- I’m amused, “but look at that. He’s here, I came first, I can’t speak Sicilian”.’

2

Playing Football in Palermo (30 Years Later)

The value of the we code, which unites foreigners and natives who live, work, study and play football in the same places, is also documented for communities such as the Chinese, who often struggles to integrate. The

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Palermo writer Santo Piazzese (2016: 113) gives a very precise description of this community in the previous decade: Epoca: non oltre l’inizio degli anni ‘90, perché nel tempo immediatamente successivo sarei stato deportato, con i miei colleghi di dipartimento, nei nuovi locali di viale delle Scienze, dove aveva perso le scarpe Gesù Cristo, come si dice alle nostre latitudini. E una volta là, addio palloni e partite. Voci: Ala, cusci’ ( o frate’, o compa’), ala … Ahù, l’amapassari però shtu palluni… Oppure, in base alle circostanze: richicchiu… ens… coner… avutu… Ovvero: rekick… hands (cioè, fallo di mano )… corner… out … Gli stessi termini che, da ragazzi, impiegavamo nelle partite (erano troppo infuocate per poterle definire partitelle) tra amici e compagni di scuola: tracce residuali dell’influenza britannica sul calcio panormita, compreso quello di strada, giunte sino a noi per vie trasversali. Eppure, ne erano passati di anni, da allora. ‘Time: no later than the beginning of the 1990s, because in the immediate aftermath I would have been deported, along with my departmental colleagues, to the new buildings in Viale delle Scienze, where Jesus Christ had lost his shoes, as they say at our latitudes. And once there, goodbye balls and matches. Voices: Hey, cousin (or brother, or brother-in-law), Hey.. Yo, we have to pass this ball… Or, depending on the circumstances: faggot... corner... high... Or: rekick... hands (i.e., foul)... corner... out... The same terms that we used to use in matches (too heated to be called little games) between friends and schoolmates when we were young: residual traces of the British influence on Panormite football, including street football, which have reached us by transversal routes. Yet years had passed since then.

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25

Piazzese’s memory continues with an important observation: ‘What struck me about those games was the absolute interchangeability of roles, behaviour, propensity to insult. And language. If I had closed my eyes, sometimes I would have found it hard to attribute a certain word or comment in narrow Palermo dialect to a Chinese or a native’ (Piazzese 2016: 113). Almost three decades later, impromptu football matches continue to offer clues as to what is happening in the city regarding the dynamics of contact between languages in a migration context. The best place to observe is the Foro Italico, the Palermo’s seafront promenade, where hundreds of young people gather to play football. Even an inattentive observer cannot fail to notice that this activity is performed for the overwhelming majority of young Africans. Not only the visual dimension, but the auditory one is revealing. Approaching at a voice distance, a few rare cumpa’ ‘fellow’ break the flow of almost always unfamiliar sounds. The vast majority of these comes from sub-Saharan Africa: Mandinka , Wolof , Fula , Bambara , Sarakole , Jola. What follows in 3–5 is a fragment of a game. It’s January 1, 2020, and there are two teams facing each other: team A (three Gambians and one Senegalese) and team B (four Gambians). A young man from Senegal is refereeing. Two nations (Gambia and Senegal) and seven different languages (Jola , Mandinka , Wolof , Fula , English , French and Italian), each with its own varieties, are in the field. The game is stopped because the referee has blown his whistle for a foul. Ansu, one of the players of team A, is lying on the ground in the middle of the field. All the players are around him to see if he is injured or faking it; the two different opinions are loudly expressed. Wolof , Mandinka , English , French and finally Italian, alternate and mix in a language game that we have tried to reproduce below. (3) Languages: Wolof Mandinka ENGLISH FRENCH 3

3

We here list nationalities and (self-declared) languages of the participants: Ansu (Senegal /Mandinka , Wolof, French), Gaucho (Gambia/Mandinka , Wolof, English), Sneipa (Gambia/Mandinka , Wolof, English), Referee (Senegal /Wolof , Mandinka), Lamin and Kemo (Gambia/Mandinka), Yusupha (Gambia/Jola , Mandinka , Wolof, English), Alieu

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Ansu (on the ground massaging his thigh, addressing everyone): Gaucho (addressed to all): Sneipa (did the foul deed, addressed to all):

Gaucho (addressed to the referee):

Referee (addressed to Gaucho): Lamin (ironic, addressed to the referee): Kemo (addressed to all B team barrier boys): Yusupha (addressed to Ansu): (addressed to all) Alieu (addressed to Yusupha):

Nying mung faun lety This is a foul HEY bi du faul deh Hey, this is not a foul NO, nlafta ka katto le bondi acoto No, I wanted to take the ball out from under him BOY ARBITRE lanla? FOUL nom? Boy referee, what is that? Is that a foul? Waw, FAUTE LA Yes, this is a foul Ya bah rek You are good BOY naki nying kang Boy, approach him BOY wuli bang! Boy, up! Feng mang keh nying na Nothing happened to him NOO BOY dafa ganyu No boy, he’s hurt

The game resumes with a free kick awarded to team A: (4) Languages: Wolof Mandinka ENGLISH Ous (addressed to team A):

Sherif (addressed to Sneipa):

BOY berry a boita daming alba KICK la wolto Guys, but you have to throw the ball where it fell BOY, molbay wulema fararaledeh do jenna fi Boy we’ll kick your ass, get out of here (continued)

(Gambia/Fula , Mandinka , Wolof, English), Ous (Gambia/Mandinka , Wolof, English), Sherif (Gambia/Mandinka , Wolof, English), Mohamed (Gambia/Jola , Mandinka , Wolof, English).

2 Palermo 2000–2020: Sicilian in Old and New Migrations

(continued) Kemo (addressed to Sherif and Sneipa): Alieu (addressed to Madi, who has the ball): Mohamed (addressed to a Madi, who has the ball):

27

BOY alwobulla nga pellay bang nga pellay bang Guys, stop it and let’s play ball HEY CROSS CROSS CROSS co CROSS co Hey, cross the ball, cross BOY abulabang abulabang cha pandeyam! Boy leaves, ohh cunt of your mother!

A dog enters the playing field and all the players stop and try to send it away with shouts and large hand and leg gestures: (5) Languages: Mandinka , ITALIAN All:

CANE, CANE, wulo, wulo Dog, dog, go, go

Whoever arrives in Palermo from the sea route, seeing such a concentration of African boys on the Foro Italico esplanade, can very easily be led to overestimate the foreign, and particularly African, component. As of December 31 2019, only 25,522 foreign citizens were registered, whereas if we also consider those who have acquired Italian citizenship since 2009 (4002), the foreign presence becomes slightly more substantial. This brings us close to 30,000 (29,524), about 4.5% of the total population of Palermo, a very modest percentage compared to many other Italian cities. The data by nationality (from Municipal Register Office) are also in stark contrast to the presence on the pitch mentioned above. In 2019, the most numerous are those who come from Asia: Bangladesh (5405) and Sri Lanka 3428. They are followed by Romanians (3214, 12.6% of the total number of foreigners), Ghanaians (2586, 10.1%), Filipinos (1761, 6.9%), Tunisians (1056, 4.1%), Moroccans (1026, 4.0%), Chinese (997, 3.9%), Mauritians (867, 3.4%), and then all the other countries, for a total of 130 different citizenships. However, the vast majority of young people playing at the Foro Italico are not part of this articulated and complex migratory world, which has been settled in the city for decades.

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They are young people who have arrived by sea in recent years and are not included in the data of the Municipal Registry Office. This is not only because of the extreme mobility of many of them but also because of the difficulties in obtaining residence permits following the effects of the Security Decree, in November 2018. Moreover, many of them are outside the city contexts, including the one made up of foreign communities, as since their arrival they have been included in a reception system with strongly segregating aspects. In order to understand something of present-day football matches we have to look at completely different data from those seen above. A large part (about 70%) of those who arrived by sea were initially placed in so-called Centro di Accoglienza Straordinaria (CAS, ‘Extraordinary Reception Centres’), in many cases far from inhabited centres. The rest were divided between the Centri di Accoglienza per Richiedenti Asilo (CARA, ‘Reception Centres for Asylum Seekers’), government megastructures where people wait for months (although the law provides for a maximum stay of 35 days) and the centres of the Sistema di Protezione per Richiedenti Asilo e Rifugiati (SPRAR, ‘Protection System for Asylum Seekers and Refugees’), formed by a network of local authorities and non-governmental associations spread throughout the country. In the SPRARs (now Sistema di Accoglienza e Integrazione, SAI , ‘System of Reception and Integration’) which should in principle provide a ‘second reception’, migrants are housed in small structures or flats and are often involved in education and socio-occupational integration. In addition, there is the reception system for unaccompanied foreign minors or MSNA (i.e., minors who have arrived in Europe alone, without reference adults), which is also divided into a first reception system (with large, and often very problematic, accommodation facilities) and smaller second reception facilities. Many of the young people we see playing at the Foro Italico in Palermo are young migrants who arrived alone in one of the Sicilian ports (Augusta, Catania, Pozzallo, Trapani, Messina, Porto Empedocle, Palermo) and have now become part (or have just left) of that complex circuit of reception that has made Palermo, and Sicily, not only one of the main places of arrival of this new migration, but also one of the most important places of short- or long-term stay.

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29

New Migration Patterns, Old and New Models of Analysis

The picture outlined in the previous sections has shown a migration condition very different from other forms observed in the past, even in the recent past. Some features of this new pattern are: the typically individual (rather than family) nature of the migration, the young age of the migrants (often minors or young adults, rarely over 30 years old), their gender (great prevalence of males), the widespread multilingualism, especially for the many originating from sub-Saharan Africa, and, finally, the strongly segregating features of the housing context in which they are placed upon arrival (D’Agostino 2021a, b, c). We will focus here mainly on the last two features, apparently unrelated, but actually correlated in defining the coordinates of new contexts and acquisition models. Reception centres are multilingual contexts, which foster an interaction that can be described as polylingual and, consequently, the development of a composite (multi)linguistic competence, in which fragments of different languages coexist in individual repertoires and communicative practices. This type of competence, by means of which speakers manipulate pieces and features of the multilingual resources at their disposal to achieve their communicative aims, has been analysed in terms of truncated repertoires (Blommaert 2010) or polylingualism (Jørgensen 2008). We have seen an example of this in (3). We find a similar polylingual situation in another context of interaction and exposure to language, which strongly characterises the recent migratory dimension: that of interaction on social media, such as Facebook (D’Agostino and Mocciaro 2021). In fact, another characteristic of new migrants, unprecedented compared to previous situations (and related to the individual character of migration and the young age of migrants) is that of being connected (Diminescu 2008) or networked (Androutsopoulos 2015). Through such practices, young migrants ‘live’ simultaneously in Africa, in Italy and in the European countries they wish to reach (typically Germany or France). In this way, the background against which they have made their migration choices—and also their linguistic choices through media such as Facebook—is not only the ‘here and now’ context of where the digital communication occurs, but it includes a variety of social spaces, both in

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the contexts of departure and arrival. In a context of very low interaction with the local population, such as the one characterising the migration profile we are describing, social media constitute, together with reception centres, one of the main contexts of exposure to the language(s) of new migrants. In these new contexts of exposure, Italian is more rarely—and only fragmentarily—part of the linguistic input (Mocciaro 2020). In the centres, it often arrives in the simplified and poor form not infrequently used by people in charge and professionals (foreigner talk) or as a lingua franca used by those older migrants who have found work (although rarely in skilled jobs or with rich interaction with the local population). The absence of Italian (and of interaction with predominantly Italian speakers) is reflected on Facebook and other social media, where it is rarely used in interaction and very rarely by ‘native’ speakers. The forms of language contact in the context of new migration are profoundly different from those of the past. With respect to local languages and Italian in particular, we are faced with an unprecedented situation of reduced contact acquisition. The outcomes of this radically low exposure were investigated by Mocciaro (2020), who highlighted the extreme slowness and limited, interrupted nature of the acquisition pathway, even after relatively long periods of residence in the city (and sometimes even schooling experiences in the arrival context). The litmus test of this new dimension of ‘truncated contact’ is, as we shall see in Sect. 4, the absence of Sicilian in the input, that we code which, as we saw in Sect. 2, united foreigners and natives who shared work and living spaces until recently.

4

New Migrants Between Italian and Sicilian: Research Background and New Questions

The research reported in Mocciaro (2020) involved 20 newly arrived migrants from sub-Saharan African and Bangladesh, male and aged between 18 and 30 who were hosted in a city reception centre and were

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acquiring Italian naturalistically, that is, outside school. In the interviews conducted over 13 months, fragments of discourse traceable to local language input are sporadic and limited to lexical items, idioms and episodic morphosyntactic phenomena that are, however, also largely present in regional Italian. The example in (6) shows a case of differential object marking, a widespread phenomenon both in Sicilian and in the Italian spoken in Sicily, according to which objects referring to human beings are marked by the preposition a ‘to’ (while the others occur as bare nouns): (6) lui guardare he look:INF ‘He looked at the girl.’ (Mocciaro 2020: 132)

a To

ragaza girl

It should be underlined that even the few phenomena that could be traced back to a local variety (Sicilian or local Italian) can only be found in the few learners who had more contact, especially work contact, with locals. On the whole, data clearly show not only that Sicilian was not in the input, but that the input in general (in any local language, Italian or Sicilian) was low. This is reflected in the limited degree of interlanguage development of all participants in the sample,4 in fact excluded from any real rich interaction with the local population. The interviews for Mocciaro (2020) were completed in late 2018 and early 2019. Two years later, we were only able to track down three of

4

The analysis focused on the development of the morphosyntax of the verb, described by means of the theoretical-methodological tools of Klein and Perdue’s Basic Variety (1997). This is a theoretical functionalist model originally developed within the European Science Foundation Project (Perdue 1993). The Basic Variety is a simple yet structured initial stage of interlanguage in which utterances contain verbs and are structured according to their valency, but there is no trace of inflection. Nouns and verbs occur in an invariant form (e.g. the infinitive form or the stem), while information about temporality, aspect, person and other possible nominal and verbal categories expressed in individual languages are conveyed by non-inflectional means. Under adequate conditions of exposure, the acquisition of the target language develops in a series of successive post-basic varieties through which morphosyntax becomes more and more complex. Based on these theoretical assumptions, Italian research has provided descriptions of many aspects of learners’ morphosyntax (cf. Giacalone Ramat 2003). The analysis criteria used in Mocciaro (2020) are largely derived from this research. None of the learners in the sample passed the initial stages of the post-basic continuum after 13 months of low language exposure.

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the twenty learners and asked them for a new interview. The interviews, which took place online (and were audio recorded and transcribed), ● were explicitly oriented towards collecting data on the perception of Sicilian (as a code distinct from Italian); ● also contained (generic) questions about what learners had done in the intervening period and about their current living conditions; ● were also implicitly oriented towards collecting data on the development of their interlanguages. The three learners will be referred to by the initials of their names, i.e. MLG, MT and YS. Table 1 reports some relevant information collected at the beginning of the research in Mocciaro (2020). The three participants are from sub-Saharan Africa, are multilingual, are low (MLG, YS) or not (MT) schooled and, based on tests administered immediately prior to data collection (D’Agostino and Mocciaro 2021), non-literate in the languages in use in the country of origin.5 They have been in Italy for 10–11 months before the survey. They attended a short Italian course upon arrival, in a voluntary context, which contributed to the acquisition of the rudiments of the language. However, like all the other learners in the sample, despite the many months they spent in Italy, their interlanguages were little developed at the beginning of the survey, never beyond the very early post-basic variety (i.e. basic lexical forms of the verb, unanalysed at the morphological level, alternating with the past participle of some verbs to express perfective past). The three participants are among those of the initial group of twenty who to a greater extent have interacted with the local population over time, due to their individual experiences of study or work. Below is a summary of their experience in Palermo until the conclusion of data collection (Mocciaro 2020: 98–99). 5

The (language and) literacy tests were administered on the occasion of a large-scale survey carried out at the School of Italian for Foreigners of the University of Palermo in 2017−2018. This involved 774 migrants, largely newcomers (having arrived within 1 year at the most); as many as 531 individuals out of the 774 were adolescent, young adult and adult migrants (the oldest being 35), from sub-Saharan Africa.

Age

25

23

30

Learner

MLG

MT

YS

Senegal

Mali

Burkina Faso

Country of origin

Bissa, Mòoré, French Bambara , French Pulaar , Wolof , French

Home languages

2 years

–

5 years

schooling

Table 1 Participants’ profiles (from Mocciaro 2020: 84)

–

–

–

Early literacy

10 months

11 months

11 months

Length of residence

5 months

6 months

6 months

Italian language courses

Initial post-basic Initial post-basic

Initial post-basic

L2 Italian

Some skills –

Some skills

Late literacy in Roman alphabet

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MLG (…) attended a six-month language course in a volunteer-led centre before Session 2 and, by Session 3, he was enrolled in a first level secondary school course, which he continued to attend until the end of the survey, albeit without obtaining his diploma. He worked only occasionally until Session 5; at that time, he had been working for months in a clothing store. On a weekly basis, he met a group of friends and schoolmates which had been formed at the time of the initial language course, with the active involvement of the mother tongue teacher, and with whom he participated in various recreational activities and informal learning. (…) At the time of Session 3, MT (…) had attended a seven-month language course in a volunteer-led context and he was attending a first level secondary school course. He obtained his school diploma before Session 5. He worked just occasionally between Session 3 and Session 4, after which he only attended school. At the time of Session 5, he spent the rest of his time in the hosting centre, where he interacted in various languages with the other migrants and in Italian with the staff, or going around and about in Palermo or playing football with other young migrants. (…) YS (…) attended a language course in a volunteer-led centre for five months before Session 2. Between Session 2 and Session 3, he attended a short course at ItaStra and was enrolled in a first level secondary school programme. By Session 4, he also had occasional work in a photocopy shop. After that, he interrupted his studies and began to work permanently in the countryside, outside Palermo, where he was at the time of Session 5.

MLG, MT and YS are also among those who have, over the thirteen months of the research, developed more advanced L2 skills, which are very limited, however, when compared to what can be observed in different acquisition contexts. At the end of the survey, they only developed forms which emerge early in all interlanguages, e.g. copula and some auxiliaries, with frequent phenomena of overgeneralisation; progressive construction stare ‘stay’ + gerund; occasional and anything but stable forms of imperfective past (limited in fact to a few cases with the existential c’era ‘there was’ or with ‘be’) (Banfi and Bernini 2003). In what follows we will present the results of the new survey, first briefly focusing on the overall development of the interlanguages compared to the stage recorded two years before. This summary will

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also report the persistent absence, still two years later, of any trace of Sicilian in the interlanguages of the three learners, which would allow us to infer its presence in the input. If this part of the survey brought to light language data that are independent of the learners’ awareness— their implicit competence—the answers to the questions on exposure to and use of Sicilian offer us transparent data on the explicit perception that the three learners have developed with respect to the local language.

5

New Interviews: Results

5.1

Learners Two Years Later

The reception centre where the three learners lived no longer exists. MLG and MT were relocated to other city reception centres, YS moved to a different part of Sicily. MLG is still studying in a Centro Territoriale per l’Istruzione degli Adulti (CPIA, ‘Territorial Centre for Adult Education’), as two years before, but has not yet obtained his secondary school leaving certificate. He worked in a restaurant, which had been closed for several months due to the pandemic ordinances. Being a professional cook or pizza maker is his goal and, in fact, he would like to finish secondary school to attend some kind of professional course. At work he has a couple of colleagues from Palermo, with whom he occasionally goes out, mainly for walks in the city centre. He states that he also has a couple of local friends (the adoptive mother of an African friend and a former Italian language teacher, who however no longer lives in Italy). He occasionally plays football at the Foro italico. MT works in a city fish market. When asked what he has done since the last meeting two years ago, he states that he studied in a CPIA: however, this was already over before the surveys for Mocciaro (2020). He says he has some friends from Palermo, with whom he occasionally goes out for a walk in the city centre or the Foro italiaco: these are students he met at school in the past. In the fish market, he works with three other people, Italian, whom he does not meet outside of work.

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YS works in the countryside of Ragusa, has Italian employers and young foreigners for colleagues. He has basically no interaction other than in the workplace. Sporadically, he says, he visits Palermo to see friends from there, whom he met at school. But on the whole, he has no time for anything other than work, nor to see and talk to other people, let alone study.

5.2

State of the Interlanguages

The brief description in Sect. 5.1 hints at a condition of profound isolation, which by itself accounts for the almost non-existent development of their interlanguages. MLG did not go beyond L2 Italian morphosyntax already developed two years ago. Person agreement between subject and verb, in the present tense, is beginning to spread, but remains unstable (loro è siciliano ‘(lit.) they is Sicilian:SG’, i.e., ‘they are Sicilian’). Basic forms of the verb still occur (ma voi dare la diploma? ‘(lit.) but you:PL give:INF the diploma?’, i.e., ‘do you give diploma?’), sometimes alternating with perfective past tense (ho lavorato ‘I worked’) or bare past participle (ristorante chiuso ‘restaurant closed’) and the progressive construction (io sto studiando ‘I’m working’). There are frequent overgeneralised forms of copula, used in non-target constructions (which are only transient under normal acquisition conditions; Bernini 2003; Julien et al. 2016) (era:: lavorava:: (…) troppo ‘(lit.) was worked:3SG was too much’, i.e. ‘I used to work a lot’). As he stated, MLG still does not understand Italian well, especially when speaking fast. MT too has remained at the same stage as two years earlier: basic forms persist in his interlanguage, alternating with present tense (lei studia, sono studenti ‘(lit.) she studies’, i.e. ‘they study, they are students’) and perfective past forms (ho trovato amici ‘I have found friends’); person agreement is still unstable (c’è italiani, c’è stranieri come me ‘(lit.) there is Italians, there is foreigners like me’, i.e. ‘there are Italians, there are foreigners like me’). Examples of non-target constructions involve the light verb fare ‘do’ (dove lavoro io /:: (…) loro fanno parlano siciliano /:: ma io non lo capisco ‘(lit.) where I work, they do speak Sicilian, but I don’t

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understand it’; cf. Mocciaro 2020: 153–155). Overall, MT’s utterances are short and fragmented. Similar observations can be made for YS’s interlanguage, which remains at the stage recorded two years earlier. It still contains basic forms, alternating with present (noi siamo qua ‘we are here’; la vita è troppo pesante qua ‘life is too hard here’), past perfective (è uscito il documento ‘(lit.) the document is out’, i.e., ‘has been released’) and progressive forms (sto lavorando ‘I’m working’). There are frequent overgeneralisations of chunks (e.g. celai, i.e., It. ce l’hai ‘you have it’, overgeneralised for c’è ‘there is’ and ce l’ho ‘I have it’; Bernini 2003) and non-target constructions with essere ‘be’ (ora non è studiato ‘(lit.) now it is not studied’, i.e. ‘now I do not study’). We have not observed any trace, not even unaware of Sicilian, in the three participants’ interlanguages, as they emerge from these new interviews: a sign, this, that the contact, in some cases daily, with Sicilian speakers does not correspond to an interaction in this language. This hypothesis is confirmed by what the three participants declared in response to the questions on their relationship with the local language.

5.3

The Perceived Sicilian

In what follows we describe the conversations with the three participants, grouping their responses around the thematic nuclei into which the three groups of sociolinguistic questions were distributed: (1) perception of Sicilian as a complementary and socially marked code, (2) exposure to input in Sicilian, (3) Sicilian as we code vs. they code.

5.3.1 Questions 1. Perception of Sicilian as a Complementary, Socially Marked Code The perception of Sicilian as a code distinct from Italian is clear for all three participants. At the beginning, we ask them if they hear something different in the way locals they are in contact with speak rather than, for example, the way the researchers spoke during the interviews. However,

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the question is not clear: for example, MLG states that the only difference is that he does not understand Italian when it is spoken quickly, as happens when locals address him in this language: (7) come parlo io ancora non capisco bene italiano: /:: per parlare più veloce con loro /: come loro /:: solo questo di diverso /: non c’è diverse cosa:: ‘I still don’t understand Italian well…to talk faster with them, like them…only this is different, there is nothing else different.’

But when we ask them explicitly if the locals use languages other than Italian, all three respond promptly and confidently by naming Sicilian: esatto /: usano un po’:: usano il siciliano ‘Exactly, they use a bit of Sicilian’, says MLG. Also YS mentions Sicilian immediately and MT says sì, come sciscialiano ‘yes, Sicilian’). They hear Sicilian spoken to others, in various places in the cities they live in, at work, in the streets, in meeting places. But it is perfectly clear (so much so that they have missed the point of the original question) that no local will use Sicilian when addressing them: Sicilian is excluded from communication with foreigners, it is a language used by and among locals.

5.3.2 Exposure to Input in Sicilian All three learners do not understand Sicilian and no one addresses them in Sicilian, as it emerges from the excerpts in (8) and (9): (8) (continued)

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(continued) INT: e tu lo capisci il siciliano? MLG: no:: non lo capisco il sisiliano ((he laughs)) /: non capisco il siciliano /: quacose: poco mmh: posso dire no (…) INT: ma ti capita che qualcuno parla con te in siciliano, che ti dice qualcosa in siciliano? MLG: no MLG: perché loro miscono /: ti dici “ciao compa’ xxx” /: miscono un po’ /: poco po (…) INT: le persone con cui lavoravi non sono siciliane? MLG: no:: loro sono:: loro parlano siciliano loro sono siciliano INT: e però quando parlavano con te parlavano solo italiano? MLG: italiano /: però parlano tra loro pure siciliano (…) loro parlano io non capisco cosa:: come da res + rispondere perché non capisco (…) INT: ma pure al foro italiaco? quando andavi a giocare al foro italiaco c’erano siciliani che giocavano al foro italico? MLG: sì sì, c’è c’è INT: e loro parlavano in siciliano tra di loro? MLG: sì, parlano siciliano pure (…) però loro con noi non parlano siciliano: /: perché noi non: capisciamo siciliano (…) per questo quando parlano con noi parlano italiano (…) però usano parolaccia siciliana però non me la ricordo (…) vogliono parlare brutto di noi non parlano::: ‘INT: and do you understand Sicilian? MLG: no:: I don’t understand Sicilian ((he laughs)) /: I don’t understand Sicilian /: something: little mmh: I can say no (…) INT: but do you happen to have someone speaking to you in Sicilian, saying something in Sicilian? MLG: no MLG: because they mix /: they say “ciao compa’ xxx’ /: they mix a bit /: poco po (…) INT: the people you worked with are not Sicilian? MLG: no:: they are:: they speak Sicilian they are Sicilian INT: and yet when they spoke to you they only spoke Italian? MLG: Italian /: but they also speak Sicilian among themselves (…) they speak I don’t understand what:: how to an + answer because I don’t understand (…) INT: but also at the Foro italico? When you went to play at the Foro italico, were there Sicilians who played at the Foro italico? MLG: yes yes, there are INT: and did they speak Sicilian among themselves? MLG: yes, they speak Sicilian too (…) but they don’t speak Sicilianwith us: /: because we don’t: understand Sicilian (…) that’s why when they speak with us they speak Italian (…) but they use bad Sicilian words but I don’t remember (…) they want to speak ugly of us they don’t speak:::.’

(9) INT: ma in siciliano ci parlano anche con te [i tuoi amici] ? MT: no:: non lo capisco il siciliano INT: ma non ti capita mai che qualcuno ti parla in siciliano? non i tuoi amici, per esempio al lavoro, capita che qualcuno ti parla in siciliano? MT: dove lavoro io /: xxx loro: fanno parlano il siciliano /:: ma io non lo capisco (continued)

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(continued) ‘INT: but do they also speak Sicilian to you [your friends]? MT: no:: I don’t understand Sicilian INT: but don’t you ever have someone speak to you in Sicilian? Not your friends, for example at work, does it happen that someone speaks to you in Sicilian? MT: where I work /: xxx they: do they speak Sicilian /:: but I don’t understand it.’

YS is mainly exposed to his work colleagues’ L2 Italian, young foreigners like him with different mother tongues : Italian is therefore a lingua franca. His employers use both Italian and Sicilian, but the latter only among themselves, never to address foreign employees. He has no interaction with the rest of the locals: (10) INT: e come parlate con questi ragazzi [i colleghi]? in che lingua parlate? YS: parla italiano, no? ((the tone is astonished by the question)) (…) YS: sì perché fra di noi diverso paese (…) è diverso un poco /: anche altro africano diverso mie lingua INT: quelli di Ragusa come parlano a te? YS: quelli di Ragusa che parlano italiano ma anche tanti persone chi parlano il dialetto (…) anche il lavoro anche li patroni quando parlano fra di loro che parlano altro lingua (…) INT: e con voi non parlano in dialetto INT: tu non parli il dialetto? YS: no no un poco di parole (…) però ora diventare come africano ora ((he laughs)) (…) YS: perché loro lo sanno io non parlo siciliano /: non capito dialetto per forza dobbiamo parlare italiano (…) ma tra di loro sì INT: And how do you talk to these guys [colleagues]? What language do you speak? YS: we speak Italian, don’t we? ((the tone is astonished by the question)) (…) YS: Yes because among us there are different country (…) it’s different a little bit /: also other Africans with different languages (…) INT: how do those from Ragusa speak to you? YS: those from Ragusa who speak Italian but also many people who speak the dialect (…) also the work also the patrons when they speak among them who speak another language (…) INT: and with you they don’t speak in dialect YS: no, we don’t understand the dialect, don’t we? INT: don’t you speak dialect? YS: no no no a little bit of words (…) but now I become like African now ((he laughs)) (…) YS: because they know it I don’t speak Sicilian /: I don’t understand dialect necessarily we have to speak Italian (…) but among them yes.’

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Discourse fragments in (8)–(10) also show that the three participants attribute the lack of interaction in Sicilian to the locals’ understanding of migrants’ lack of competence in this language (e.g. YS: loro lo sanno io non parlo siciliano (…) per forza dobbiamo parlare italiano ‘they know I do not understand Sicilian, we have to speak Italian’).

5.3.3 Sicilian as We Code vs. They Code Excluded from communication with foreigners, Sicilian is the language of the locals, inaccessible to the three participants, who in fact consider it (unlike Italian) too difficult to learn. Their desire to learn Sicilian is only generic (e.g. MLG: sì mi piacerebbe a imparare ‘MLG: yes I would like to learn’; MT: è difficile per me (…), troppo complicato ‘it’s difficult for me, too complicated’). Sicilian is the language of the others, a language that separates. MLG claims that as an excluding language, Sicilian is also sometimes used by his Palermo friends: (12) INT: ti è mai successo che qualcuno si è messo a parlare in siciliano così tu non capivi, apposta? (…) MLG: sì sì succede questo (…) succede anche tra amici /: noi /: per esempio usciamo insieme e loro vogliono parlare cosa che:: non vogliono far + farlo capire a me: /: e loro usano siciliano (…) capita questo (…) non mi piace (…) non va bene

‘INT: did it ever happen to you that someone started speaking in Sicilian so you wouldn’t understand, on purpose? (…) MLG: yes yes it happens this (…) it happens also between friends /: we /: for example we go out together and they want to say something that: they don’t want to make me understand it: /: and they use Sicilian (…) this happens (…) I don’t like it (…) it’s not good.’

In addition to excluding, the language of the others can also sometimes be explicitly aggressive. An example emerged in (8), when MLG recounted that the only time the local boys he happens to play with at the Foro Italico use Sicilian with foreigners is to insult them. We repeat the fragment here for convenience.

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(13) MLG: per questo quando parlano con noi parlano italiano (…) però usano parolaccia siciliana però non me la ricordo (…) vogliono parlare brutto di noi ‘MLG: that’s why when they talk to us they speak Italian (…) but they use a Sicilian word but I don’t remember it (…) they want to speak bad about us.’

But MLG (and similarly the other two participants) does not remember specific episodes or words; or rather, he hesitates, he seems reticent. It is emblematic, however, that he traces back to Sicilian a word unequivocally perceived as negative and offensive, the It. negro ‘nigger’: (14) INT: ti è successo, anche in passato, che qualcuno ti abbia detto delle cose brutte in siciliano? MLG: mmh:: no:: /:: solo /: una parolacia che: usano loro /: e dicono:: “negro” /:: e “negro” non è siciliano? INT: no, è italiano, ma è brutta: lo stesso MLG: sì sì /: è brutta lo stesso /: e usano questa parolacia e:: /:: e sì usano parolacia ma::: però non mi ricordo

‘INT: Has it happened to you, even in the past, that someone has said bad things to you in Sicilian? MLG: mmh:: no: /:: only /: a word that: they use /: and they say:: “negro” /: and “negro” is not Sicilian? INT: no, it’s Italian, but it’s ugly: all the same MLG: yes yes /: it’s ugly all the same /: and they use this bad word and:: /:: and yes they use bad words but:: but I don’t remember.’

2 Palermo 2000–2020: Sicilian in Old and New Migrations

6

43

Looking Forwards

In this chapter, we have compared two different forms of migration with respect to the perception, acquisition and uses of Sicilian in Palermo. After recalling research carried out in the early 2000s, which pointed to a considerable level of acquisition of the local language by the traditional migrant population (particularly North African and sub-Saharan), it was shown that the linguistic dynamics of young sub-Saharan migrants, who arrived by boat and have recently settled in the city, are very different. We reached this conclusion through the administration of a questionnaire, aimed at collecting information on the (conscious, explicit) perception of Sicilian by the participants and on the (unconscious, implicit) presence of this language in their interlanguages. As emerged from the questionnaire responses, young migrants seem to be aware of the diversity between Italian and Sicilian, but the latter does not appear in their interlanguages—often characterised by radical fossilisation at early stages—even when this language is strongly present in their working contexts. The distance between what we have called ‘old and new migrations’ can probably be explained by looking at the type of linguistic input young migrants are exposed to after arrival and during their prolonged stay in highly segregating reception centres that exclude them from immersion in the host reality. Therefore, a key to understanding ongoing linguistic processes (that concern not only the city of Palermo, but more probably also other linguistic spaces) is to look at migration policies and the choices to drastically limit the mobility of those who arrive in Italy (and Europe) without a regular entry visa. We can conclude that new migration is very different from the past, not so much in terms of the point of departure and previous social conditions, but in terms of the forms of (im)mobility migrants go through. The relationship between mobility/immobility, immersion/segregation, isolation/(digital) connections are crucial issues for a linguistics that focuses on new migration phenomena. But in a sense, we all experienced these phenomena first-hand during the COVID 19 crisis in 2020 and 2021. The late Jan Blommaert points out how living in ‘a world

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of severely restricted mobility’ can be of great use in understanding the life of those undergoing immobilisation measures, which ‘is now part of our social imagination—we can imagine how life is under immobilisation measures. Those measures are and have been applied, we know, to millions of other people in the context of restrictions on movement—to migrants, refugees, asylum seekers, name it. And they have been politically weaponized by politicians and parties in so many parts of the world, often with great electoral effects’ (Blommaert 2021). After so much emphasis on contact, on global mobility, on being all ’on the move’, the theme of immobility and confinement offers us an extremely important analytical perspective that certainly concerns the new migration processes of the ’African invaders’, but that has also entered in unexpected forms into the lives of us all.

References Androutsopoulos, Jannis. 2015. Networked multilingualism: Some language practices on Facebook and their implications. International Journal of Bilingualism 19 (2): 185–205. Banfi, Emanuele, and Giuliano Bernini. 2003. Il verbo. In Verso l’italiano, ed. Anna Giacalone Ramat, 75–115. Roma: Carocci. Bernini, Giuliano. 2003. The copula in learner Italian. Finiteness and verbal inflection. In Information structure, linguistic structure and the dynamics of language acquisition, ed. Christine Dimroth and Marianne Starren, 159– 185. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Berruto, Gaetano. 2002. Parlare dialetto in Italia alle soglie del Duemila. In La parola al testo. Scritti per Bice Mortara Garavelli, ed. Gianluigi Beccaria and Carla Marello, 33–49. Alessandria: Edizioni dell’Orso. Berruto, Gaetano. 2007. Sulla vitalità sociolinguistica del dialetto oggi. In La dialectologie aujourd’hui, ed. Gianmario Raimondi and Luisa Revelli, 133– 148. Alessandria: Edizioni dell’Orso. Blommaert, Jan. 2010. Sociolinguistics of globalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Blommaert, Jan. 2021. Poscript: Immobilities Normalized. In Exploring (Im)mobilities: Language practices, discourses and imaginaries, ed. Anna De Fina and Gerardo Mazzaferro. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. D’Agostino, Mari. 2004. Immigrati a Palermo. Contatti e/o conflitti linguistici e immagini urbane. In Città plurilingui. Lingue e culture a confronto in situazioni urbane, ed. Raffaella Bombi, Fabiana Fusco and Vincenzo Orioles, 191–212. Udine: Foris. D’Agostino, Mari. 2006. Segni, parole, cose. Immagini della Palermo multietnica. In La Città e le sue lingue. Repertori linguistici urbani, ed. Nicola De Blasi and Carla Marcato, 25–38. Napoli: Liguori. D’Agostino, Mari. 2015. Palermo. In Città Italiane. Storie di lingue e culture, ed. Pietro Trifone, 355–412. Roma: Carocci. D’Agostino, Mari. 2021a. Segregati e connessi. ‘Nuovi migranti’: profilo sociolinguistico e costruzione dei dati. In Réflexions théoriques et méthodologiques autour de données variationnelles, ed. Annie Bertin, Françoise Gadet, Sabine Lehmann and Anaïs Moreno, 26–45. Chambéry: Presses de l’Université de Savoie. D’Agostino, Mari. 2021b. ‘Noi che siamo passati dalla Libia’. Giovani in viaggio fra alfabeti e multilinguismo. Bologna: Il Mulino. D’Agostino, Mari. 2021c. Multilingual young African migrants: Between mobility and immobility. In Exploring (im)mobilities: Language practices, discourses and imaginaries, ed. Anna De Fina and Gerardo Mazzaferro, 17-37. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. D’Agostino, Mari and Mocciaro Egle. 2021. Literacy and literacy practices: Plurilingual connected migrants and emerging literacy. Journal of Second Language Writing 51: 100792. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/art icle/pii/S1060374321000047 Diminescu, Dana. 2008. Connected migrants: An epistemological manifesto. Social Science Information 47 (4): 565–579. Giacalone Ramat, Anna, ed. 2003. Verso l’italiano. Percorsi e strategie di acquisizione. Roma: Carocci. ISTAT. 2002. Lingua italiana e dialetti in Italia. Roma: Istituto nazionale di statistica. ISTAT. 2007. La lingua italiana, i dialetti e le lingue straniere. http://portallem.com/images/it/Italie/Lingue_e_dialetti_e_lingue_straniere_in_Italia. pdf. Accessed 21 Dec 2021. Jørgensen, J. Normann. 2008. Polylingual languaging around and among children and adolescents. International Journal of Multilingualism 5 (3): 161–176.

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Julien, Manuela, Roeland van Hout, and Ineke van de Craats. 2016. Meaning and function of dummy auxiliaries in adult acquisition of Dutch as an additional language. Second Language Research 32 (1): 49–73. Klein, Wolfgang, and Clive Perdue. 1997. The basic variety (or: Couldn’t natural languages be much simpler?). Second Language Research 13 (4): 301–347. Lo Piparo, Franco, ed. 1995. La Sicilia linguistica oggi. Osservatorio Linguistico Siciliano (OLS), 1. Palermo: Centro di studi filologici e linguistici Siciliani. Mocciaro, Egle. 2020. The development of L2 Italian morphosyntax in adult learners with limited literacy. Palermo: University of Palermo Press. Perdue, Clive. 1993. Adult language acquisition: Cross-linguistic perspectives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Piazzese, Santo. 2016. Parole fuori tema. Ma non troppo. In Echi da Echi. Dialoghi letterari sulle migrazioni per accorciare le distanze, ed. Giuseppe Paternostro and Vincenzo Pinello, 113–116. Palermo: Scuola di Lingua italiana per Stranieri. Sottile, Roberto. 2018. Dialetto e canzone. Uno sguardo sulla Sicilia. Firenze: Cesati.

3 Neapolitan, Regional and Standard Italian in the Linguistic Repertoire of Ukrainian Private Carers in Naples: Sociolinguistic Competence and Attitudes Towards a Complex Linguistic Context Paolo Della Putta

1

Introduction

Along their learning path, and given certain positive psychological conditions and sociological circumstances, second language learners (L2ers, henceforth) have the chance to interact with native and non-native speakers in a number of communicative contexts. This allows them, especially those exposed to abundant input in a naturalistic setting, to encounter not only the “standardized” L2, which usually happens in instructed contexts (Bayley and Tarone 2011), but also its varieties and other languages that may be spoken in the same geographical area. These social and linguistic experiences allow the development of a linguistic repertoire, defined by Gumperz (1964: 138) as “all the accepted ways of formulating messages” in a given community; this in turn becomes a P. Della Putta (B) University of Turin, Turin, Italy e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 F. Goglia and M. Wolny (eds.), Italo-Romance Dialects in the Linguistic Repertoires of Immigrants in Italy, Palgrave Studies in Minority Languages and Communities, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-99368-9_3

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building block of sociolinguistic competence, i.e. “the capacity to recognize and produce socially appropriate speech in context” (Lyster 1994: 263). Slowly, L2ers learn to move around the dimensions of L2 variation, and to do this, they need to comply, on the one hand, with the variable rules of the L2 but also with the sociolinguistic agency of each individual learner, with their own unique ways of identifying and integrating with the repertoire of the welcoming community (van Compernolle 2011). Variationist approaches to the study of L2 acquisition distinguish two dimensions of variation in interlanguage,1 along two different continuums (Mougeon et al. 2010: 5). The first dimension, learner-related variation (Durham 2014), which lies along the vertical continuum, focuses on the acquisition of obligatory L2 language features, which can be identified as grammatically correct or incorrect. The horizontal dimension, also called target-based variation (Durham 2014), looks at the acquisition of linguistic features in which there is considerable variation in the L2, usually due to social, contextual and stylistic factors. This dimension of interlanguage variation presents a complex acquisitional picture, as many factors come into play during its development. These include the frequency of variation in L2 input, its social meaning, its saliency and its interplay with L2ers’ personality traits, degree of social integration and linguistic ideology (Eckert 2012; Mougeon et al. 2010, cap. 1). By way of example, let us recap the results of some research into the L2 acquisition of two sociolinguistic variables of French and English, namely (ne) and (ing). The preverbal variable (ne) in negative French sentences is considered “the best known sociolinguistic variable in contemporary French” (Coveney 1996: 65) and has been thoroughly investigated by L2 variationist scholars (see Mougeon et al. 2010). Their interest lay in how much the variation ne…pas (or other negative functors)/ø…pas (or other negative functors) was present in the interlanguage of L2 French learners, and which learning constraints were detectable. Similar interests motivated the research into the acquisition in L2 English of the variable (ing), 1

In this chapter, we follow the definition of interlanguage proposed by Selinker (1972: 214), substantially unchanged over time in second language acquisition studies: “a separate linguistic system based on the observable output that results from a learner’s attempted production of target language norms”.

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in its two variants alveolar /n/ and velar /ŋ/, as in walkin’ and walking (Schleef et al. 2011), which reflect different social status and stylistic choices. The results of these (and other) variationist studies document that: (1) learners acquire some awareness of variation in a short time; (2) variation is more present if the L2 is learned in the country where it is spoken; (3) the patterns of variation acquired are similar to those found in native speakers but, especially in female speech, the more prestigious variants (ne…pas and /ŋ/, in the French and English cases mentioned) are privileged; (4) L2ers perceive variation as a means to construct their “new” identity by disregarding, adopting or modifying certain patterns of L2 variation; (5) psychological factors such as extroversion and integrative motivation facilitate the acquisition of variation; (6) L2ers who learn the L2 only in a guided context show less sensitivity to variation. Moreover, it is generally believed that the development of the two dimensions of variation is asynchronous: the horizontal variation starts after a certain consolidation of the vertical one, although there are contrasting hypotheses (see Howard 2012 for a discussion). For this reason, most variationist studies have recruited informants with medium or high level grammatical skills. The acquisitional picture becomes even more complicated when in the area where the L2ers have settled they encounter not only the intrinsic L2 sociolinguistic dimensions of variation, but also the coexistence of two different, although closely related, languages, used alternately in everyday interactions, usually in a code-switching2 fashion. This coexistence can assume different sociolinguistic configurations: diglossia (or micro-diglossia, Trumper 1989), in which the two (or more) languages are used by the same social group in different communicative contexts, and dilalia (or macro-diglossia, Trumper 1989), in which the use of 2

As well documented by Alvarez Cáccamo (1998), code-switching is a conceptually rich term that has undergone strong modification, fragmentation and metamorphosis over time, mainly according to the different interpretative perspectives that scholars have taken towards it. In this chapter we follow a simple but clear definition of code-switching given by Milroy and Muyskens (1995: 7): “the alternative use by bilinguals of two or more languages in the same conversation”. Of the different levels of analysis of code-switching that are included in this broad definition, for our purposes we adhere to the perspective first proposed by Gumperz (1982, but see also Auer 1995, 2005), according to which CS is a semiotic and communicative resource through which a range of social, relational and identity meanings are expressed.

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the languages overlaps in a wide range of domains and communicative situations. The acquisition of a diglossic repertoire by L2ers has been studied by Ender (2017, 2021) in the German-speaking part of Switzerland. Ender considered the acquisition by first-generation immigrants of standard German, used in education, writing and communication with non-Swiss German speakers, and the local German dialect (Bernese), related to but substantially different from standard German and used widely in everyday forms of spoken communication. The degree to which variation between standard German and Bernese was acquired changed substantially from subject to subject, and was closely related to their differing intentions of belonging in the Swiss community, their conception of the role played by dialect in social integration and the linguistic ideology and value judgements inherited from the social and linguistic contexts of origin. When we look at contexts with the presence of dilalia, however, we see that L2 variationist studies have paid them little attention, despite the intrinsic interest of their complex and multifaceted nature. The aim of this research is to shed light on the characteristics of the repertoire built by first-generation, adult migrants settled in a linguistic context strongly characterized by dilalia, the city of Naples, where the boundaries of use of the coexisting languages, and varieties thereof, are decidedly blurred. As described by scholars such as Berruto (1987) and Alfonzetti (1998), the repertoire of Italians is often characterized by a “strongly bipolar” (Alfonzetti 1998: 323) internal structure, in which Standard Italian (SI) and an Italo-Romance dialect (IRD) coexist; moreover, each of the two languages can be further seen as a set of varieties, which are the result of prolonged periods of contact between SI and the local IRD. The most notable result of this and the one we consider here, is the so-called “Regional Italian” (RI), a local variety of Italian developing from the contact between an IRD and SI, to which structures and phonetic elements of the local substratum are transferred (Telmon 2016). In Italy, we have a number of RIs that differ from area to area; they are usually not socially marked and are often used unthinkingly by Italian native speakers (Cerruti 2011). This creates a lingua cum dialectis continuum (Cerruti and Regis 2005), along which SI, an RI and an IRD coexist in a given geographical space, with frequent overlaps of

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use in communicative domains and semiotic/social functions. In such a continuum, we find frequent internal alternation between SI and RI, and also frequent instances of code-switching between RI/SI and IRD. As pointed out by Alfonzetti (1998: 363) and Giacalone Ramat (1995), in the areas of Italy characterized by dilalia , code-switching is not socially marked and becomes a shared semiotic medium across the population. It is used as a conversational strategy to signal citations, changes of subject, accommodation towards the interlocutor, reformulations and self-correction. It is also an “emotional device” (Giacalone Ramat 1995: 52) used to add expression and illocutionary force to utterances (see also Scaglione 2016). Of course, the characteristics of dilalia in Italy differ from area to area, as Berruto (2018) points out. As we will see in detail below, Naples—the setting of our research—is one of the areas most characterized by the use of IRD, i.e. Neapolitan, and RI/SI-Neapolitan code-switching. Within this theoretical and sociolinguistic framework, this chapter considers the linguistic repertoire of 10 Ukrainian immigrant women, living in Naples or the surrounding areas and employed as private carers. We will investigate whether the repertoire of our informants, elicited through semi-structured interviews, presents SI/RI variation and codeswitching between SI/RI and Neapolitan; and in cases of the latter, we will identify at which pragmatic and discursive moves it is functional (see Auer 1995, for a pragmatic approach to code-switching). Finally, we will consider the informants’ evaluative attitudes towards the linguistic repertoire of Naples, and relate these to their variation skills. In the next two sections, we will outline the features of language use in Naples and review the studies that have so far considered the L2 acquisition of an IRD by first-generation migrants.

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The Linguistic Repertoire of Naples

Naples is a metropoli dialettale (dialect, i.e. IRD, metropolis) (De Blasi 2013: 80), where the present day variety of Neapolitan has been handed down diachronically from its fourteenth century form by local families (De Blasi 2006: 281). De Blasi (2006) found that code-switching between RI/SI and Neapolitan is the preferred option for communication at home (57% of residents), followed by exclusive use of Neapolitan (31%), and RI/SI only (12%). Some years later, Berruto (2018) identified 4,200,000 active speakers of IRD in Campania (the Region of Naples), i.e. 72% of the total population. In addition, Campania has the highest percentage in Italy of RI/SI-IRD code-switching use in family conversations, as it is the preferred communicative option for 48% of local speakers. It is important to note that Neapolitan is also used in prestigious communicative contexts such as radio, television and literature, which would normally be the domain of SI. Furthermore, we find written uses of Neapolitan both in the linguistic landscape of the city (Maturi 2006) and in numerous literary works; in fact, there have been several attempts to encode its written form—further evidence of the vitality and pervasiveness of this IRD (De Blasi and Montuori 2020). There are obviously differences in the use and the features of Neapolitan, which we can only touch upon here. De Blasi (2013) identified variations in SI/RI-Neapolitan code-switching in different areas of the city, and Milano (2010) found interindividual variations in the use of Neapolitan in the Quartieri Spagnoli area, often considered to be an almost exclusively IRD-speaking district. A detailed description of Neapolitan and the RI of Naples is beyond the scope of this chapter. Nevertheless, a work by Ledgeway (2008) helps to show that Neapolitan can be unintelligible to a SI speaker due to formal differences between the two languages. In his study, Ledgeway reviews various characteristics of Neapolitan that are of proven difficulty for SI-speakers, including (1) at the lexical level, various false friends such as stagione which in Neapolitan means summer and in SI season; (2) at the phonetic level the centralisation of unstressed (non-back) vowels to [ɘ ], unknown in SI, and observable in words such as ogn e (every) and pigli a n o (they take); (3) at the morphosyntactic level, phenomena

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such as the postnominal possessive, which is unmarked in Neapolitan but marked in SI, the presence of the Prepositional Accusative in SVO sentences, not found in SI, and the distribution of functions of the copular verbs èsse(re) and stà(re) (be and stay, respectively), and tenè(re) and avé(re) (keep and have, respectively), which is considerably different from SI’s counterparts essere/stare (be/stay) and tenere/avere (keep/have) (Ledgeway 2009: 648). Many features of Neapolitan are transferred to the local RI, thus creating a quite marked and recognizable local variety of Italian, considered one of the most distant from SI structurally, and often associated with negative social values, especially by native speakers originating from Northern Italy (De Pascale et al. 2019). Some of the most notable differences between SI and Neapolitan RI are: (1) the presence, in Neapolitan RI, of the Prepositional Accusative in SVO sentences, absent in SI (RI: conosco a Lucia vs SI: conosco Lucia, both meaning “I know Lucia”); (2) the use of tenere with possessive, also figurative values, instead of avere, as in RI: tengo un problema vs. SI: ho un problema, both meaning “I have a problem”; (3) the use of stare instead of essere with values of description of moods, position and signalling of existence, as in RI: sto stanco vs. SI: sono stanco, both meaning “I am tired”. From this brief description of the lects of Naples, we can appreciate the complexity of the local repertoire, and the fuzzy boundaries between its components. Furthermore, in recent decades Naples has become a multicultural metropolis, including therefore many “new” languages (and varieties thereof ) in its repertoire. Ukrainians account for 16% of the foreign residents, and are the second largest immigrant community in the city (Mattiello and Della Putta 2017). This data reflects the general trend of Ukrainian immigration to Italy: a report by the Ministry of Work and Social Policy (MLPS 2018) found 235,245 Ukrainians living in Italy as of 1st January 2018, of whom 78,8% were women (average age 46), employed mainly as private carers. These immigrants have often settled following an unexpected pattern: their original plan was generally to remain in Italy for two or three years, but in most cases this period is extended for much longer, although they retain the idea of returning to Ukraine and their families (Fedyuk and Kindler 2016: 53–86). Their stable presence has enriched the linguistic repertoire of many Italian

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cities, including Naples, not only with Ukrainian, the mother tongue of the majority, but also Russian, Romanian and Surzhyk, (“mixed bread”, by extension “impure language”), a fused lect (in Auer’s sense, see Bilaniuk 2004) resulting from the historical contact between Russian and Ukrainian. The use of Surzhyk, although still common, is nowadays stigmatized due to the two dominant linguistic ideologies in Ukraine, that tend to identify the standard varieties of either Ukrainian or Russian as the only languages that should be spoken in, respectively, the western and the eastern parts of the country. Ukraine is therefore characterized by a hierarchical, politically influenced and extremely polarized linguistic ideology, that leaves no room for positive values towards non-codified varieties of Ukrainian and Russian, or towards any fusion of these two languages whatsoever (Bilaniuk and Melnyk 2008). Let us now look briefly at previous research done on the acquisition of IRDs by first-generation migrants, including Ukrainians. Thereafter, we will formulate our research question and introduce the 10 Ukrainian informants enrolled in our study.

3

The L2 Acquisition of IRDs

Although research on the acquisition of L2 Italian has only marginally considered the horizontal dimension of interlanguage variation (Pallotti et al. 2010), the role occupied by IRDs in the linguistic repertoire of first-generation immigrants has aroused greater interest, although, as we will see later, often only tangentially. At the same time, researchers have investigated whether the increased prestige of IRDs among Italian native speakers (Berruto 2006) is also to be found in L2 speakers. The picture that emerges is varied and we can summarize it as follows. Many studies have observed that learners from an intermediate level of competence upwards are well able to distinguish between SI and IRDs (Goglia 2004; Vitolo and Maturi 2017; Mattiello and Della Putta 2017). In general too, with the exception of Guerini (2018), they have noted good comprehension of IRDs (Vitolo and Maturi 2017), as they are often seen as important, at both a receptive and productive level, for integration into the host community (Pugliese and Villa 2012; Villa 2014).

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On the other hand, when learners report a low level of knowledge of IRDs, it often reflects a negative attitude towards IRD-using areas of the city: the less IRD-competent Slavophone informants in Mattiello and Della Putta (2017) displayed discomfort at the idea of shopping in the markets of Naples, where Neapolitan is used more than SI/RI. In some contexts, negative value judgements towards dialect have been found: the Ghanaian community in Bergamo have a very closed attitude towards the local IRD, perceiving it as a they-code used exclusively by the local community and associating it with a low level of education and social status (Guerini 2018). Similar perceptions and value attitudes were observed by Goglia (2004) in a study of Nigerians living in the Veneto region, and by Bernini (2001), who studied IRD use and value judgements in various L2 Italian learners. Other studies, however, report positive perceptions and attitudes towards IRDs (Amoruso 2002; Chini 2003; D’Agostino 2004). Such differences can be traced back to the ideological backgrounds of the various groups under observation: those coming from societies with a complex but very hierarchical linguistic repertoire, where languages or varieties used for institutional purposes are awarded high prestige, tend to view IRDs negatively and consider their acquisition unnecessary or even harmful. People from diglottic societies or contexts characterized by dilalia such as the Maghreb countries, on the other hand, have a more positive attitude towards the use and acquisition of IRDs (Maturi 2016). This finding is corroborated by Amoruso and Scarpello (2010) who found a “welcoming” attitude among their Maghreb respondents towards Palermitan, and a willingness to use it, while respondents from Ivory Coast and Tamil Nadu (India), both areas with hierarchical language repertoires, associated it with poor classes of society and exclusively local use. Other social and biographical variables may affect the ability to understand and use IRDs, and influence the values associated with them. The frequency of use of IRD alongside SI/RI in the area where the L2ers are settled is one of these: in the study by Cuzzolin (2001), Maghrebi migrants settled in Turin report negative values towards Turinese, despite their diglottic repertoire of origin. The Nigerians in Goglia (2004) show

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some knowledge of Veneto even if their judgements towards it were negative. This shows that the frequency of use of the IRD in the welcoming society plays a role in mediating the linguistic ideological background of the migrants: in Turin the IRD is present but not so widely used as Palermitan in Palermo, whereas Veneto, despite being judged negatively by the informants, is widely used in everyday communication. Another variable that positively affects the knowledge of an IRD is working in occupations which bring the worker into contact with a variety of linguistic situations—bar staff, office workers, street traders, etc. In addition, as observed in studies of horizontal variation in interlanguage (see Sect. 1), a greater frequency in the use of IRD and structures belonging to local varieties is typically displayed by men, and occurs more often in the speech of those who are more extrovert and more motivated to seek integration (Vitolo and Maturi 2017). These conclusions notwithstanding, there is no shortage of critical comments on these studies. Moretti (2014: 227) emphasizes the need for research into “acquisitional dialectology” to explore more precisely the presence, role and characteristics of IRDs in L2ers’ interlanguage. Goglia has similar views, and he stresses the need for further and more analytic research into the acquisition of IRDs: “there is a need to investigate in greater depth the role of dialects in the linguistic repertoire of immigrants, and their actual language practices” (Goglia 2018: 720). Research into the acquisitional processes of IRDs is therefore important, and we believe this must be carried out alongside an observation of SI and RI acquisition. In order to achieve this objective, the selection of informants for this study and the factoring in of their biographical variables was scrupulous: only middle-aged Ukrainian women living in Naples and working as private carers were involved. Furthermore, the interviews were designed to elicit examples of spontaneous use of Neapolitan, in order not to rely solely on the informants’ own evaluation of their competence. This may mean that the results do not lend themselves to wide generalization, but we hope they offer a detailed analysis of the linguistic repertoire of this immigrant group, who are present in sizeable numbers in Italy and in Naples in particular (see Sect. 4).

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With these acquisitional, sociolinguistic and methodological considerations in mind, the research questions that led this study are the following: 1. What is the make-up of the repertoire of long-stay Ukrainian language speakers in Naples, and what is the role of SI, RI and Neapolitan in it? 2. Do variations between SI and RI occur in the horizontal dimension of their interlanguage? 3. What place does SI/RI-Neapolitan code-switching occupy in the informants’ repertoire? 4. Do any value attitudes appear which may facilitate or discourage the use of Neapolitan?

4

Methodology

4.1

The Informants

The study involved 10 Ukrainian informants, who were long-term immigrants to the Naples area. All of them have worked mainly as carers of elderly people, and their social networks are often fairly closed: they rarely have much contact with Italians beyond their work contexts, where they mainly talk to the person they care for. Nevertheless, among our informants there are two women married to Neapolitan men, and 5 of them live together with their children who grew up in Naples. The main inclusion criterion for informants was a stay of long duration in the Naples area; the average length of stay in Italy was 10.3 years, at least 80% in or around Naples. All the women took part voluntarily in the research. Relevant biographical data is provided in Table 1. At the time of the study, I1, I2, I4, I7 and I9 had their own home, while the others lived in the household where they worked. It is not easy to track the areas of Naples where they have lived: they tend to move house frequently, especially in the early years of their stay. Generally, however, their places of work are in the wealthier areas of the city, especially on the east side: Arenella, Vomero, Posillipo, Chiaia and Bagnoli.

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Table 1

Name

Biographical data of the informants Years in Places of Age Italy Family residence

I1

43

10

1 year Rome. Naples

I2

39

8

3 years Naples. Marigliano

I3

56

16

I4

43

8

I5

53

16

I6

41

7

2 years Biella. Naples 2 years Bari. Naples 2 years Padua. 2 years Pescara. Naples Naples

I7

55

12

Naples. Cardito

I8

40

6

Naples

I9

55

9

I10

53

11

2 years Livorno. 5 years Naples. Ercolano 4 years Caserta. Naples

Husband in Ukraine. Daughter in Italy Italian husband. Son in Italy Widow. 2 children in Ukraine Italian husband

Occupation Carer/home help Carer (5 years)/home help Carer Nurse and carer

Ukrainian husband and 2 children in Italy

Carer

Husband in Ukraine. 2 children in Italy. Mother in Italy Husband in Ukraine. Daughter in Ukraine Not known

Carer/home help

Husband in Ukraine. Son in Italy

1 son in Ukraine

Carer

Carer/home help Carer/cleaner in shops

Carer

Those who have their own more or less stable home address tend to live in other areas of the city or the province: Ercolano, Cardito, Marigliano, or districts like Porto, Barra and San Lorenzo. Their places of work and residence (when these are not the same) differ in socio economic terms, and this fact should allow for sufficient exposure to the different relationships between SI/RI and Neapolitan to be found in the city. In fact, De Blasi (2013) demonstrates that in Chiaia, Arenella and Vomero SI/RI is

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predominantly used even in informal conversation, while in San Lorenzo and Porto—where I5, I6 and I3 lived for some periods of time— Neapolitan is the preferred choice. The women’s employers used mainly Italian, especially when speaking to them; Neapolitan was generally used in conversations between family members, although some informants told of elderly people they were caring for who spoke predominantly in Neapolitan.

4.2

Interviewers and Interviews

The research was carried out with the help of three female interviewers: Francesca Mattiello, 30 years old, co-author of a previous study in the Naples area (Mattiello and Della Putta 2017), C.M. (34) and L.S. (42). All were born in Naples and all make considerable use of Neapolitan in their linguistic repertoire. F.M. and C.M. live in San Giovanni a Teduccio and Chiaia respectively, are humanities graduates, and have shown previous interest in the linguistic situation of their city. L.S. has a high school diploma, and was born and brought up in the Miano district. Eight out of the ten interviews (with microphone in view and always initiated in SI) were conducted by two interviewers; having two interlocutors helped the conversation to flow more naturally and allowed for spontaneous code-switching by all participants during the interviews. The themes touched upon during the interviews (average length: 43 min) were the lives and experiences of the informants, but, in an attempt to elicit an emotional response, which is one of the triggers of codeswitching between SI/RI and IRDs (see Sect. 1), the following topics were also introduced by the interviewers, often switching between SI/RI and Neapolitan: (1) the behaviour of Italian men; (2) positive and negative aspects of life in Naples; (3) the political situation in Ukraine; (4) dangerous and/or difficult situations encountered in Naples. On the whole the atmosphere was relaxed, even though some moments of reticence or reserve occurred. Finally, the respondents were asked for their opinion about the use of Neapolitan. The true objectives of the study were not revealed to them. The corpus comprises approximately 7 hours of conversation, which is analysed in the following section. The

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research design included 14 informants, but the COVID-19 outbreak at the end of February 2020 prevented us from completing all the interviews. Despite this, our sample is robust enough to answer our research questions.

5

Results

Following Vitolo and Maturi (2017), the interview extracts used in our discussion are presented using Italian spelling conventions; IPA phonetic symbols are used occasionally where it was necessary to indicate choices or pronunciation features which are not possible to transcribe orthographically. Some transcription symbols are used, including # (pause) and [ (overlapping turn).

5.1

Code-Switching in Informants’ Speech

Five instances of SI/Neapolitan code-switching were identified in informants’ speech. These support two conversational strategies: (1) quoting other people’s utterances in Neapolitan, as a distancing measure from the content (Alfonzetti 1998); (2) indicating emphasis or emotional involvement (Giacalone Ramat 1995). In two cases, we may hypothesize a convergence strategy towards the interviewers, although this is somewhat unclear. The first example is as follows (we indicate Neapolitan in bold): 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

I5: anche non mi piace casa sua, sai? F.M.: cioè? L’edificio [in sé I5: [no # dico a gente, le persone F.M: aaaah ## come il portinaio? (laughs) I5: eh sì per esempio [lui penza che F.M.: [eh già mannaggia # quello è pettegolo parla sempre, eh I5: ah sì sì lui # sape tuttɘ cose tuttɘ cose (laughs) # sempre scocciatura proprio #arò vienɘ arò vajɘ # oh anche pesante quando dice cussì

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I5: I don’t like his house either, you know? F.M.: what do you mean? The building itself I5: no, I mean the people, the people F.M.: aaaah like the doorkeeper? I5: yes, for example, he thinks that F.M.: oh yes, gosh, he is a gossip he talks all the time, eh I5: ah yes yes, he knows everything everything, always a real pain in the neck. W here are you coming from where are you going he is unbearable when he says that In this extract, the interviewer and informant are talking about the home of an acquaintance, with a particularly zealous doorkeeper. We can observe the first switch into Neapolitan to indicate and emphasize his intrusive attitude, and a second switch to cite some of his habitual questions. In the second extract below, about an unsatisfying work experience, we find two examples of switching, the first reported speech and the second emotive/emphatic: 1. L.S.: mi parlavi anche di questo nuovo lavoro che avevi ma mi pare che non ce ne vuoi parlare # comm è sto fattɘ ? (laughs) 2. I4: ma no # parlare posso ma stata brutta esperienza diciamo # capisci? 3. C.M.: sì ma perché? Che ci sta di segreto? 4. I4: il capo # come si dice ## io non voglio dire parolaccia ma lui strunz proprio (laughs) 5. L.S.: ah! addirittura? Proprio così? 6. I4: sì devo dire sì # I4 [name of respondent, author’s note] vienɘ # fa chisto e chisto veloce mbresso# io stanca nun ne pozzɘ cchhiù davvero! L:S.: you were talking about this new job you had, but it seems to me that you don’t want to talk to us about it. Why is that? I4: no. I can talk about it but it was a bad experience, let’s say that, do you get it? C.M.: yes but why? Is there something secret? I4: the boss. How do you say? I do not want to say a bad word but he is a real bastard

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L.S.: ah! Really? Like that? I4: yes, I have to say yes. I4 come do this and that quick, fast I’m tired, I can’t stand it anymore, really In the following extract, the interviewers are talking with I4 about their romantic relationships. I4 has just told them she is married to F., a Neapolitan of her own age she met when working as a nurse. The interviewers are trying a little insistently to get her to describe their first date, and make use of code-switching to do this: 1. F.M: e quindi? # che t’ha ritt? Ti ha corteggiato? Eh? # t’a purtato nu fiore, chella serɘ , eh? Dai, dicci nu poco 2. I4: eh # così # che agg a dicere? (laughs at herself ) Mi ha parlato, carino # ma o fiore no, nun o teneva (laughs) però io capito che era bravo uaglione (laughs) 3. C.M: aaahhh, F., F.… nu verɘ napoletano, eh? (all laugh) F.M.: and so? What did he say to you? Did he come on to you? Eh? Did he bring you a flower that evening? Come on, tell us a bit I4: eh, so, what should I say? He spoke to me, cute, but a flower no, he didn’t have one but I understood that he was a good guy C.M.: aaaahh, F., F. a real Neapolitan, eh? I4 had already used code-switching (see second extract) and here seems partly to be demonstrating accommodation to her interlocutors, who had used Neapolitan following the emotion of the conversational moment. The following extract concerns the war in Ukraine. The two interviewers ask I9 about the current situation in her country and I9 describes what she saw on a recent trip there, using Neapolitan to express the fear she felt: 1. L.S: quindi la situazione è difficile, adesso? Pure a [Kiev ci sta a guerrɘ ? No, vero? 2. C.M: [cioè, e pure mo’ tiene paura? 3. I9: diciamo # no a Kiev non ci sta guerra. Ma è situazione brutta #quanno iuta me so miss paura # sì # mio cugina anche abita a est paese lì più difficile

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L.S.: so the situation is difficult, right now? Also in Kiev there is war, right? C.M.: I mean are you afraid now too? I9: let’s say no, in Kiev there is no war. But it is a bad situation, when I went I was afraid yes my cousin also lives in east part of the country, there is more difficult In the same way, I2 resorts to code-switching while she is recounting an episode of violence aggression towards her eleven-year-old son, Maxim. The second switch here is used as reported speech, probably as a distancing strategy: 1. L.S: e pure a tuo figlio è successo qualcosa di brutto eh 2. I2: sì eh proprio una cosa brutta # si appiccicato co’ uno che stava rinto spogliatoio 3. C.M: ah! Ma proprio appiccicato # cioè menato che… 4. I2: eh sì appiccicato proprio # appiccicato # poi ci stava pure la mamma di chisto che gridava lassalo! lassa ì mio figlio! ## perché Maxim arrabbiato proprio 5. L.S: uaa! Pure la mamma ci stava? La mamma dell’altro? 6. I2: perché gioca calcio con Maxim # guarda bruttissimo L.S.: and also to your son something bad happened eh I2: yes a really bad thing. He got into a fight with a guy that was in the changing room C.M.: ah! But he really got into a fight? I mean, he hit that… I2: oh yes, he really got into a fight got into a fight. Then the mother of this guy was there too and she screamed let him go, let my son go because Maxim was really angry L.S.: wow! the mother was there too? The other guy’s mum? I2: because he plays football with Maxim. Just, really bad The use of code-switching in the interviews is generally very rare and absent in six informants: the five instances of code-switching displayed here are few compared with the 21 found in the speech of the

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interviewers. The four informants who switched between Italian and Neapolitan are—probably not coincidentally—married to men from Naples (I2 and I4) or have children who grew up in Naples living at home with them (I2, I5 and I9). As reported in other studies (see Goglia 2018: 720 for a review), second generation immigrants often declare IRDs to be part of their repertoire, and to use or at least to understand them. It is therefore possible that the children are a source of knowledge of Neapolitan for the informants, as we will see later from other interview samples. The discourse/pragmatic functions of code-switching are also limited to reported speech and emotional emphasis; in one case, there may also be a demonstration of convergence towards the emphatic and possibly slightly unnatural use of Neapolitan by the interviewers.3

5.2

Standard/Regional Variation in Informants’ Interlanguage

In order to evaluate the presence of standard/regional variation in our informants’ interlanguage, we considered three variables described in Sect. 2, which typically distinguish standard SI from Neapolitan RI: (1) avere(ci) vs. tenere (have and keep), with possession, including figurative value; (2) essere(ci) vs. stare(ci) (to be and to stay), with values of description of moods, position and signalling of existence; (3) absence vs. presence of the prepositional accusative in SVO sentences. The SI variant avere(ci) is preferred to the RI tenere in 85.8% of cases by the informants: out of 198 expressions of possession, it was used 170 times; tenere is used 28 times (14.1% of cases). In the speech of I4, I3 and I9 we notice more frequent uses of the RI variant, sometimes in co-presence, even in the same sentence, with the SI variant: I5: pure io già inizia a perdere vista # c’aveva problemi anche perché casa no tenevo occhiali.

3

The interviewers admitted that they did not use the two languages in a completely natural way: given the very limited use of Neapolitan by the informants, all three, outside the study, would have limited their use of Neapolitan.

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I too was already starting to lose my sight # I had problems because I didn’t have glasses at home. I9: mo’ non lo so chi è ma comunque non tiene un minimo di rispetto. now, I don’t know who he is but he doesn’t have a minimum of respect. The interviewers, on the other hand, use an Italian which is decidedly more oriented to the Neapolitan RI: in 64.4% of cases (69 uses out of a total of 107) they choose tenere and in the remaining 35.5% of cases (38 occurrences) they choose avere. The data on essere(ci)/stare(ci) show a similar tendency: the informants use the SI variant in 73% of cases (320 out of 438 uses) and the RI variant in 27% of cases (118 occurrences). In I4, I2, I3 and I9 we perceive more homogeneous alternations of the two variants, sometimes even in the same sentence: I9: in Ucraina ci sta mio marito e ci sta pure il nipote mio ma mio figlio stare qui co’ mme. my husband is in Ukraine and my nephew is also in Ukraine, but my son is here with meI I1: anche io come lei sto fortunata # lavoro bene anche lì # io non sta # io sto contenta qui. I’m lucky like you I’m happy working there too I’m not happy here. I4: non lo so se ci sta # mi confondo forse non lo so se c’era anche lui. I don’t know if he’s in # I’m confused maybe I don’t know if he was there too. Also in this case, the Italian used by the interviewers is more inclined to the local RI, with use of stare(ci) in 57% of the cases (142 uses out of 249 contexts of use) and of essere(ci) in the remaining 43%. The presence of the prepositional accusative in SVO sentences is very rare in the interlanguage of the informants: we find only 12 occurrences, all in the most prototypical context, represented by a name of person or profession. These occurrences, however, are distributed among 8 informants, thus in a fairly homogeneous way in the sample. In the interviewers’ production, we counted 27 occurrences of prepositional

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accusative in SVO context. When interpreting these results, the difficulty of learning the prepositional accusative in the Romance languages should be borne in mind (see Guijarro-Fuentes and Marinis 2009): it might be that, in this case, the non-accommodation of this RI feature is (mostly) due to this difficulty, rather than to input issues or speakers’ choices (see discussion in Sect. 6). From a phonetic point of view, we notice sporadic cases of metaphony, fricative-palatal outcomes of the nexus /s/ + consonant and lenition of the final vowel, all typical features of Neapolitan and Neapolitan RI. There are also rare diatopically marked lexical choices, often inherent to parts of the body or to some objects of the house, and a rare presence of interjections (such as uaa, mannaggia, ma quan(no)do mai etc.) that in some cases give a local nuance to the informants’ Italian. As observed for code-switching, similar phenomena of repertory “rigidity” can be found in the standard/regional variation of their interlanguage; this occurs rarely and the informants tend to adhere to a standard, rather than local, model of Italian. There seems to be a correlation between the best varietal abilities and biographical data: the three linguistically more “mobile” informants (I2, I4 and I9) are married to Neapolitan men or have children living at home who have grown up in Naples.

5.3

Perceptions and Value Judgements Towards Neapolitan

In line with the research summarized in Sect. 3, the informants state that they understand Neapolitan; as proof of this, we did not find they had any difficulty in understanding it during the interviews. It is also clear to them that Neapolitan is different from Italian: the interviews demonstrated good ability to discriminate and a correct understanding of the use of Neapolitan in the linguistic situation in Naples. The idea that Neapolitan is a they-code to which the informants struggle to have access is very strong. The two excerpts that follow clarify this:

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I2: casa marito mio parlano dialetto ma io dico poco # con me italiano fra loro tanto napoletano In my husband’s house they speak dialect (Neapolitan, author’s note) but I don’t speak much. With me Italian and among themselves, Neapolitan I7: sì napoletano difficile perché parlato tanto fra signora e figlia ma con me poco ma poi io capisco e piano piano va bene yes Neapolitan is difficult because it is talked a lot between the lady and the daughter but with me a little but then I understand and slowly it’s okay Neapolitan is seen by our informants as a language of low prestige, of only local utility and whose use belongs to poorer social strata, even if four of them claim to appreciate its musicality. Moreover, as already noted in Vitolo and Maturi (2017: 431), three informants associate Italian with an idea of cleanliness, as opposed to “dirty"Neapolitan. This emerges, for example, in the following excerpt, in which I2 expresses disappointment with the use of Neapolitan by her son, Maxim, who was raised in Naples.: 1. C.M.: ah perché Maxim parla napoletano eh # e tu che rricɘ 2. I2: eh sì Maxim parla napoletano # parla come ragazzi qua # normale ma io no voglio che a casa parla questo 3. C.M.: e perché # non capisco # scusa 4. I2: eh perché italiano o lingua nostra è meglio # dialetto sporco # sai # come dialetto Surzhyk in Ucraina lingua sporca # è bene per parolaccia ma no per lingua bella C.M.: ah because Maxim speaks Neapolitan, eh. And you, what do you say? I2: eh yes, Maxim speaks Neapolitan he speaks like the guys from here. (it’s) normal but I don’t want him speaking like that at home C.M.: and why? I don’t get it, sorry I2: because Italian or our language is better. Dialect is dirty like Surzhyk in Ukraine, dirty language. It’s ok for swearing but not for nice language

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As seen in Sect. 2, Surzhyk is charged with negative connotations and its use is stigmatized in Ukraine nowadays. As emerges from I2’s interview, it is likely that the stigmas and preconceptions assigned to Surzhyk are transferred to Neapolitan, both being non-national codes and tending to be used informally.

6

Discussion and Conclusions

The first two research questions that led our study regard how the repertoire of our informants is made up, the role of SI, RI and Neapolitan, and if variation between SI and RI actually occurs in their interlanguage. Our data suggest that the repertoire of the 10 Ukrainian women is essentially made up of an interlanguage leaning towards SI. On the whole, the local RI has little space in their speech practices: although only three morphosyntactic phenomena were investigated, variation between SI and RI is rare This non-adherence to the local RI was also found by Giuliano et al. (2014) in a study that focuses on the expression of past temporal relations in narratives by several groups of immigrant learners of Italian L2 living in Naples. Interestingly, Giuliano et al.’s data show that Ukrainians are the group that used the passato remoto least: passato remoto is a form of past tense used widely in Neapolitan and Neapolitan RI but not in SI. Of the lingua cum dialectis continuum, the IRD extreme is recognized but not used, just as the RI has little influence on the construction of their interlanguage, which tends to settle in the SI extreme. The third research question deals with the place that SI/RI-Neapolitan code-switching has in the informants’ repertoire. In effect, it has little space: The 4 of them who used it were married to Neapolitans and/or had children raised in Naples. We hypothesize that the family background of the informants allowed greater and more daily contact with the Neapolitan linguistic repertoire, facilitating its partial acquisition.4 4 We do not have further data on the real use of code-switching by the 4 informants who actually used it during the interviews, but we hypothesize that their IRD competence is higher than our study revealed. Cf. Moretti (2014: 238) on the definition of “IRD hidden competence” of first-generation migrants.

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The last question investigates the social status and prestige assigned to Neapolitan by our informants, which our data reveal to be very low: the stigma of Neapolitan might come from the value attitudes of their culture of origin, which stigmatizes Surzhyk and by extension, relegates the use of non-national languages to low prestige and deprived social contexts. These conclusions are in line with those reached in a study by Ender (2021): in her analysis of the use of Hochdeutsch and Bernese by longterm immigrants to Bern, Ender discovered that the Turkish informants in her population used Bernese less and more reluctantly than others, and they assigned it low social status and prestige. Ender links these negative judgements to the very conservative and hierarchical Turkish linguistic ideology, which promotes the use of a national variety of Turkish and stigmatizes the use of local variants and other languages. Another recent study by Auer (2020), shows that young speakers born or raised in Germany from migrant families do not acquire and do not use regional variants of German, but prefer to level their German to a more standard variety with multi-ethnolectal characteristics, i.e. “their own” German, that of second or third generation immigrants. Although Auer’s findings come from a different population to ours, they are in line with the very rare accommodation of Neapolitan RI features in our informants’ interlanguage. It seems that the 10 Ukrainian women we observed do not want to “belong”, linguistically, to the Neapolitan environment. Auer puts the non-acquisition of local varieties down to three reasons, two of which have already been considered in our study: (1) the lack of local, authentic input. In our case, this seems a plausible explanation for the non-acquisition of Neapolitan which was generally used in conversations between family members of the elderly people our informants cared for and not directly with them, even if cases of elderly people that used only Neapolitan were reported (see Sect. 4.1). This line of explication does not really explain the rarity of RI characteristics of their interlanguage, considering the length of time the informants have spent living in Naples, i.e. minimum 6 years; (2) the low social status and prestige assigned to non-national languages, which, again, and also considering

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Ender’s studies, we believe may explain the non-use of Neapolitan here; (3) the social value of divergence from the local linguistic repertoire, a symbolic expression of a process of mutual separation and exclusion from the receiving society. It may be this that prevents our Ukrainian women not only from speaking the “language of Naples”, i.e. Neapolitan, but also from speaking “in the way Neapolitans speak Italian” i.e. RI. This hypothesis is partially supported by the distancing use of code-switching that we found during the interviews: in 3 cases out of 5, Neapolitan was used to report the speech of a local which was in Neapolitan, and which occurred in difficult or annoying situations. It might be that the informants used code-switching to distance themselves from that person and the situation they were involved in (as discussed in Alfonzetti 1998). Furthermore, we saw that one informant does not want her child to speak like the local children: she said (see Sect. 5.3) “Italian or our language is better”, showing that the mother wants her child to adhere only to the SI extreme of the local lingua cum dialectis continuum. Ultimately, the “specific resources not available to monolingual speakers” (Auer 1995: 115) of bilinguals do not seem to be grasped by these informants. Some of the results of the studies summarized in Sect. 3 are thus confirmed: L2 learners coming from a linguistic background that is very rigid and hierarchical rarely acquire an IRD. IRD use and local sociolinguistic variation is weak in women engaged in a profession with little variety of social contact. Receptive and IRD/SI discriminatory skills are well developed, probably because, especially for L2 learners who are more “distrustful” towards dialects, this is sufficient to allow communication in the complex linguistic situation that we find in Naples. We conclude with a short quote from Auer (1995: 117): “it is the users of the signs who decide on their status”. This study strongly supports this position: once again, in investigating the acquisition of L2 variation and local repertoires, we have to interpret and explore the (socio)linguistic point of view of the learner.

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Eline Zenner, Ad Backus, and Esme Winter-Froemel, 213–250. Berlin: De Gruyter. Durham, Mercedes. 2014. The acquisition of sociolinguistic competence in a lingua franca context. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Eckert, Penelope. 2012. Three waves of variation study: The emergence of meaning in the study of Sociolinguistic variation. The Annual Review of Anthropology 41: 87–100. Ender, Andrea. 2017. What is the target variety? The diverse effects of standard–dialect variation in second language acquisition. In Acquiring sociolinguistic variation, ed. Gunther De Vogelaer and Matthias Katerbow, 155–184. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Ender, Andrea. 2021. The standard–dialect repertoire of second language users in German speaking Switzerland. In Sociolinguistic variation and language acquisition across the lifespan, ed. Aurélie Nardy, Anna Ghimenton, and JeanPierre Chevrot, 251–276. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Fedyuk, Olena, and Marta Kindler, eds. 2016. Ukrainian migration to the European Union: Lessons from migration studies. Berlin: Springer. Giacalone Ramat, Anna. 1995. Code-switching in the context of dialect/standard language relations. In One speaker, two languages, ed. Lesley Milroy, and Pieter Muysken, 45–67. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Giuliano, Patrizia, Simona Anastasio, and Rosa Russo. 2014. Passato remoto, passato prossimo e imperfetto: uso biografico e fittizio delle forme al passato nelle interlingue di immigrati di area partenopea. In Varietà dei contesti di apprendimento linguistico, ed. Anna De Meo et al., 229–314. Milano: Studi Aitla Goglia, Francesco, 2004. The interlanguage of Igbo Nigerians immigrated in Italy, with particular attention to the interference with English language. In Il soggetto plurilingue, ed. Siegfried Baur, 23–120. Milano: Franco Angeli. Goglia, Francesco. 2018. Code-switching and immigrant communities: The case of Italy. In Manual of romance sociolinguistics, ed. Wendy Ayres-Bennet and Janice Carruthers, 702–723. Berlin: De Gruyter. Guerini, Federica. 2018. “It sounds like the language spoken by those living by the seaside”—Language attitudes towards the local Italo-romance variety of Ghanaian immigrants in Bergamo. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 254: 103–120. Guijarro-Fuentes, Pedro, and Theodoros Marinis. 2009. The acquisition of personal preposition a by Catalan-Spanish and English-Spanish bilinguals.

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In Selected Proceedings of the 11th Hispanic Linguistics Symposium, ed. Joseph Collentine, 81–92. Sommerville: Cascadilla Press. Gumperz, John. 1964. Linguistic and social interaction in two communities. American Anthropologist 66: 137–153. Gumperz, John. 1982. Discourse strategies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Howard, Martin. 2012. On the relationship between sociolinguistic and grammatical development: Insights from L2 French. Eurosla Yearbook 12: 88–111. Ledgeway, Adam. 2008. Understanding dialect: Some Neapolitan examples. In Didattica della lingua italiana: testo e contesto, ed. Adam Ledgeway, and Anna Lepschy, 99–111. Perugia: Guerra. Ledgeway, Adam. 2009. Grammatica diacronica del napoletano. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag. Lyster, Roy. 1994. The effect of functional-analytic teaching on aspects of French immersion students’ sociolinguistic competence. Applied Linguistics 15: 263–287. Mattiello, Francesca, and Paolo Della Putta. 2017. L’acquisizione dell’italiano L2 in contesti linguistici di forte variabilità interna. Competenze sociolinguistiche e metalinguistiche di cittadini slavofoni a Napoli. In Italiano LinguaDue 1: 37–69. Maturi, Pietro. 2006. Le scritture esposte: dialettalità e multilinguismo sui muri di Napoli. In La città e le sue lingue. Repertori linguistici urbani, ed. Nicola De Blasi, and Carla Marcato, 243–251. Napoli: Liguori. Maturi, Pietro. 2016. L’immersione in una realtà linguistica complessa: Gli immigrati tra i dialetti e l’italiano. In L’italiano per i nuovi italiani: Una lingua per la cittadinanza, ed. Anna De Meo, 123–128. Napoli: Università degli Studi di Napoli l’Orientale. Milano, Emma. 2010. Ai margini di una ricerca su lingua e dialetto nel centro di Napoli: questioni di metodo. In XXVe Congrès international de linguistique et de philologie romanes, ed. Maria Iliescu., Heidi Siller-Runggaldier, and Paul Danler, 337–346. Berlin: De Gruyter. Milroy, Lesley, and Pieter Muysken. 1995. Introduction: Code-switching and bilingual research. In One speaker, two languages, ed. Lesley Milroy and Pieter Muysken, 1–14. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. MLPS. (2018), La comunità ucraina in Italia. https://www.integrazionemig ranti.gov.it. Accessed 06 May 2020.

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Moretti, Bruno. 2014. Il dialetto come lingua seconda. In Varietà dei contesti di apprendimento linguistico, ed. Anna De Meo et al., 227–240. Milano, Studi Aitla. Mougeon, Raymond, Terry Nadasdi, and Katherine Rehner. 2010. The Sociolinguistic competence of immersion students. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Pallotti, Gabriele, Stefania Ferrari, Elena Nuzzo, and Camilla Bettoni. 2010. Una procedura sistematica per osservare la variabilità nell’interlingua. Studi italiani di linguistica teorica e applicata XXXIX: 215–241. Pugliese, Rosa, and Valeria Villa. 2012. Aspetti dell’integrazione linguistica degli immigrati nel contesto urbano: la percezione e l’uso dei dialetti italiani. In Coesistenze linguistiche nell’Italia pre e post unitaria, ed. Tullio Telmon et al.,139–160. Roma: Bulzoni. Scaglione, Francesco. 2016. Dialetto ed emozioni: alcuni aspetti descrittivi. In La linguistica in campo, ed. Gruppo di ricerca dell’Atlante linguistico siciliano, 183–194. Alessandria: Edizioni dell’Orso. Schleef, Erik, Miriam Meyerhoff, and Lynn Clark. 2011. Teenagers’ acquisition of variation: A comparison of locally-born and migrant teens’ realisation of English ING in Edinburgh and London. English World-Wide 32: 206–236. Selinker, Larry. 1972. Interlanguage. IRAL 10: 209–232. Telmon, Tullio. 2016. Gli italiani regionali. In Manuale di Linguistica italiana, ed. Sergio Lubello, 301–327. Berlin: De Gruyter. Trumper, John. 1989. Observations on sociolinguistic behaviour in two Italian regions. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 76: 31–62. Van Compernolle, Remi. 2011. Developing a sociocultural orientation to variation in language. Language and Communication 31: 86–94. Villa, Valeria. 2014. Dinamiche di contatto linguistico nelle narrazioni di immigrati: dialetti e varietà regionali. In Varietà dei contesti di apprendimento linguistico, ed. Anna De Meo et al., 44–58, Milano: Studi Aitla. Vitolo, Giuseppe, and Pietro Maturi. 2017. Migranti a Salerno tra italiano e dialetto. In L’italiano dei nuovi italiani, ed. Massimo Vedovelli, 423–441. Roma: Aracne.

4 The Linguistic Repertoires of Immigrant School Children in Udine: A Sociolinguistic Study Fabiana Fusco

1

Introduction

The scientific debate on the contact among the immigrants’ multiple languages of origin (henceforth LO) and the regional languages or dialects present in the Italian linguistic repertoire was initially addressed from an acquisitional standpoint and focused mainly on the influence

I wish to thank Deborah Saidero for her translation revision and Gianluca Baldo for helping me in the research project and making the data here analysed available.

F. Fusco (B) University of Udine, Udine, Italy e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 F. Goglia and M. Wolny (eds.), Italo-Romance Dialects in the Linguistic Repertoires of Immigrants in Italy, Palgrave Studies in Minority Languages and Communities, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-99368-9_4

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that substandard input has on the acquisition of Italian as L2.1 It is plausible to believe that learners initially embrace the variety of the group they integrate and identify with more easily and then gradually develop a sociolinguistic awareness that allows them to distinguish the various languages used and their values (cf. Fusco 2017b).2 We must, however, bear in mind, as Goglia states, that “the role of dialects in immigrants’ repertoires will vary according to the regions where immigrants live, the kind of work they take up, and their level of integration into the host society” (Goglia 2018: 707). The data gathered and examined so far suggest that regional languages and geographical varieties can be a convincing stimulus for the learning of Italian, that is, they can play a key role in restructuring the linguistic repertoire of immigrants. These considerations are even more worthy of attention if we consider the dynamism that distinguishes dialects (for further insight see the Introduction). Within the contemporary linguistic context of a growing community of Italian speakers the renewed sociolinguistic vitality of dialects is one of Italy’s most lively profiles even as a country of immigration.3 In light of the above considerations, we wish to present the results of a survey on the perception and use of languages, namely of Friulian (one of the minority languages included in Law n. 482 of 15 December

1 See Vietti’s survey on the influence of migration processes on the Italian linguistic system (2014) and Giacalone Ramat et al.’s overview on the multiple aspects of learning Italian as an L2 (2014). For an update on these issues see also Chini and Andorno (2018), which has inspired the research presented herein. 2 Guerini (2018: 110) points out that “the dialect is generally viewed as a crucial component of the linguistic identity of the host community, and tends to be associated with the values - productiveness, determination and industriousness – traditionally attributed to its members”. This point of view is widely shared across European countries where attention is focused on the ways in which regional variation is perceived by second-/third-generation migrants: see Auer and Røyneland (2020) and Røyneland and Jensen (2020); of interest is also Kinder (2009), who considers the use of dialect in an advertising campaign addressed to immigrants. 3 It is significant to note that there is no direct or indirect mention to the passive and active use of dialects among immigrants in the data of the Istat survey entitled Linguistic diversity among foreign citizens, which was carried out in 2011 and which investigated both the preservation of native language competence and use and the acquisition/learning of Italian (Istat 2014).

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1999 “Rules for the protection of historical linguistic minorities”),4 by immigrant children and adolescents living in Udine and surroundings. A questionnaire was used to single out some peculiar traits in their communicative behaviours—from the point of view of regional variation—with the aim of verifying whether and how these traits can signal tangible linguistic and social inclusion into the urban setting. In the following sections, after briefly outlining the linguistic context, some statistical data on immigration in Friuli Venezia Giulia region and the methodological framework of our research, we will discuss the results and try to highlight the need for schools to appreciate the value and potentialities of the foreign students’ linguistic diversity.

2

The Context of the Research

It is well-known that, being a crossroads of the Latin, Germanic and Slavic peoples, the Friuli Venezia Giulia region is distinguished by the contact among and co-presence of different languages, alongside standard Italian and its regional varieties. The main “native” Romance varieties are respectively Friulian, by large the majority language, and Veneto, used in Venezia Giulia and in the main urban centres of Friuli, as a contact language, and also as a historic language, for example, in the lagoon towns. The Slavic-speaking component comprises compact areas of Slovenian on the border between the provinces of Trieste and Gorizia, as well as in various communities scattered around the province of Udine. Finally, German-speaking areas are found in the province of Udine. As we can see, the linguistic scenario is richer than we would expect and is

4 Since 1999 Italy has legally attributed the status of language to Friulian (and other minority idioms historically spoken in the peninsula), through Law 482/1999 (which implements Art. 6 of the Constitution) and has emanated a series of dispositions for its protection and promotion, which integrate those of the Friuli Venezia Giulia Region. Friulian is spoken by almost 600,000 people in the entire province of Udine and extensively in the provinces of Gorizia and Pordenone.

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nowadays further enriched by many other exogenous languages resulting from the multiethnic composition of contemporary society.5 The main autochthonous Romance language is Friulian which, in its numerous varieties, is by large the majority mother tongue and language of communication. It has been recently introduced for administrative and public uses and has been present in schools for decades. Schools have, indeed, been plurilingual environments since the implementation of Law 482/1999 and the specific regional laws for the protection of the minority languages present in Friuli Venezia Giulia. In particular, Art. 4 of Law 482/99 legitimises the use of the Friulian language alongside Italian for educational activities in nursery school and establishes its use as a teaching language in primary and middle school. There are unfortunately no provisions for secondary school, where Friulian can be used only in CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) units. In the last five years the data released by the Regional School Board of Friuli Venezia Giulia have shown that the requests of students to be taught Friulian and in Friulian settle around 70% in nursery school and primary school. It is also worth highlighting that foreign students, who in recent years account for about 10% of the total, appreciate the teaching of Friulian: it is estimated that about half of the children (or rather their families) chooses to learn Friulian at the beginning of the schoolyear, with peaks that supersede 60% especially in nursery school.6 Who are these foreign students and where are their families from?7 According to the data reported in the sources consulted, the Region hosts 110,193 foreign residents (as of 31/12/2018), with an incidence of

5

Cf. Fusco (2017a, b) for a thorough analysis of the Friulian (socio)linguistic reality. It includes a survey carried out through the use of a questionnaire in Udine and surroundings (where Friulian is more vital and widespread) on a sample of adult learners of diverse origins. The results show, among other things, that the entire sample is prone to acknowledge the linguistic diversity of the autochthonous community and, in particular, the relevance of the local dialect also, even if not always, in combination with Italian or other languages. 6 The data can be consulted on the website of the Regional School Board: http://www.scuola. fvg.it/. 7 The term “foreign students/learners” refers both to children and young adolescents who arrived in Italy after birth and to those born in Italy to foreign parents (more commonly referred to as “second generation” students) who, under Italian law, are “students with non-Italian citizenship” until the age of eighteen.

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Table 1 Foreign residents Province

Number

%

% on total residents

% Women

Newborns

Pordenone Udine Gorizia Trieste Friuli Venezia Giulia

32,755 40,303 14,352 22,783 110,193

29.7 36.6 13.0 20.7 100.0

10.5 7.6 10.3 9.7 9.1

52.0 54.5 47.4 48.7 51.6

440 469 231 213 1353

9.1% on the total regional population. If we consider territorial distribution, the majority live in the province of Udine (the most extensive and densely populated of the four provinces), as in Table 1.8 Generally speaking, the surveys agree in signalling a few changes in the make-up of the immigrant population which comprises a number of women and minors. This confirms the hypothesis that the immigration flow is distinguished by male workforce, but also by a growing percentage of women and children who year after year reunite with their family. There is, in fact, gender balance among the foreign population, with a slight prevalence of women. Another characteristic is the notable plurality of countries of origin. In Friuli Venezia Giulia, alongside some of the particularly representative groups, the provenance of immigrants is extremely fragmented. At the top of the list there are Romania and Albania, which account for almost a third of the total, and are also the first two countries of origin in the provinces of Udine and Pordenone. In the province of Gorizia the first place is held by Bangladesh while Serbia is first in the province of Trieste. If we consider the data according to municipalities, the foreign citizens residing in the city of Udine (as of 31/12/2018) have slightly decreased in the past year and settle at 13,851 (13.9% of the total population), and more specifically 6438 males and 7413 females. The high number of women in the city indicates a structural rootedness of the migrant communities. It is clear that the immigration of families

8 An updated sociodemographic picture of immigration is contained in the reports of the ISMU Foundation (especially for 2019, 2020 and 2021) and in the contributions of the Dossier Statistico Immigrazione (2018, 2019, 2020).

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involves the need for greater interventions in terms of inclusion which extend to a number of fields, such as housing, healthcare services, professional training, inclusion in the job market and educational policies. The greatest number of foreigners residing in Udine comes, as in the past, from Romania and Albania. Numerous are also the Ukrainians, the Ghanaians, the Serbs, the Chinese, the Nigerians, the Kosovars, the Filipinos and the Moroccans. The qualitative and quantitative aspects of the foreign children’s enrolment in schools are another key indicator which helps us measure the quality of the migrant communities’ inclusion.9 Considering the situation in Friuli Venezia Giulia, we can see that the province of Udine is at the top of the list for number of students enrolled, followed by Pordenone, Trieste and Gorizia Table 2. In the past decade the foreign student population in the Region increased notably, especially in secondary schools, while in nursery school and primary school the increase is similar to that of the entire population of foreign students. In Friuli Venezia Giulia, as in other regions, there has also been an increase of second-generation students who were born in Italy. They represent 63.0% of the students enrolled in all kinds of schools in the Region and seem to be concentrated mostly in the provinces of Udine and Pordenone. Overall the students without Italian citizenship belong to over two hundred nationalities. The list of places of origin is more or less the same as that of the past few school years: at the top of the list there are Romania, Albania, Ukraine, India, Moldavia, China, Morocco, Pakistan, the Philippines and Egypt.

9

The data on schooling are taken from the document Gli alunni stranieri nel sistema scolastico italiano a.s. 2017/2018, Statistical Office (Ministry of Education), Rome, 2019.

Pordenone Udine Gorizia Trieste Friuli V.G

Province and region

6445 7517 2263 2882 19,107

Total

1505 1428 450 549 3932

Nursery school

Absolute values

2436 2710 966 1116 7228

Primary school 1230 1565 472 619 3886

Middle school 1274 1814 375 598 4061

Secondary school 14.5 10.8 12.8 10.5 12.0

Total 18.5 11.8 15.3 11.7 14.1

Nursery school

Percentage values

16.5 12.5 16.9 12.7 14.2

Primary school

13.9 11.4 12.9 10.9 12.2

Middle school

Table 2 Students without Italian citizenship by province and type of school (school year 2017/2018)

10.0 8.1 6.9 7.2 8.3

Secondary school

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The Theoretical and Methodological Frame of Reference

Plurilingualism in schools is a complex issue which cannot be easily boxed into an organic and exhaustive framework.10 Indeed, as we will see, even at school, plurilingualism is a more extended and “natural” phenomenon than monolingualism. Foreign immigration has often become an emergency for schools, which have often been unable to find the resources necessary to manage the development of language competence in the habitual educational frameworks, since Italian is not the LO. Given these data, the conceptual and terminological pairs of first language/second language (L1/L2) and mother tongue/foreign language do not seem to adequately represent the linguistic situation of foreign learners. We need to only think, for example, of children with one Italian parent, of those born in Italy who socialise with Italian children or of those who start basic schooling as soon as they arrive in Italy.11 For these reasons it is worth making use of the criterion put forward by sociologist Rumbaut (1997, 2004) who establishes a correlation between the age of arrival in the host country, language learning and some social phenomena. His classification distinguishes between second-generation subjects and other groups of subjects subdivided according to the age of their arrival. In particular, those born in Italy are the so-called “generation 2.0” or second-generation; they are minors who grow up in Italy without having a right to citizenship at least until the age of 18. The so-called “generation 1.75” comprises those minors who were born abroad and arrived in Italy in preschool age (0–5 years) with their family members. Although their primary socialisation took place elsewhere, these children enter the school system with their Italian peers and thus share the same advantages in terms of Italian language acquisition. The generations of more recent immigration (“generation 1.5”) arrived in Italy after spending a more or less elevated number of years in their 10

On this issue see the contributions contained in the volume edited by Vedovelli (2017), which offer insights and tools for admitting all the languages and varieties of the learners and of the linguistic environment in the classroom. 11 Schools may decide to enroll students in a class that differs from that of their age group— usually a lower grade—on the basis of inadequate (mainly linguistic) competences and skills.

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homeland, that is, between 6 and 12 years. Their careers are in-between two school systems. Finally, “generation 1.25” is made up of subjects who arrived in Italy after age 12; they are inserted into the school system to allow them to complete their compulsory education regardless of their age or the type of school attended in the homeland. To manage plurilingual classes it is advisable to start with an accurate and systematic investigation of the learners’ linguistic repertoire, with the aim of gathering information about their language background and their family’s communicative habits outside the school context and in society, so as to understand which languages they can already speak, read and write. By keeping this information in mind, it is easier to get all students involved in observing and reflecting on linguistic diversity, both within their environment (family, friends, school) and in the community of reference (city, region, country) (cf., among others, Rampton 2006; Caruana et al. 2013). If we look to the convincing results of the studies on the linguistic repertoires of foreign students (mainly Chini and Andorno 2018), we will see that these learners have complex and composite linguistic repertoires, which often comprise one or more “other” languages besides Italian. An even more significant aspect is that even the local language appears in various contexts of use, albeit variably because not very widespread throughout the territory.12 In their survey in Pavia and Turin the two scholars reveal that the dialects recognised by the minors (the dialects of Piedmont, Pavia and Voghera, as well as the central-southern dialects of Naples, Apulia, Calabria or Sicily) can be ascribed to the presence of an Italian parent (or grandparent) who speaks the dialect. In general, the minors who mention these Italian dialects are a small minority of the sample and they are concentrated mostly in the areas neighbouring the urban centres, where dialect is, instead, less spoken and often more stigmatised.13 When we consider the children of immigrant 12

See also Baratto et al. (2012, 2013), who use a perceptional survey carried out in some Piedmontese middle-schools to show how foreign students are able to recognise geographical variations on the basis of direct sociolinguistic experiences with peers or neighbours. 13 While there is a limited use of dialects in the north-western area, in the Veneto area, which is sociolinguistically peculiar, dialect is a key element in the repertoires of the speakers, including foreigners. Goglia and Fincati (2017) confirm this trend in their survey with foreign

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couples we find that there is a certain familiarity with the local languages, above all, among Romanians, Albanians, Moroccans and Bulgarians.14 Following Chini, Andorno’s study (2018),15 we decided to carry out a sociolinguistic survey in Udine by administering a questionnaire to a sample of immigrant students and those of immigrant origin. Our quantitative study was aimed at monitoring their articulate daily linguistic usages in specific plurilingual domains (family, friends, etc.), in order to study the dynamics and configuration of their original and acquired linguistic repertoires. Although partial, our survey on the languages of origin used by immigrant students in Udine is of great interest for the peculiar linguistic setup of this area where Italian and Friulian are used to varying degrees of extent. The survey thus aims to collect and analyse preliminary data on the LO used by the sample and on their use of Italian and the local varieties (mainly Friulian) in the host context. The survey is grounded in a specific framework comprising both personal (gender, age, provenance, school attendance, job) and socio-cultural variables (degree of inclusion in the national and local context, networks of friends) so as to create correlations and functional generalisations for a descriptive analysis of the dynamics within the repertoires and the degree of plurilingualism declared (the written and oral skills of the sample in the various languages and dialects that are part of the repertoire). Starting from the school year 2016/17, we distributed a questionnaire to the primary, middle and secondary schools of the city, consisting of students from middle-schools situated between the province of Treviso and the city of Padua (“the majority of informants stated that they spoke the Veneto dialect with Italian friends and classmates. These initial results seem to indicate that the dialect mainly mixed with Italian belongs to the linguistic repertoire of the second generation”, in Goglia and Fincati 2017: 514). Even the surveys by Massariello Merzagora (2004) and Gallina (2006, 2010), dedicated to Verona and Treviso respectively, point out a similar situation. 14 Another interesting linguistic context in which local languages are vital is Sicily, where the presence of immigrants of diverse origin has further enriched an already composite repertoire. The most striking effect of these new arrivals can be seen at the linguistic level even among second-generation immigrants for whom plurilingual communicative practices are part of everyday use (Amenta 2014; Fontana and Schembari 2019). Opposite experiences can however be found in other regions of the country: Cognigni and Vitrone (2017: 465), for example, report the statements of students who allude to a lack of ease in their perception of dialect, which is, at times, viewed with fear. 15 I wish to affectionately thank the late colleague Marina Chini for generously allowing me to use and tailor the questionnaire she had devised with her collaborators.

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seven sections (Your life in Italy, The languages and dialect you use today, School and Free time, The languages and dialects your parents use, the languages and dialects you know, the languages and dialects you used in your country, What you know about languages and dialects), which was shared with the teachers and the families of the minors during laboratories on linguistic diversity inside and outside school.16 During the compilation one or more members of the university research group was present in the classroom to illustrate the contents and answer questions. In the school year 2017–2018 it was possible to involve 1056 children and adolescents enrolled in grades IV or V of 13 primary schools (total 231), grades I, II and III of 6 middle schools (total 466) and in 7 secondary schools in the city of Udine (total 359). Priority in the choice of the schools for the sample was given to institutes situated in urban areas with greater concentrations of immigrants or known to have numerous students without Italian citizenship. Thanks to the questionnaires, which were analysed through the statistical programme SPSS and re-elaborated on an Excel spreadsheet, it was possible to gather and catalogue a great amount of linguistic data. A first aspect already highlighted in par. 2 is the increase of secondgeneration students born in Italy. At the time of the survey, 62.1% of the informants said they were born in Italy, while the remaining 37.8% of the sample came from a host of other countries (especially Romania, Albania, Serbia, Kosovo, Philippines, Moldova, etc.) (part of the sample provided no answer).17 A second and different representation of reality is, however, based on the subjective perception of the children and adolescents. The answers to the less precise question “Nationalities” (asked at the beginning of the survey to complete the fact sheet of each student) betray individual 16

For quite some time the University of Udine and a network of schools sustained by the Regional School Board have promoted research and training activities aimed at favouring the inclusion of migrant children from nursery school through secondary school. The various phases of the project include, on one hand, the gathering and analysis of sociolinguistic data through questionnaires and interviews and, on the other, the spreading of these results through the production and dissemination of materials for the schools and teacher training courses. 17 Note that the data contained in the various tables may oscillate slightly and however not significantly, due to the calculation method, automatic treatment and imprecisions in the informants’ answers (or absence thereof ).

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Table 3

Number of informants splitted into intermediate generations

G

1.25

1.5

1.75

2.0

No answers

Total

Number of informants % Valid %

40 3.8 4.0

179 17.0 17.9

159 15.1 15.9

620 58.7 62.1

58 5.5

1.056 100.0 100.0

and at times uncertain considerations which can indicate double national belonging (Italian-Chinese, Italian-Ghanaian and so on). The picture is very articulate since the family’s different migration experiences and routes intermingle with the different phases of socialisation experienced by the minor. It could be very useful, therefore, to distinguish the data more and isolate them on the basis of intermediate generations which correspond to different moments of arrival in Italy (cf. Rumbaut 1997, 2004; Chini and Andorno 2018: 64–68), as shown in Table 3. This said, we will here report the data pertaining to plurilingual repertoires and the dialects which have entered our territory as part of the results of the study carried out.

4

Italian, Friulian and Immigrant Languages in the Schools of Udine

After this brief overview of the social profile of the sample, it is possible to examine the sociolinguistic aspects, by reconstructing the linguistic repertoire of the informants. The first question of the section “The Languages and Dialects you use today” is about the language and dialects spoken in the family.18 It was possible to insert more than one answer, that is, the informants could indicate more than one language or dialect (or none of them). For practical reasons, we include hereunder a summary sheet (Table 4) which shows that, despite the numerousness of places of origin, few are the community languages and dialects that 18

We did not deem it necessary to specify that the term “dialects” may refer to Italian regional varieties or those of other countries; instead, we signalled that although Friulian is not a dialect but a minority language, it can be classified under this broad term.

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Table 4 Numbers of languages spoken in the family Language

Answers

% on total informants

Italian Romanian Albanian English Serbian French Spanish Russian Arabic Chinese Kosovan Ukrainian Filipino German Algerian Moldavian Bosnian Croatian Portuguese Other 67 languages

431 228 192 119 75 68 64 56 55 42 37 25 23 20 13 13 13 12 12 153

42.0 21.6 18.2 11.3 7.1 6.4 6.1 5.3 5.2 4.0 3.5 2.4 2.2 1.9 1.2 1.2 1.2 1.1 1.1 14.5

reach a considerable size, with the consequent dispersion of many of the languages spoken in the family context. The presence of Italian is not surprising and shows that it is one of the family codes. The languages most commonly mentioned are those spoken in the most representative countries of origin, that is, Albania, Romania and some countries of the Balkans. The presence of English and French suggests, instead, that these are varieties used by communities from Sub-Saharan Africa, North Africa or Asian countries. Equally interesting are the dialects indicated by the informants, whose categorisation is not always precise and shows overlapping between codes classified at times as languages and others as dialects (Table 5). Noteworthy are both the number of answers indicating one or more dialects and the fact that Friulian accounts for 5.7% of the sample. The rest is variegated and includes both northern and southern Italian dialects (i.e. Veneto, Neapolitan, Calabrese and Sicilian). Their occurrence depends upon various reasons: on one hand, the presence of a family member

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Table 5

Numbers of dialects spoken in the family

Dialect

Answers

% on total informants

Friulian Qingtianhua dialect Italian Neapolitan Chinese Edo Tunisian English Whenzhou dialect Algerian Filipino Moroccan Sicilian Venetian Calabrian German dialect Igbo Moldavian Twi Other 39 dialects

60 9 7 7 6 6 6 4 4 3 3 3 3 3 2 2 2 2 2 55

5.7 0.9 0.7 0.7 0.6 0.6 0.6 0.4 0.4 0.3 0.3 0.3 0.3 0.3 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.2 5.2

from an area where that variety is spoken and, on the other, the family’s previous sojourn in one or more regions. In other cases, the categorisation “dialect” is dubious by virtue of the status that the code mentioned has, unless the informants are not referring to their linguistic variety (Edo, Igbo, Twi but also Italian, Chinese, English and Filipino) in relation to the regional or more widespread code (i.e. Arab, Algerian, Moroccan, Tunisian, Moldavian) or its dialects (i.e. dialects such as Qingtian or Wenzhou spoken in two counties of the Chinese province Zhejiang). Finally there is the type generically called “German dialect”. Let us now focus on the number of answers regarding Italian and Friulian, 431 and 60 respectively, with the aim of better understanding the sociolinguistic profile of the sample. As expected, the majority of those who indicated Italian belong to generation 2.0 and, well behind, to generations 1.5 and 1.75. The same is true for those (even if fewer) who chose Friulian among the dialects. The national language, at times combined with the minority language, is the code of reference in the

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family context since birth or at least since the beginning of schooling. The spread, albeit limited, of Friulian is, instead, greater in secondary school and subordinately in middle school, a fact that confirms that later in life the use of the local language can become a peer group code, also thanks to its teaching at school.19 One last comparison regards the correlation between the language/dialect indicated and the nationality declared: those who are born in Italy focus their attention on the national language and Friulian; instead, those who were born abroad confirm their belonging to their communities (i.e. the Romanian and Albanian communities which are well-established in the Region), they choose Italian among the codes used, and also open to Friulian. The long-lasting and stable permanence in the Region may have facilitated the use of the local language in the family context. A further consideration to make in order to understand the linguistic behaviour of this sample concerns the configuration of the repertoires in light of the answers collected. Table 6 shows how the intrafamilial linguistic repertoire is mainly distinguished by a monolingualism dominated by the LO, or by a plurilingualism reduced to two languages (including Italian). Decisively less widespread is a more articulated plurilingualism which comprises the use of three or more codes in the family context. The data are interesting as they point to a polarisation between the use of only one language in the family and the cohabitation of two languages at school. If we analyse the combinations used in the family, we can see that the Italian/LO pair recurs in the familial linguistic repertoire, even if the typical behaviour is to abandon a mixed use in favour of the LO. Other languages insert themselves as well, while Friulian occupies a small but significant space, even in mixed practices alongside other languages. The exclusive use of Italian is sporadic, but codemixing with one or more other languages and with Friulian is more frequent. These findings confirm the trend already noticed in previous surveys on a sample of immigrant adults (Fusco 2017a, b). We could thus hypothesise that the linguistic behaviour of the children is influenced by the choices made by the parents. If we consider this in relation to kinship, 19 This trend had already been documented among youngsters in Friulian schools for some time cf. Fusco (2017a).

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Table 6

The intrafamilial linguistic repertoire

Repertoires

Languages

N

No languages or dialect 1 Languages/dialects

No answers Italian (IT) Friulian (FR) Other languages (OL) IT + OL FR + OL IT + FR 2 OL IT + 2OL FR + 2OL IT + FR + OL 3 OL IT + 3OL FR + 3OL IT + FR + 2OL 4 OL IT + 4OL FR + 4OL IT + FR + 3OL 5 OL IT + 5OL IT + FR + 4OL

38 29 7 393 259 12 7 124 82 6 16 24 29 2 7 9 3 2 3 1 2 1 1.056

2 Languages/dialects

3 Languages/dialects

4 Languages/dialects

5 Languages/dialects

6 Languages/dialects Total

of mainly Romanian and Albanian origin, then it can be suggested that there is a desire to maintain the LO as the intrafamilial code, but that the LO is not completely impenetrable by external influences. If we consider the four groups in terms of Rumbaut’s subdivision, we notice a considerable diversity since all three possibilities (put simply: monolingualism, bilingualism and plurilingualism) are covered and distributed in a balanced way. We have further collected the data on the basis of the presence or co-presence of languages and have included even those with “no language” that is, those who offered no answer. The situation is rather variegated and interesting, since the use of one or two languages is predominant. Although the figures vary among the generational groupings, not surprisingly a certain incidence of bilingual repertoires is found in the group of most recent immigration.

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It is at this point worth examining the information about declared usage, namely the answers to questions 16 and 17 of the questionnaire: “Which languages and dialects do people use to speak to you?” and “Which languages and dialects do you use to speak to people?”. The suggested contexts of use are those of the family, the school and life outside the family, so as to identify the linguistic dynamics of the sample’s daily interactions, separate receptive uses from productive ones, and focus on the use of Italian, of other languages, or a combination of Italian and other languages. The results are summarised in Table 7, which better illustrate the students’ answers and choices. By comparing the percentages obtained it is possible to identify a series of trends pertaining to the languages involved. The recurrence of the national language (with irrelevant percentage differences, even if the higher figure always relates to productive uses) is visible in the school domain (with teachers and classmates), with staff Table 7 The linguistic dynamics of the sample’s daily interactions in various languages (receptive and productive uses) Receptive and productive uses (RU/PU) Teachers Shopkeepers Friends from the same country Friends from other country Italian friends Father Mother Brothers/sisters Schoolmates Relatives in the home country Adults from the same country in Italy

RU (%)

PU (%)

RU (%)

PU (%)

RU (%)

PU (%)

95.2 94.8 48.8

96.2 95.5 53.2

0.9 1.9 28.8

0.6 1.7 25.5

3.9 3.3 22.4

3.2 2.9 21.3

46.5

49.7

46.3

40.9

7.2

9.4

95.8 22.4 17.6 41.7 92.1 11.3

96.9 31.7 27.0 45.6 94.0 18.3

1.3 48.9 49.0 28.5 1.2 79.4

1.0 43.9 43.2 26.5 1.3 73.1

2.9 28.7 33.5 29.8 6.7 9.2

2.1 24.4 29.7 27.9 4.7 8.6

34.2

41.2

44.8

40.3

21.1

18.5

Italian

Other languages

Italian and other languages

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in stores (who represent the adult world) and also with Italian friends; it is decisively less present in the family environment or with family and kin living in the country of origin. Interesting is instead the use of Italian in interactions with siblings, that is, with family members closer to their generation. This witnesses both an intrafamilial language shift and a generational shift, since the degree with which Italian penetrates into the family increases when exchanges occur with near same-age groups (siblings) and decreases when exchanges occur with adult members. The use of immigrant languages (including the LO) is found in more intimate and conservative situations, that is when the informants interact with relatives from the country of origin, with their parents (no great differences between mothers and fathers), and with friends from other countries (with figures similar to those on the exclusive use of the national language); the identity value of the LO is confirmed in the family but loses ground in peer relations, that is, in interactions with friends from the same country of origin. The highest percentages are found in receptive uses and less in productive ones; these young informants hear these languages, but use them less frequently. Immigrant languages disappear in the school context, in interactions with teachers, classmates and Italian friends, and in out-of-the-family domains (stores). The Italian/other languages pair can be found among family members, that is, parents (mothers seem to prefer a mixed use compared to fathers) and siblings, as well as among friends and adults from the same country of origin. Even in this case reception during the interaction is more relevant than production. Bi-/plurilingual communication is preferred in almost all contexts, with percentages rising, albeit slightly, compared to the exclusive use of the immigrant language(s). The school environment seems to be opening up to plurilingualism, but our observations seem to suggest a possible lack of initiatives dedicated to valorising the children’s LO. Similar considerations can be made for the information about the use of Friulian and other dialects, which we also gather from answers to questions 16 and 17. The statements, albeit limited, spur a reflection on the degree of inclusion of these students through the use of the local variety as a possible marker of identity and belonging to a

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Table 8 The linguistic dynamics of the sample’s daily interactions in Friulian (receptive and productive uses) Friulian

Receptive uses

Productive uses

Teachers Shopkeepers Friends from the same country Friends from other country Italian friends Father Mother Brothers/sisters Schoolmates Relatives in the home country Adults from the same country in Italy

9 6 7 1 7 3 3 2 8 9 6

1 1 1 0 4 3 3 4 6 5 3

group of peers, especially in a mid-sized city like Udine.20 It is clear that the percentage of answers is reduced, but we can nonetheless try to make some comparisons between the effective uses stated by the informants. Table 8 summarises their statements and cast light on reception and production in the marilenghe (“mother tongue” in Friulian). The results show an asymmetrical relation: the number of children who are spoken to in Friulian is higher than those who can reply in Friulian and probably opt for another language. Curious is the finding (which needs to be further investigated) on the use of Friulian at school (teachers and classmates), with friends (Italians and not) and in stores. It is however not completely anomalous if we consider the prestige earned by this minority language thanks to the protection measures adopted by the Region. Interesting are also the statements on the use of the local variety with classmates since it confirms that both exogenous and endogenous plurilingualism are distinguishing traits of the schools of the city. We must, however, highlight that the local language is favoured by the fact that it is widespread and for the identity value it has for the autochthonous community, elements which probably induce foreign youngsters to seek an at least partial competence in it. The above data 20

Inclusion is a strong motivation in language learning. Indeed, as Joshua Fishman teaches us, “languages are rarely acquired for their own sake. They are acquired as keys to other things that are desired” (Fishman 1989: 242).

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on school monitoring in Udine seem to confirm this trend. Unusual seems, instead, the option (receptive uses) with family members in the homeland and can probably be ascribed to a misunderstanding. To conclude the sociolinguistic analysis of our sample let us look at the answers to question 47: “Do you hear only Italian or even other languages and dialects in the city where you live?”. We shall focus only on local varieties, and more specifically on Friulian here. This question has the double aim of surveying which languages the youngsters perceive and of investigating their meta-sociolinguistic awareness through the analysis of the suggested language labels. By observing data it becomes clear that there is a perception of the city’s linguistic diversity, since 81.5% of the informants declares that they hear other languages, among which the local varieties, against 18.5% who only recognise the national language. Although it is not possible to go through the numerous language types suggested, it should be observed that the informants were often incapable of providing precise indications on the languages that were not part of their repertoires. In some cases, the children pointed out the impossibility of listing them all; in other they answered “almost all the languages”, “a bit of everything” and “foreign languages”. Abundant was instead the frequent use of the adjectives “Pakistani” “(North)African”, used to indicate the country of origin where several languages are instead spoken; likewise “Afghan”, is used because of the numerous migrants arriving through the Balkan route. Other times, the indications provided by the informants are even vaguer as when they use “Slavic languages”, which confirms the multi-ethnicity of the linguistic landscape. By contrast, there is a notable attention towards the local varieties which are self-consciously acknowledged and probably known more than just partially. We shall not comment on the various dialects and local varieties of languages spoken in other countries (Albanian, Moroccan, Algerian etc.), but will focus on the answers given on Friulian (which do not surprise us) and the other codes spoken in various parts of the Region Friuli Venezia Giulia. There are generic indications such as “the dialect spoken here”, as well as more precise names of the territorial varieties i.e. Udinese (which is more precisely Veneto Udinese), Triestino (also of Veneto origin), Carnico (which is a variety of Friulian spoken in the northern Alps), Meneghello (meneghèl , another northern Veneto dialect

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from Livenza spoken in the lowlands of Friuli and in the Portoguaro area) and Riccardino (which mixes Veneto, Udinese, Friulano and the Romani language and is spoken in a suburb of Udine along “Via Riccardo Di Giusto” where it is a strong identity marker since the area is the hub of protest groups known as “riccardini”). To conclude, since the presence of Friulian is widely perceived in the city, it is recognised as a language of communication with interlocutors who speak it but active production is limited to certain contexts: it survives mostly in formal domains, in schools, in stores, where Friulian is often heard and spoken, and with peers (Italian friends and compatriots). The data suggest a complex and widespread plurilingualism which weakens the still rooted idea that speakers have only one mother tongue that coincides with a standard variety. As Gardner-Chloros states: “the myth of monolingualism in Europe is such that the first preconception which has to be put right is that migrants have a single mother tongue which they have brought over from their country of origin, which corresponds to what is taught in the schools of that country and which is a standardised variety which they need only ‘maintain’” (Gardner-Chloros 1997: 212).

5

Some Concluding Remarks

The linguistic model embraced by foreign adults and children is certainly built upon Italian, but also on its varieties. The dialectal interferences which often contaminate their verbal production can be ascribed to the peculiarities of their language learning processes, which are aimed at acquiring not only one variety but all the linguistic repertoires they are exposed to.21 Thus, the urban communicative context, including the school context, is quite apt to describe and evaluate the learning process 21 As Vedovelli (2017: 37) states: “the use of Italian is crucial for daily survival, in the workplace and for interactions with the offices, but immigrants also recognise other points of reference, first and foremost the local dialects, which are widespread in everyday usage and often in oral exchanges with the public officials with whom they interact in more formal relational situations”.

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which cannot be considered as a linear and unidirectional progression towards an objective language level since productions are distinguished by multidimensional linguistic traits.22 It is also clear that the local languages which are part of the repertoire of the host community cannot simply be added to the repertoire of the home community. As we have tried to show, the repertoires mingle and modify internal balances, relations among the varieties and their usage norms. The fields in which the young speakers can use their communicative resources seem to be in a phase of evolution and rebalancing. The process of shifting towards the Italian language is gradual and particularly evident in the case of communicative exchanges with siblings, with a general tendency to spill over in all fields of use. The LO learnt from their parents resists above all in the communicative exchanges with them. Yet, without specific interventions, it is plausible to believe that such a rich plurilingualism will scale down over the years. This would be a loss not only for the speakers but also for the entire host country (see Sierens and Van Avermaet 2014). While Italian is the language the informants use to communicate with the outside world, Friulian adds an important value to the expressive repertoire available. Besides denoting a situation of plurilingualism similar to that of many autochthonous speakers who use various codes, Friulian is an important part of the process of inclusion. To use John Gumperz’s terminology (1982), Friulian is a we code which unites Italian (Friulian) and foreign children and adolescents who live and study in the same places.

22

If competence in an L2 depends on the level of competence in the L1 (or LO) then it is necessary for children to develop their first language, the language through which they discovered the world and learned to articulate their thoughts. Learning an L2 should thus occur simultaneously with the improvement of competence in the L1 (Cummins 1976; Berthele and Lambelet 2018).

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References Amenta, Luisa. 2014. Varietà dei repertori nelle classi multilingui. In Varietà dei contesti di apprendimento linguistico, ed. Anna De Meo et al., 59–76. Milano: Officinaventuno. Auer, Peter, and Unn Røyneland. 2020. Modelling acquisition and use of dialectal, standard and multiethnolectal features in migratory contexts across Europe. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development. https://doi. org/10.1080/01434632.2020.1730385. Baratto, Gabriele, et al. 2012. “Ho sentito degli accenti un po’ strani”. La percezione della variabilità in un gruppo di adolescenti stranieri. Bollettino dell’Atlante Linguistico Italiano 36: 223–251. Baratto, Gabriele, et al. 2013. Gli stranieri ci ascoltano. La percezione della variabilità diatopica dell’italiano da parte dei ragazzi stranieri. In Lingua e dialetti nelle regioni, ed. Gianna Marcato, 153–159. Padova: Cleup. Berthele, Raphael, and Amelia Lambelet (eds.). 2018. Heritage and school language literacy development in immigrant children. Bristol: Multilingual matters. Caruana, Sandro, et al. (eds.). 2013. Migration, multilingualism and schooling in Southern Europe. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Chini, Marina, and Cecilia Andorno (eds.). 2018. Repertori e usi linguistici nell’immigrazione. Una indagine su minori alloglotti dieci anni dopo. Milano: FrancoAngeli. Cognigni, Edith, and Francesca Vitrone. 2017. Usi ed atteggiamenti linguistici dei nuovi italiani. Spazi ed orizzonti dell’identità linguistico-culturale in una scuola del maceratese. In L’italiano dei nuovi italiani, ed. Massimo Vedovelli, 455–470. Roma: Aracne. Cummins, Jim. 1976. The influence of bilingualism on cognitive growth: A synthesis of research findings and explanatory hypotheses. Working Papers on Bilingualism 9: 1–43. Dossier Statistico Immigrazione. 2018. Roma: Centro Studi e Rierche IDOS. Dossier Statistico Immigrazione. 2019. Roma: Centro Studi e Rierche IDOS. Dossier Statistico Immigrazione. 2020. Roma: Centro Studi e Rierche IDOS. Fishman, Joshua. 1989. Language and ethnicity in minority sociolinguistic perspective. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Fondazione, Ismu. 2019. Ventiquattresimo Rapporto sulle migrazioni 2018. Milano: FrancoAngeli.

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5 New Speakers of Venetan: The Case of Igbo-Nigerians in Padua Francesco Goglia

1

Introduction

In the last decade, the label of new speaker has been used, in the context of minority languages or dialects, to refer to ‘individuals with little or no home or community exposure to a minority language but who instead acquire it through immersion or bilingual educational programs, revitalization projects or as adult language learners’ (O’Rourke et al. 2015: 1). Ó Murchadha et al. (2017: 4) provide a broader definition of new speakers as ‘social actors’ who use and claim ownership of a language that is not, for whatever reason, typically perceived as belonging to them, or to ‘people like them’. The use of the label new speaker builds on critiques of the concepts of native speaker and native proficiency and F. Goglia (B) Department of Modern Languages and Cultures, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 F. Goglia and M. Wolny (eds.), Italo-Romance Dialects in the Linguistic Repertoires of Immigrants in Italy, Palgrave Studies in Minority Languages and Communities, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-99368-9_5

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allows for the inclusion of new linguistic profiles in the realm of speakers of a language (O’Rourke et al. 2015). Research on new speakers has focused on members of particular minority groups who have a majority language as their first language and decide to acquire the minority language as a second language, for example, new speakers of Galician , Sami and Basque (Jonsson and Rosenfors 2017; O’Rourke and Ramallo 2017; Augustyniak 2021). In these contexts, the profile of new speakers is mainly a result of official processes of revitalization and normalisation. There is a dearth of studies on immigrants as new speakers of minority languages or dialects although ‘becoming a new speaker is often a by-product of immigration’ (Ó Murchadha et al. 2017: 2). The few studies on immigrants as new speakers have identified some common themes. Those who see themselves as the authentic speakers of the language address immigrants using the majority language (Bermingham 2018; Guerini 2018; Cornips 2020; Augustyniak 2021) not recognising them as potential speakers of minority languages. Immigrants themselves often do not feel authentic speakers of the minority languages, as in the case of Cape Verdeans in Galicia (Bermingham 2018). Immigrants often prefer to learn the majority language as it is the language of wider communication (Pujolar 2010; Bermingham 2018; Guerini 2018). In contemporary multilingual contexts, immigrants may become new speakers of a minority language ‘claiming the language but not necessarily the ethnicity or identity associated with it’ (Bermingham and Higham 2018: 404). In this chapter, I will focus on first-generation Igbo-Nigerian immigrants as new speakers of Venetan, a non-officially recognised ItaloRomance dialect (see introductory chapter) known to be widely spoken both in private and public domains, through interactions among members of the local community. I will explore how immigrants in the Veneto region have to face the double challenge of learning Italian and Venetan.

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2

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Igbo-Nigerians in Padua

The first Nigerians arrived in Italy in the 1970s as students. At that time the Nigerian government itself offered grants to students who wished to study in Europe. The economic crisis that followed the coup d’état in 1983 meant that students who were abroad were no longer supported by their government. Many of them had to abandon their studies, but instead of returning to Nigeria, decided to stay in Italy and look for work in the regions where jobs were available. Those who had a permit to stay were able to start working in the Veneto factories which were in need of labour, while others waited to be regularised. Other Nigerians joined this initial group as economic migrants or through family reunions in the following years. Since 2013, the community has doubled, with 103,985 Nigerians legally residing in Italy on 1 January 2018 (La comunità nigeriana in Italia 2018: 61). The most recent migration flows of arrivals also include refugees. A total of 57.9% of Nigerian immigrants reside in northern Italy, particularly in three regions: Lombardia , Veneto and EmiliaRomagna (La comunità nigeriana in Italia 2018). The city of Padua in the Veneto region, where this research has been conducted, has one of the oldest and largest Nigerian communities in the country, representing the 4th largest immigrant community in the city, as shown in Table 1. Information on the ethnicity and languages spoken by immigrants is not provided neither by Italian national statistics nor Padua city council statistics. The case of Nigerians is particularly complex, as they are not a homogenous group. Individuals in this immigrant group may belong Table 1 The largest immigrant communities by country of origin in the city of Padua Romania Moldova China Nigeria Philippines Morocco Albania Source Padovanet (2018)

9333 4010 2872 2622 1876 1815 1418

Bangladesh Sri Lanka Ukraine Tunisia Pakistan India Cameroon

1338 897 802 486 484 448 441

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to different ethnic, religious and linguistic subgroups. In Padua , Nigerians mainly belong to the Yoruba , Edo and Igbo ethnic groups (Goglia 2015). Igbo is the official language in the south east of Nigeria. In addition to Igbo , English and Nigerian Pidgin English are also used as lingua francas. Early education in public schools is in local languages, while secondary and university education are in English . Nigerians who have received formal education after primary school are bilingual in English and another indigenous language, or even multilingual if they speak Nigerian Pidgin English and/or other indigenous languages (depending on the level of contact with other ethnic groups and family background). This situation, however, limits Nigerians’ competence in their native language. The Igbo, for example, are relatively fluent in spoken Igbo, but lack good written competence. Those without formal education tend to be monolingual in Igbo or bilingual in Igbo and Nigerian Pidgin English . Igbo is the language spoken in the family and in villages, and a marker of Igbo identity , while English is the language for interethnic communication, and Nigerian Pidgin English is used in informal interactions or with uneducated people (Goglia 2015, 2018). In Padua, Igbo-Nigerians speak Nigerian English and Nigerian Pidgin English as lingua francas for interethnic communication with other Nigerians and other Englishspeaking African immigrants. While some members of the community have now settled in Veneto and obtained Italian citizenship, others either have left or are considering leaving Italy to migrate onward to the UK (Goglia 2021).

3

Language Use in the Veneto Region

The number of monolingual dialect speakers in Italy is decreasing, but approximately half of the population speaks both Italian and an ItaloRomance dialect, with a passive understanding of the dialect being more widespread (Berruto 2018). Italian and dialects still coexist with Italian as the high language also entering informal domains such as the family domain, in which the dialects were traditionally used (Berruto 2018). As explained in the introduction to this volume, the vitality of dialects varies greatly by region, with greater dialect use either in monolingual mode or

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mixed with Italian in communication within the family and with friends in the north-eastern and southern regions. In these regions, dialects are widely used outside the family domain in communication with friends and even with outsiders (Istat 2014). The linguistic repertoire of the Veneto region typically includes standard Italian, a regional variety of Italian and Venetan. The term Venetan covers a rather wide range of local varieties that converge to their respective provincial capital city and have a very high degree of mutual comprehensibility. In the North-East, dialect has a very high degree of vitality: 37.9% of speakers use only or mainly Italian, 20.7% use only or mainly dialect and 30.8% use both Italian and dialect (Berruto 2018). Monolingual speakers are more likely among the elderly, while the youngest generations are native speakers of Italian as a result of the language shift towards Italian as in other regions so they are more likely to use the dialect together with Italian. In recent years, there has been a rediscovery of Italo-Romance dialects all around Italy and a change in attitudes towards their use. Venetan is also a strong marker of regional identity (Santipolo and Tucciarone 2004; Perrino 2019). In the last 30 years, political parties such as Liga Veneta (part of the right wing Northern League party) have been pro-active in language and culture revitalization initiatives by linking them to ethno-nationalist and anti-immigrant agendas (Perrino 2019). It is worth noting that a quarter of people declare to use the dialect or Italian mixed with dialect even with outsiders (Berruto 2018). This means that immigrants in the Veneto region are more likely to encounter dialect in interactions with local Italians than in other regions. Learning the dialect for immigrants is not just a question of choice as in other contexts, leading to a better integration with the local community, but rather a necessity for effective communication.

4

Methodology

The data discussed in this chapter are from two corpora of text from semi-structured interviews collected in 2004 and 2016 among IgboNigerians living in the city of Padua and the surrounding areas. The

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participants were all first-generation immigrants belonging to the first wave of Nigerian migration to Italy who arrived in Italy in the 1990s either with student visas or as economic migrants. Participants were approached using the friend of a friend approach. The interviews focused on their migration trajectory, life in Italy, their linguistic repertoire in Nigeria and Italy, the perceived use of Italian and Venetan. The interviews were conducted in Italian and audio-recorded. I met participants either in Nigerian shops around Padua railway station, in cafes or at the participants’ house. Although semi-structured, the interviews were intended to develop into more spontaneous informal conversations on any preferred topic related to the participants’ experience of life in Veneto. In the approach in this study, the interview is a type of communicative interaction whose content is locally constructed by both the interviewer and the interviewee (Pavlenko 2007; De Fina and Perrino 2011; De Fina 2011). In this approach, the presence of the interviewer is regarded not as a hindrance to obtaining natural data but rather as participating, together with the interviewee, in co-constructing the content of the communicative interaction. The object of this study was indeed the way participants presented their use of languages and reflected on it while interacting with the interviewer. The study participants were generally keen on taking part in the study. My role as an Italian interviewer in this study actually triggered reflections and story telling that otherwise would have remained undetected (De Fina 2011). In the following sections, I will present some extracts particularly illustrative of the participants’ attitudes towards Italian and Venetan, and their reported knowledge and use of Venetan as emerging new speakers.

5

Italian as Preferred Language

All participants are aware of the sociolinguistic relationship between Venetan and Italian and refer to Venetan as a local and lower status language. They also make a comparison between the Italian and the Nigerian linguistic repertoires in which Venetan and Igbo coexist with the more prestigious Italian and English (Goglia 2018). Interestingly, when talking about the Igbo language, they label it as dialetto. They

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all show a preference to learn Italian as a language of wider communication and as a more useful investment for their future in Italy. Other studies on immigrant communities in Italian cities found that immigrants tend to learn Italian because it is perceived as more useful than local dialects (Amoruso and Scarpello 2010 on the Ivorians in Palermo; Guerini, this volume, on the Ghanaians in Bergamo; Smith, this volume, on the Senegalese in Rome). Participants highlighted the difficulties in understanding and learning Venetan. This is the case of Emenike, who was 34 and had lived in Italy for 5 years at the time of the interview, used to live in a small town in the north of Padua and worked in a factory. He had little knowledge of Italian and declared that it is a very difficult language. In the following example, Emenike identifies local Italians (loro ‘they’) as speakers of Venetan and stresses that he finds it difficult to understand them because they speak in a different way that he describes as loro parli con naso ‘they speak with their nose’. Interestingly, Emenike sees Venetan as an obstacle that may prevent his acquisition of italiano officiale ‘standard Italian’, more useful for wider communication through Italian regions. (1)

Int: È difficile capire il dialetto? Emenike: È difficile perché loro parli con naso, non parli cosa senti qualcuno. Int: Vorresti impararlo meglio? Emenike: Ehm…secondo me sono più meglio parla italiano officiale perché dialetto si tu esci in tua regione andare in altra regione sono problemi. Int: Is it difficult to learn the dialect? Emenike: It is difficult because they speak with their nose, they do speak as you hear someone. Int: Would like to learn it better? Emenike: Ehm…I think it is better to speak official Italian because the dialect if you go out of your region you go to another region you have problems.

Example (2) is from the interview with Nwabueze, who was working in a factory at the time of the interview. Although he had been living in Italy

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for 5 years, his proficiency in Italian was not very high. Nwabueze is a very outgoing person and, unlike other participants, he has many Italian friends, but all his Italian friends can speak English (sono fortunato che i miei amici parla inglese ‘I am lucky that my friends speak English’), so he does not have the chance to practice Italian. Nwabueze clearly prefers to speak either in English or in Italian, but he admits a receptive knowledge of the dialect (dipende cosa ha detto lui, anche dove ‘it depends on what he said, also where’). He also comments on the difficulty of understanding Venetan, which is a completely different language for him (quella una cosa diversa per me, non è facile ‘that is a different thing for me, it is not easy’). (2)

Int: Nwabueze:

Int: Nwabueze: Int: Nwabueze:

Int: Nwabueze:

Int: Nwabueze: Int: Nwabueze:

Hai anche amici italiani mi hai detto, con loro parli italiano o dialetto? Ehm, in italiani se è possibile, qualche volta in italiani altre in inglese, perché sono fortunato che i miei amici parla inglese o capisce inglese. Se qualcuno ti parla in dialetto tu capisci? Dipende cosa ha detto lui, anche dove. Secondo te è positivo o negativo parlare in dialetto? È bene per loro che capisce, ma male per me perché mai sentito una cosa…quella una cosa diversa per me, non è facile. You told me you also have Italian friends. With them do you speak Italian or dialect? Ehm, in Italian if it is possible, sometimes in Italian others in English, because I am lucky that my friends speak English or understand English If someone speaks in dialect, do you understand? It depends on what he said, also where Do you think it is positive or negative to speak in dialect? It is good for those who understand, but bad for me because I have never heard a thing…that a different thing for me, it is not easy.

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Igbo-Nigerians, as the majority of immigrants in Italy, have no previous knowledge of Italian before they arrive in the country, let alone of Italo-Romance dialects. Once in Italy they need to face the challenge of learning the language from scratch in most cases through interactions with Italians, sometimes with a few hours of language classes. As explained in the introduction to this volume, in many Italian regions, the use of dialect has decreased, but in the Veneto region, the use of Venetan has a high degree of vitality and local Italians may even speak it to outsiders. In the next section, I will discuss communicative domains in which local Italians speak in Venetan to immigrants and make it a necessity for them to acquire some knowledge of the dialect.

6

Use of Venetan in Interactions with Local Italians

All participants revealed that some local Italians they encounter in their everyday life, friends and particularly the elderly, often speak to them in Venetan. In contrast to that in other Italian regions, the use of Venetan in the Veneto region remains significant, and the dialect mixed with Italian is often the unmarked code in informal and formal contexts. Example 3 is from the interview with Adaku, who joined her husband in Italy 9 years prior to the interview. They lived with their three children in a small town in the surroundings of Padua, where they are well integrated. She worked occasionally as a cleaner. In the extract, Adaku claims that she has more Italian friends than paesani ‘compatriots’ and that they mostly speak Venetan. She claims a receptive knowledge of Venetan (capisco, però non so parlare ‘I understand, but I cannot speak’). Adaku’s comments on the difficulty of understanding Venetan mirror those by Emenike and Nwabueze above. She attributes this difficulty to people speaking fast (quelli che parlano, sai, che parlano in fretta ‘those who speak, you know, who speak fast’). (3)

Int: Hai amici italiani? Nigeriani? Adaku: Italiani di più. Int: Stai con tuoi connazionali?

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Adaku: Sì, ho tanti paesani, però non è che siamo amici, io ho più amici italiani che paesani. Int: Gli amici italiani ti parlano in italiano o in dialetto? Adaku: Ci sono quelli che parli dialetto, ci sono quelli che parlano italiano, però i più parlano dialetto. Int: Tu capisci il dialetto? Adaku: Sì, capisco, però non so parlare, però dipende perché ci sono quelli che parlano, sai, che parlano in fretta, però se lo fa..parlano piano piano capisco tutto Int: Do you have Italian friends? Nigerian? Adaku: More Italian Int: Do you meet you friends from your country? Adaku: Yes, I have many friends from my country, but it’s not that we are friends, I have more Italian friends than from my country Int: Your Italian friends do they speak with you in Italian or dialect? Adaku: There are those who speak dialect, there are those who speak Italian, but the majority speak dialect. Int: Do you understand the dialect? Adaku: Yes, I understand, but I cannot speak, but it depends, because there are those who speak, you know, who speak fast, but if they do…speak slow slow I understand everything Obiageli, an Igbo woman who at the time of the interview was 28 years old and had joined her husband in Italy 8 year prior to the interview, the two of them lived in a small town north Padua with their three children. Obiageli, like Adaku in the previous example, also claims a receptive knowledge of the dialect in interactions with local Italians who speak to her in dialect. (4)

Int: Gli amici italiani ti parlano in italiano o dialetto?] Obiageli: Capisco dialetto, non ne parla, però a volte può scappare, ma più italiano che dialetto, ho degli amici che mi parlano solo in dialetto

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Int:

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Italian friends do they speak in Italian or dialect to you? I understand dialect, I do not speak it, but sometimes it can happen, but more Italian than dialect, I have some friends who speak to me only in dialect

An interaction in which one speaker uses Italian and the other Venetan is not unusual in the Veneto. It may take place between local Italians who have different levels of knowledge of Venetan, for example in intergenerational interactions. The mutual intelligibility of Italian and Venetan allows the two speakers to keep using their preferred code. However, in interactions with first-generation immigrants who may have an incomplete knowledge of Italian and dialect, the use of Venetan cannot count on mutual intelligibility, nor local speakers could assume that immigrants have learned the local code. Indeed, Venetan is the we-code of the local community (Gumperz 1982), so Italian would be the more appropriate language for effective communication. In fact, other studies have found that, in situations of bilingualism including minority languages or dialects, local speakers tend to speak in the majority language with immigrants and do not recognise them as authentic speakers of the minority languages or dialects. This is the case for example of Limburgish. Cornips (2020) reports interactions between customers and a market vendor who is Dutch with a different ethnic background in which they prefer to use Standard Dutch even if the vendor is a fluent speaker of Limburgish. Bermingham (2018), who studied that Cape Verdean immigrants in Galicia also found that local people tend to speak in Spanish with people perceived as outsiders. In the Italian context, Guerini (2018) also reports that local Italians in the city of Bergamo do not speak Bergamasco with immigrants, using the dialect in in-group communication only. The examples discussed so far reveal a different language behaviour in the Veneto region, the presence of Venetan even in interactions with immigrants. This is even more so in interactions with the elderly who are most likely to speak mainly in Venetan particularly in small towns and villages, in rural areas. These are often native speakers of Venetan and speak Italian as a second language acquired through primary education.

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Their preferred code would be Venetan and even the young generations need to accommodate to the use of dialect in intergenerational interactions. When communicating with the elderly or working in contexts such as care homes, cleaners or carers, immigrants will come across these traditional speakers of Venetan and have to be able to understand and speak in dialect. The following exemplifies this communicative situation. Chikanma, a 30-year old Igbo man, who at the time of the interview, lived in Padua and worked in a factory just outside the city, claims that he speaks Italian with his friends, but elderly people speak Venetan to him and even teach it to him (anche mi insegna ‘also teach me’). He recalls a conversation with an elderly person that he quotes in dialect showing his knowledge of the dialect, providing a translation of the quoted interaction in Italian (hai capito, gli dico che sì ho capito) to maintain Italian as the language of the interview interaction. (5)

Int: Torniamo agli amici italiani, con loro cosa parli? Chikanma: Italiano, mai dialetto, però c’è anche l’anziani che mi parla dialetto e anche mi insegna a parlare dialetto come esempio quando mi pare mi chiede gheto capio li rispondo che go capio. Hai capito, gli dico che sì ho capito Int: Let’s go back to your Italian friends, with them what do you speak? Chikanma: Italian, never dialect, but there are also the elderly who speak dialect to me and even teach me to speak dialect as, for example, when I think they ask me have you understood I answer them that I have understood. Have you understood, I tell them that yes I have understood.

Excerpt 6 provides another example of interaction with the elderly in which immigrants are likely to encounter Venetan and the interaction may develop with both codes. Ureoma, who was 34 years old at the time

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of the interview, worked as occasional cleaner for old Italian ladies1 in a small town north Padua. Ureoma claims that some Italian ladies speak to her in dialect and she has a receptive knowledge of the dialect as she has worked for them for many years. She can always speak in Italian as loro capisce ‘they understand’. (6)

Int: Che lavoro fai? Ureoma: Faccio lavoro di pulizie a casa di signore. Int: Con le signore per cui lavori parli in italiano o dialetto? Ureoma: C’è signora parla solo dialetto, ma altre parla italiano. Int: E tu capisci quando ti parlano in dialetto? Ureama: Cerco capire, un po’, perché io adesso lavorato tanti anni con quella signora, anche parlo poco, ma se parlo italiano loro capisce, mezzo e mezzo. Int: What is your job? Ureoma: I work as a cleaner at ladies’ houses. Int: With the ladies you work for, do you speak Italian or dialect? Ureoma: Some ladies only speak dialect, but others speak Italian Int: And do you understand when they speak in dialect? Ureoma: I try to understand, a bit, because I have worked many years with that lady, I also speak, a bit, but if I speak Italian they understand, half half.

The examples presented so far have shown that Venetan is used in interactions with local Italian, particularly with the elderly. In the next section, I will present some examples that reveal the presence of Venetan in interactions in the work domain.

1

It is not clear from the extract, but Ureoma and other Igbos use the word signora/e to refer to the old ladies who they work for.

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Use of Venetan in the Work Domain

Local Italians may also speak Venetan in the work domains, including immigrants’ most common professions in the region, such as factory workers, elder care workers, builders, cleaners, market vendors and nurses. In the following example, Chikanma, quotes an instance of communication in his previous job in a factory where his boss used to speak dialetto con italiano ‘dialect with Italian’. In the example, Chikanma is describing a typical situation in which local speakers mix Venetan with Italian, in this case he quotes an example of Venetan phrases uttered by his boss by first providing the meaning in Italian (tira via ‘take out’) and then quoting the boss’ words in dialect, ciapa, cava via, ciapa (‘take, take out, take’). (7)

Int: Conosci altre parole in dialetto? Chikanma: Sì, conosce del parole del dialetto come...quando lavoravo una ditta vicino di l’altra parte zona Arcella, c’è mio padrone che mi parla sempre dialetto con italiano. Come quando lui vuoi dire tira via, mi dici ciapa, cava via, ciapa. Int: Do you know other words in dialect? Chikanma: Yes, I know some words in dialect such as…when I used to work in a factory near the other side of the Arcella area, there is my boss that always spoke to me in dialect with Italian. Like when he wanted to say take out, he said take, take out, take.

The use of dialect or Italian mixed with dialect in the factories increases in small/medium factories that are often family-run in the Veneto region. Less qualified jobs also involve workmates who are less educated in Italian and dialect speakers. Santipolo and Tucciarone (2004) stress that interactions between immigrants and locals in a factory may not require

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the acquisition of a high level of dialect, but mainly a receptive knowledge for effective communication. In such domains, the language needed by immigrants would not be Standard Italian but either Venetan or a mixture of Italian and Venetan. The use of Venetan is not a sign of delay in acquiring Standard Italian or an inability to distinguish between Italian and Venetan but a clear sign that an individual has acquired an unmarked multilingual mode already present in some communicative domains of the region. In her study on the Romanians in Venice province, Lombardo (2021) also found that her participants share some knowledge of Venetan. Among the reasons her participants put forward to support the usefulness of knowing Venetan, the main three were better integration, better communication with locals and finding a job (2021: 50). For Romanians, the double challenge of acquiring Italian and Venetan, both Romance languages, is less daunting than for Igbo-Nigerians. The latter often find hard even learning Italian and complain that their knowledge of English, an international and prestigious language, cannot function as linguistic capital in Italy, where Italian is the only official language and not many Italians speak English (Goglia 2015; Goglia, 2021). Example 8 is from Nwabueze introduced above (see example 2). When asked whether he knows any dialect words, he quotes words in dialect (magna…magnare, vieni magnare ‘eat eat…eating, come to eat’) heard in the restaurant where he used to work. Both examples 6 and 7 reveal that the workplace is the main domain in which Venetan is used. In the second part of the extract, Nwabueze reports some Venetan words uttered by a friend of his (do ‘two’ and sabo ‘Saturday’). In example 2, Nwabueze claimed that he prefers to speak English and Italian with his Italian friends and finds it difficult to understand the dialect. In this example, he shows some knowledge of Venetan and the form spetta ‘wait’ even reveals the presence of dialect forms in his Italian. Although the extract shows exposure to the dialect and some knowledge of it, when asked whether he wants to learn Venetan better, he answers negatively, reiterating that he prefers to learn Standard Italian using the calque from English proprio lingua italiana ‘proper Italian language’.

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(8)

Int: Conosci delle parole in dialetto veneto? B: Quando lavorava in ristorante, loro pronunce mangiare magna…magnare, vieni a magna. Int: Conosci altre parole in dialetto? B: Spetta…ho sentito una volta che mio amico voleva dire una cosa, due qualcosa, ma lui detto do, anche sabato lui pronunce sabo. Int: Tu vorresti imparare meglio il dialetto? B: No io non voglio imparare il dialetto, meglio proprio lingua italiana. Int: Do you know any words in Veneto dialect? B: When I was working in a restaurant, they pronounced to eat eat…eating, come to eat. Int: Do you know other words in dialect? B: Wait…once I heard that a friend of mine wanted to say one thing, two something, but he said two, also Saturday he pronounced Saturday Int: Would you like to learn the dialect? B: No, I do not want to learn the dialect, better proper Italian language

Other studies have shown immigrants’ instrumental use of dialects in Italian areas where dialects have high vitality or are useful in particular work activities (cf. Mosca 2006; Amoruso and Scarpello 2010; Villa 2014). Pugliese and Villa (2012: 194) reported on a Bengali shop owner in Bologna who wanted to learn the Bolognese dialect as a business strategy to interact more effectively with his elderly customers. Mosca (2006: 231) reported a similar attitude held by a Senegalese seller in the city of Vercelli, north-west of Italy. These, however, are cases of new speakers who choose to learn the dialect for instrumental purposes. IgboNigerians do not choose to become new speakers of Venetan, but they are forced by local Italian speakers to acquire some knowledge of it to achieve effective communication in the work domain. Their case is similar to the case of Tunisian immigrants in Palermo historical city centre reported by Amoruso and Scarpello (2010). The researchers found that their participants had a better knowledge of the local dialect that functions as the

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unmarked code in the neighbourhood and in the work domain of market selling.

8

Conclusion

The research presented in this chapter has shown that Igbo-Nigerians are aware of the sociolinguistic situation of the Veneto region. They prioritise the acquisition of Italian, the language of wider communication, and do not actively choose to become new speakers of Venetan, wecode of local Italians. However, differently from other settings in which a majority and minority language coexist, participants report the use of Venetan in interactions with local Italians. Local Italians trigger the use of dialect and force participants to acquire some knowledge of the dialect and accept them as new speakers of the dialect. I have discussed two main communicative domains in which Venetan is used: interactions with local Italians and the use of the dialect at work. In the former domain, Igbo-Nigerians report of friends who speak in dialect with them and claim to have a receptive knowledge of the dialect. In some cases, the extracts also reveal an active use of the dialect. The use of dialect is higher in interactions with the elderly who are most likely to speak mainly in Venetan particularly in small towns and villages, in rural areas. Their preferred code is Venetan and Igbo-Nigerians seem to accommodate their use of dialect in the same way young local Italians do in intergenerational interactions. In the work domain (mainly factory work, cleaning jobs, care for the elderly), participants have reported examples in which their bosses and co-workers speak in Venetan or a mixture of Venetan and Italian to them. The use of Venetan at work makes it a necessity for immigrants to acquire some knowledge of the dialect and makes it part of their professional assets. The case of Venetan is different from the previous studied contexts, as Venetan speakers address and include immigrants in their interactions in dialect even imposing it as the default language choice in some domains. Even though immigrants, as in other contexts of majorityminority languages, show a preference for Italian which is perceived to

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have the most communicative value, Venetan speakers make it necessary for them to have some knowledge of the dialect. The notion of authenticity that prevents immigrants from being accepted as new speakers of the minority language or dialect in other contexts (Bermingham 2018; Guerini 2018; Cornips 2020), does not apply to the case of Venetan. The fact that Venetan is not officially standardised and a standard is not taught through formal education, means that the dialect is acquired through spoken interaction with Venetan speakers and its use holds the instrumental value of effective communication with locals in specific domains such as the factory work place or interactions with elderly people. Speaking in Venetan to immigrants endorse immigrant learners as potential new speakers of the language even without any essentialist link to group identity so in other words still othering them, but without preventing access to the language. For Igbo-Nigerians, speaking and understanding Venetan is not a choice linked to positive attitudes towards the dialect and the potential for integration in the local community, but professional assets in a similar way to the context of bilingualism which includes officially recognised minority languages (Augustyniak 2021).

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In Coesistenze linguistiche nell’Italia pre-e postunitaria, ed. T. Telmon, G. Raimondi, and L. Revelli, 139–160. Roma: Bulzoni. Pujolar, J. 2010. Immigration and language education in Catalonia: Between national and social agendas. Linguistics and Education 21 (3): 229–243. Santipolo, M., and S. Tucciarone. 2004. Semi-dialettofonia e semi-italofonia degli immigrati in Veneto: una prima descrizione sociopragmatica tra emozioni e atteggiamenti. In Atti del Convengno Nazionale “Il Parlato Italiano” Napoli 13–15 February 2003, ed. F. Albano Leoni, F. Cutugno, M. Pettorino, and R. Savy. Napoli: M. D’Auria Editore [on cd-rom: H03]. Villa, V. 2014. Dinamiche di contatto linguistico nelle narrazioni di immigrati: dialetti e varietà regionali. In Varietà dei contesti di apprendimento, ed. A. De Meo et al., 43–58. Milano: Officinaventuno.

6 Ghanaian Immigrants and the Twofold Potential of Italo-Romance Dialects Federica Guerini

1

Introduction

Immigration from Ghana to Italy began at the end of the 1970s, when the economies of Nigeria and other bordering ECOWAS countries1 with many Ghanaian labour migrants went into decline. It is an interesting example of a migration flow from a country with hardly any previous historical, linguistic, or cultural ties to the destination state. As illustrated in Table 1, the arrivals to Italy have increased steadily in the last 1 ECOWAS is the acronym for Economic Community of West African States, a free trade regional alliance established in 1974, that includes Benin, Burkina Faso, Cabo Verde, Ivory Coast, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Nigeria, Niger, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Togo (cf. http://www.ecowas.int. Accessed 20 Sept. 2020).

F. Guerini (B) University of Bergamo, Bergamo, Italy e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 F. Goglia and M. Wolny (eds.), Italo-Romance Dialects in the Linguistic Repertoires of Immigrants in Italy, Palgrave Studies in Minority Languages and Communities, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-99368-9_6

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Table 1 2010 2012 2014 2016 2018 2019

F. Guerini

Ghanaian immigrants holding a staying permit (2010–2019) Male

Female

Total

% Of variation

25,092 25,155 30,243 30,497 32,782 34,310

19,261 19,209 20,171 17,641 17,158 17,072

44,353 44,364 50,414 48,138 49,940 51,382

– +0,02 +12 −4,7 +3,6 +2,8

Source ISTAT, Italian National Statistical Institute (www.dati.istat.it)

decade. Becoming a “been to”, i.e. an immigrant, “someone who has been abroad” (Dako 2003: 37), has been an option chosen by a growing number of both educated and uneducated Ghanaian citizens. In 2019, the Ghanaians recorded in Italy amounted to roughly 51,000 individuals; however, given the large number of undocumented immigrants, the real figure is thought to be higher. The slight decrease attested in 2016 is probably due to the harsh economic crisis affecting the Italian labour market, which may have discouraged spontaneous chain migration. At present, Ghanaian immigrants account for less than 1% of the entire foreign population in Italy (against, for instance, the 23% of Rumanian citizens or the 8% of Albanians ). Ghanaians are the thirdlargest Sub-Saharan nationality in Italy, following Nigerians (117,358) and Senegalese (110,242). Most newcomers are young adults in their twenties and thirties who were born in Ghana and moved to Italy in order to improve their standard of living. The present chapter is meant as a follow up study of the communicative strategies within the Ghanaian immigrant community in Bergamo, which I have had the opportunity to investigate and describe in the last two decades (cf. Guerini 2006, 2008, 2017, 2018). It opens with a description of the sociolinguistic setting: some of the factors that seem to affect the perception of the linguistic resources included in Ghanaian immigrants’ “overloaded” repertoire2 will be briefly discussed (Sect. 2). A methodology section will focus on the data elicitation techniques and 2

The term overloaded (Italian sovraccarico) is used by Berruto (2018: 511) to describe the complex linguistic repertoires which include more than two varieties in both the high and the low levels.

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the linguistic materials used for the analysis (Sect. 3). The discussion of excerpts from a sample of face-to-face interactions and semi-structured interviews, combined with the ethnographic data collected during the author’s long-term participant observation in the Bergamo community, will show how the structure of the community verbal repertoire and the perceived practical and social value of the languages included in it influence ideologies and shape language use patterns (Sects. 4 and 5). In the closing section (Sect. 6), it will be argued that the interplay of three main factors—i.e. lack of input, negative attitudes and lack of motivation—feeds into a self-reinforcing dynamic, which makes the incorporation of the local Italo-Romance dialect into the linguistic repertoire of first-generation Ghanaian immigrants unlikely. An alternative sociolinguistic scenario could arise from the establishment of a second (and a third) generation, whose members manage to bypass the restrictions imposed by the local community’s current appropriateness norms and gain acceptance as legitimate, entitled speakers of the dialect.

2

Sociolinguistic Background

2.1

Language Use Patterns in the Home Country

Ghana, one of the wealthiest countries in West Africa, is highly multilingual and linguistically complex. According to Ethnologue’s estimates,3 about eighty languages are spoken by a population of almost thirty million people. As in other former British colonies, English is the most prestigious and the only official language of the country. Competence in English is highly regarded as a key to social mobility. English is consistently employed in television and radio broadcasts, in daily newspapers and magazines, in almost all the administrative and legal documents published within the country, as well as in all official transactions. Its presence in the local linguistic landscape is also quite pervasive, especially in the urban context. This state of affairs fosters positive attitudes 3

See https://www.ethnologue.com/country/GH (Accessed 20 Sept. 2020).

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towards English, which tends to be viewed as a Ghanaian language in its own right (and hence, as a carrier of a specific group identity). Indeed, “among both literate and non-literate Ghanaians, English is perceived as one of the languages of the country” (Anyidoho and Dakubu 2008: 151). At the same time, as Anyidoho and Dakubu readily acknowledge, “for most people Ghanaian identity entails a recognized ethnic identity, so that no matter what the status and role of English, the ability to speak a Ghanaian language is also a necessary feature of the national identity” (2008: 151). All the indigenous languages spoken within Ghanaian borders belong to the Niger-Congo family (Dakubu 1988); the languages spoken south of the confluence of the White and Black Volta rivers pertain to the Kwa branch, whereas most of the languages spoken in the country’s northern regions are classified as Gur. The native language of about 43% of the Ghanaian population is Akan (Niger-Congo, Kwa), which is also spoken as a second language or as a lingua franca by at least 40% of the remaining Ghanaian population (see Anyidoho and Dakubu 2008: 142; Dakubu 2009: 19). Akan enjoys considerable prestige and is currently employed in a variety of domains: in religious ceremonies, in politics, in television and radio programs, within the judicial system and even in formal education. The lower level of the repertoire is occupied by the indigenous languages and vernaculars representing the mother tongue of roughly 60% of the Ghanaian population, as well as by the pidginised varieties of English (Huber 1999) and Hausa (e.g. Anyidoho and Dakubu 2008: 145) employed as lingua francas by uneducated labourers and immigrants throughout the country. Most of these languages have been learned in a spontaneous way, i.e. outside the educational system, in the multilingual environment which is typical of West African urban areas. The speakers of these “minority” languages—whose status, functional allocation and degree of elaboration resemble those of most Italo-Romance dialects (cf. Chapter 1)—feel threatened by the preferential treatment (in terms of institutional support) enjoyed by a nationwide

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vehicular language like Akan. Exasperated language loyalty tends to arise from the resentment against the dominant ethnic group of the Akans, whose language has been accorded widespread prominence and prestige ever since the colonial period. In the highly multilingual context that we have just described, language choice depends on a variety of factors, including individual preference, the availability of a shared means of communication, sociolinguistic norms of appropriateness, and the topic under discussion. Code-switching and language-mixing4 are also very common and represent the unmarked communicative patterns, especially in urban areas (e.g. Guerini 2013).

2.2

Language Use Patterns in the Immigrant Setting

Upon settling in Italy, the immigrants’ complex linguistic repertoire is reshaped by the inclusion of the language(s) of the host country, i.e. Italian and the Italo-Romance variety spoken in the region where they live. This entails a further complexification of their individual repertoire—at least, as far as the first generation is concerned. It is common knowledge that, in order to function independently and productively in Italy, a minimum competency in Italian is essential. In the new immigration setting, however, multilingualism is pervasive but also “unidirectional” (Matras 2009: 58–9). Migrant workers are in a way “obliged” to develop a good competence in the national language, whereas the members of the host community can function perfectly well without any competence in the language(s) spoken by immigrants.

4

The theoretical framework adopted in this work is based on the conversation-analytic approach to the study of bilingual interaction elaborated by Peter Auer in 1984 and then revised through the publication of a number of subsequent works (Auer 1988, 1998 and ff.). Within this framework, code-switching is by definition a functional language-alternation strategy: the adjective “functional” implies that code-switching is always related to a change of communicative intention or a change of topic, addressee, footing, discursive function, and so forth. As a consequence, we may say that code-switching is always locally meaningful , whereas any switching to which no local meaning or function can be attributed is considered to be an instance of language mixing .

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Like other immigrant flows, the Ghanaian diaspora displays two peculiar features that may prove influential in reshaping their language use patterns. Firstly, the role that the Ghanaian (extended) family plays in sponsoring the journey abroad. Secondly, the reliance on a close-knit network of fellow-countrymen who facilitate the integration of the newly arrived into the host society. Both these features are at the core of what Arthur (2008: 34) describes as “the unwritten code” of Ghanaian diaspora: Family members maintain close contact with one another and share information about family matters, including life changing events such as births or deaths. In most cases, going abroad does not sever the bonds among family members. Those abroad have come to depend on relatives at home for support to confront and cope with the uncertainties of living far away from home. On their part, those remaining at home come to depend on relatives abroad for economic support. The migratory experience to the West is viewed as a family affair. For those who are living abroad, the expectation is that they will be generous in assisting the family at home to meet their obligations. More importantly, they are supposed to pave the way for other family members to follow. (Arthur 2008: 34)

For Ghanaians living in English-speaking countries the consequences of this state of affairs may be less influential, given the position that English occupies in present-day Ghana (see Sect. 2.1). In contrast, in non-English-speaking countries membership of an almost entirely mono-ethnic network may have a negative impact on the immigrants’ integration prospects, as a result of the limited opportunities (and the lack of motivation) to improve the individual’s linguistic and communicative competence. Written Italian, as far as I could ascertain, tends to be acquired only by the highly educated minority who assists the newcomers in the months immediately following their arrival in Italy. A similar situation is reported by Goglia (2018: 707), who investigated the linguistic repertoire of Nigerians in the Veneto region: Written Italian does not represent a priority for the first generation of migrant workers, who are more concerned with everyday effective oral

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communication. The acquisition of written Italian either takes place later by speakers with a more integrative attitude, or does not take place at all.5

As far as oral competence is concerned, all the Ghanaian immigrants whom I came in contact displayed a certain competency in Italian, in most cases, a learner’s variety of Italian. Their proficiency turned out to be influenced by a number of individual factors (e.g. the quality and quantity of input exposure, the possibility to attend language courses for foreigners or the length of stay in Italy), that I cannot discuss in detail here (but see Giacalone Ramat 2003; Chini 2004 and 2011; Chini and Andorno 2018). On considering the Ghanaian community in Bergamo in terms of occupation, it turns out that most of its members are employed in the textile sector as well as in the service industry (e.g. cleaners, domestic servants, public transport workers, etc.). This confirms that most immigrants are daily exposed to the national language; indeed, “the use of Italian for addressing strangers is the most unmarked choice in the Italo-Romance repertoire” (Berruto 2018: 506). As a result of this, immigrants are motivated to develop a functional knowledge of Italian in order to survive in the host community. As for the local Italo-Romance dialect, which takes the name of Bergamasco, I have argued elsewhere (e.g. Guerini 2006: 62; 2018: 110) that its presence within the Ghanaian community’s repertoire is controversial. Intensive, long-term participant observation coupled with in-depth interviews with community members led to the conclusion that Ghanaian immigrants in Bergamo cannot speak or understand Bergamasco for the simple reason that the local people refrain from speaking Bergamasco to them. This occurs in the case of all the individuals who do not belong to the indigenous Bergamo community and are therefore perceived as outsiders. As Berruto remarks, The main situational factor determining bilingual discourse seems to be the addressee. Italian/dialect switching and mixing may occur quite

5

On immigrants’ limited literacy skills and competences, see also Fusco (2017: 164ff.), whose study focused on the Friuli region.

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normally in every communicative situation, if the speaker believes that the addressee understands the dialect. (Berruto 1997: 396)

Immigrants, however, are not supposed to understand the local dialect. Hence, in addressing them, Italian is the unmarked choice, even for the elderly people whose proficiency in the local dialect is higher than their proficiency in the national language. In this sense, Bergamasco can be regarded as a we-code (cf. Gumperz 1982) of the host community, and immigrants’ proficiency is poor since locals use this variety only to communicate with other locals. In the next sections, this point will be discussed in more detail.

3

Methodology

In this contribution I draw on the qualitative analysis of data collected in the province of Bergamo, in Northern Italy. Some of the excerpts discussed in the next section are drawn from a sample of face-to-face interactions and semi-structured interviews (a total of 27 hours of recordings, collected between September 2001 and October 2002), involving a selected group of first-generation Ghanaian immigrants (cf. Guerini 2006). In 2007, I collected 10 additional hours of semi-structured interviews, focusing on the respondents’ attitudes towards the languages in the linguistic repertoire of the host community, i.e. Italian and Bergamasco (see Guerini 2008, 2018). The participants were first-generation immigrants recruited with the help of my previous Ghanaian acquaintances. The following discussion on the twofold potential of Bergamasco draws extensively on those data. Finally, in 2017, a map task was administered to a group of 10 immigrants who were born in Ghana, but were brought to Italy at an early age, received their education in Italy and were attending either a BA or a

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MA program at the local University of Bergamo.6 The task involved the participants working in pairs: each member of a pair was given a similar map, but with a different starting point and a different route marked on it. The participants had to rely on their linguistic resources in order to draw the route that his/her partner described on his/her map. To stimulate the discussion, a few “surprise elements” were introduced, that is to say, the two maps were not identical, but differed in a few details. Incidentally, apart from one participant, who opted for Italian in order to describe the map route,7 all the informants choose either Akan, or the alternation between Akan and English in order to describe the route to their partner. Hence, in this context, the selection of Italian is apparently not a preferred choice, regardless of the participants’ time spent in Italy. This also suggests that the role of Akan and English as languages of in-group communication remains fundamentally unaltered in the immigrant setting.

4

Language Contact Outcomes in the Speech of 1.5 Generation Ghanaians

In map task data, code-switching is quite frequent, but the alternation between Akan and English mainly takes the form of English lexical morphemes to which Akan inflexional affixes (and, more rarely, derivational morphemes) are added: English roots are employed as if they were Akan roots, without signalling their English origin. Long-term participant observation within the Ghanaian immigrant community in Bergamo enabled me to notice that most community members are well aware of this linguistic behaviour, which is generally stigmatized and attributed to the diminishing ability to speak “good Akan”, i.e. to

6

This sampling made a comparison between the first and the (incipient) second generation possible. 7 The choice was motivated by the fact that the participant considered her competence in Akan inadequate to carry out the task.

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communicate by means of rigorously monolingual utterances, without resorting to English insertions (see Guerini 2013). Some scholars would classify these forms as instances of integrated borrowings. English verb roots are pronounced as if they contained a vowel in the final position, presumably in the attempt to adapt their form to the prototypical structure of the Akan syllable, which may end either with a vowel or with a nasal consonant: (1)

/A/

(2)

/Z/

enti, EyE keseE Esi hO, na wOna PAINT i no fitaa wOn-a- PAINT i 3PL-PERF-paint ‘so, it is very big and [they have it] painted white’ me START e firi ha, nkO baabi Edan wei wO no? me- START e 1SG-start ‘I start from here till I get to where the house is?’

English verb forms may also undergo complete reduplication in order to express the plurality of the object (as if they were Akan roots): (3)

/Z/

(4)

/S/

(5)

/A/

wobEhu baabi a PARK i- PARK i CARS ‘You will see a place where several cars are parked’ mahunu sE yEde a SENDSEND ‘I have seen that someone have sent them (to me)’ OOmoregyina ha AND DIRECT i DIRECT i CARS no ‘they are standing there and direct (several) cars’

A few cases involve English noun stems to which Akan derivational affixes are attached: (6)

POLICE-ni

LONDON-foO

AMERICA-foO

police-ETH.SG ‘policeman’

London-ETH.PL ‘Londoners’

America-ETH.PL ‘Americans’

In map task data, Italian plays only a limited role. We do have a few unintegrated borrowings from Italian as a donor language. These loanwords fulfil a referential function, since they point to a particular referent

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on the map which could not be identified with the same precision if the lexemes belonged to a language other than Italian: (6)

/D/

(7)

/E/

wohunu sE tabaccheria bi wO hO, wobEfa tabaccheria ne mfinimfini ‘you see that there is a tobacconist’s over there, you take a tabacconist’s in the centre’ woaduru a baabi a yEtOntOn nneEma, ITALIANS frE no tabacchi , ‘you reach a place where they sell various things, Italians call it tabacchi’

Occasionally, an Italian lexeme or phrase may be resorted to in order to fill in a momentary lexical gap: (8)

/Cl/

(9)

/D/

/A/ /D/

obi Ede OkyerEkyerE kwan, eh, vigile, mhm, POLICE ni/ POLICE ni OwO wo nsa nifa ‘Someone who is showing the way, policeman, policeman/ a policeman is there on your right’ …akO ani mu kakraa, afa/ wobEhu PICTURE/ EH PICTURE/ chiesa bi wO hO ‘… go on a little, you will see a picture/ eh picture/ there is a certain church’ ah, mehunu! ‘ah, I see!’ fa chiesa ne soro, Ofa soro, parcheggio bi wO soro no … ‘pass the church, go on, there is a certain parking…’

Note that, in both cases, the choice of Italian is flagged, i.e. it is preceded by hesitations, pauses or a short side comment that justify an interpretation in terms of a lexical access problems. I also noticed a few integrated borrowings, i.e. Italian lexical morphemes to which Akan affixes are attached (the same pattern I described earlier for English verb roots): (10)

/D/

wo gira TO YOUR RIGHT, NOW RIGHT no, woakO STRAIGHT ‘now you turn to your right, now on the right, you go straight’ NOW

wo-gir-a 2SG-turn-2SG.IMPERATIVE

136

(11)

F. Guerini

/Cl/

wo insegnare niente! ‘you have nothing to teach, i.e. you have nothing to demonstrate, it does not matter if you make mistakes!’8

wo- insegn-are 2SG-teach-INF

(12)

/Z/

enti me nso bE- insegn-are no then 1SG also FUT-teach-INF 3SG.OBJ ‘then I will also show / teach him’

Last but not least, none of the map task participants reported any competency in the local Bergamasco dialect. While the absence of Bergamasco in map task data is hardly surprising—the use of the local dialect in the university campus and facilities is deemed highly inappropriate by Italian and immigrant students alike and would be laughed at as an awkward and unseemly language choice—the participants’ self-declared lack of competence in Bergamasco cannot pass unnoticed. The attitudes shared by this relatively small group of young immigrants underpin the prestige and status hierarchies within the receiving community’s repertoire: competence in Italian is highly valued and regarded as a prerequisite for social integration and success in the local educational system, whereas the practical and social utility of Bergamasco is lightly dismissed.

5

The Twofold Potential of Bergamasco

As I anticipated in Sect. 2.2, Bergamasco functions as a we-code in the local community. This determines the quantity and quality of the linguistic input to which the immigrants are exposed as well as the 8 A participant said this to her map task partner, who feared the assignment was too difficult for him. Note that in extracts (11) and (12) the Italian verb root insegnare has the double meaning of ‘teach’ and ‘show’ also found in the Akan verb root kyerE.

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receiving community’s ideologies towards the use of the dialect by the newcomers. Long-term participant observation in the community under investigation enabled me to notice that Ghanaian immigrants are aware of the difference between Bergamasco and Italian.9 The former is generally viewed as a crucial component of the linguistic identity of the host community, and tends to be associated with the values—productiveness, determination, resilience—traditionally attributed to its members (cf. Guerini 2006: 62). Yet, the fact that Bergamasco is reserved almost exclusively for in-group communication is responsible for the development of negative attitudes towards the local dialect. Some of the immigrants that I interviewed perceived Bergamasco as a sort of secret language deliberately used by the local people to exclude migrants and other outsiders, a stereotype that originates from and is reinforced by the lack of competence, but it is devoid of any foundation. The immigrant quoted in extract (13), for instance, misinterprets the behaviour of the local people, who switch from Bergamasco to Italian in his presence, and concludes that Bergamasco is employed to exclude immigrants from the ongoing conversation (“… if they don’t want you to understand, then they speak Bergamasco, so that you don’t understand ”): (13)

\Int\ \Ch\ \Int\ \Ch\

\Int\ \Ch\

and what do you think of the people who can speak only the Bergamasco dialect? only the dialect? yes, and not the Italian language well, I don’t know if they do that because, wherever I go here in Bergamo, if they [i.e., the local people] speak Bergamasco, they change it= =I see= =and they speak Italian, but if they don’t want you to understand, then they speak Bergamasco, so that you don’t understand!

9 Such awareness is favoured by the fact that the structural distance between Italian and Bergamasco is greater than that existing between Romance languages, such as Italian and Spanish or Italian and Portuguese (e.g. Berruto 2018: 496–497).

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In fact, the local population uses the language-alternation strategy that informant Ch describes in the presence of any foreigner, including tourists coming from other parts of Italy, representing a form of language accommodation. It is a conversational strategy aimed at including outsiders in the ongoing conversation, rather than preventing them from acquiring the local dialect. A similar communicative pattern is described by R in extract (14): Bergamasco is the unmarked choice among the elderly costumers of the coffee shop where he works, until they are approached by a foreigner, e.g. a reporter with a microphone and a camera, who wants to interview them. This triggers a switching to the national language, though they do not feel at ease with Italian and have to try hard to make themselves understood: (14)

\R\

Con amici, così, dopo due parole loro attaccan dentro bergamasco … Dopo, quando hanno bisogno di parlare in italiano si impegnano, non dico che parlano perfettamente … per esempio/ ti do esempio, se arriva qualcuno con microfono o con la telecamera, loro cercano di parlare italiano, perché lo sanno che l’intervista viene interpretato da tante persone, capito? Allora non parlano bergamasco. ‘With friends, it’s like that, a couple of words [in Italian] and they switch to Bergamasco … however, when they have to speak Italian, they try hard, though their Italian is far from perfect … for instance/ I give you one example, if someone comes in with a microphone and a camera, they strive to speak Italian, for they know the interview will be broadcast to a large public [lit. to many people], you see? In that case, they do not speak Bergamasco’.

The poor competence of the younger generations, resulting from the ongoing language shift process described in the first chapter of this volume, prevents the use of Bergamasco even when addressing local children and teenagers, whose involvement in a conversation regularly triggers a switching to Italian.10 In other words, the community’s current appropriateness norms restrict the use of Bergamasco to interactions involving competent, adult members of the local society. 10

A behaviour that I had the opportunity to witness on several occasions, and which is reported also by Moretti (1990) in the Ticino area (southern Switzerland) and by Giacalone Ramat (1995: 50).

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In extract (15) we have a similar example: the informant interviewed is convinced that local people “do not speak Bergamasco to make you understand, but only to insult you”, a stereotype fueled by the lack of competency, as the same informant readily acknowledges: (15)

\Int\

\F\

\Int\ \F\ \Int\ \F\

and when you go shopping or you go around in Clusone and the local people speak to you, your impression is that the language they use is simpler, to make you understand, or difficult … or maybe simply normal? if we are on the street and they speak Italian and we understand, we will be happy, but if they speak Bergamasco … because they don’t speak Bergamasco to make you understand, when they speak Bergamasco it’s only to insult you= =I see= =the way they speak= =I see … so you do not understand Bergamasco, do you? no

The episode described in the following extract (16) is emblematic of the choice of Bergamasco as the preferred means of in-group communication. The main consequence of this state of affairs is that the immigrants’ competency remains limited to a few words and other stereotyped expressions, such as greetings, discourse markers and leave-taking formulas, drawn from occasionally overheard conversations: (16)

\Z\

I work with a family/ I work with a family and when they are quarreling, they speak only Bergamasco! … Then, later, the man asks me, signora Zita, did you understand what we are saying? did you hear what my wife said? I would say, no. And he [would say], it is good that you did not understand, it is a very bad word that my wife has told me! [laughing]

Similar episodes bear witness to the fact that even the immigrants who are employed as cleaners or domestic servants in private households are commonly addressed in Italian, rather than in Bergamasco. Another factor contributing to the prevailing lack of competency is Ghanaian immigrants’ instrumental orientation to language learning.

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The perceived practical and economic value of proficiency in a foreign language is the principal motivation for learning it. So—as the speaker in extract 17 observes—, why should they learn a more or less useless language like Bergamasco, which can be used only in the province of Bergamo? (17)

\Int\

\C\ \Int\

\C\

\Int\ \C\

[…] so you don’t understand [the dialect], but would you like to learn it, to speak Bergamasco? [Shaking his head] No you are not interested, I see … As for the Italian language, would you like to learn it?= =yes, because Bergamasco, if you learn it and you go to Brescia, they don’t speak it, beyond Brescia= =it’s too limited yes! If you go to Seriate, da Seriate in poi it’s another provincia! ‘If you go to Seriate, from Seriate onwards, it’s another province! (i.e. a different Italo-romance dialect is spoken)’

Attitudes like the one expressed above are commonly observed in language shift situations and are likely to be influenced by the attitudes prevalent in the host community. Besides, as far as I could ascertain, language attitudes among first-generation migrants are extremely homogeneous: I could not detect any significant difference in correlation with the main parameters of sociolinguistic variation (e.g. age, gender, education level, occupation). Italian, which can provide greater economic and professional benefits, is the “proper language” (as the informant in extract 18 observes), the one which ought to be learned first, whereas the utility value of Bergamasco fades away as soon as one leaves Bergamo and its surroundings:

6 Ghanaian Immigrants and the Twofold …

(18)

\Int\ \Gr\ \Int\ \Gr\

\Int\ \Gr\

141

and … would you like to learn the local dialect, Bergamasco? I want to learn the proper language first! ah, ok … so, the Italian language first, and later the dialect= =I want to learn the proper one, because Bergamasco is only in Bergamo/ is limited= =it’s limited, I see= =while the other one [i.e. Italian], I can use it everywhere!

Throughout the Italian peninsula, however, the last two decades have witnessed an overall change in the attitudes towards Italo-Romance dialects. I cannot enter into the details of the multifarious forms of risorgenze dialettali,11 which are still the object of much scholarly debate and analysis. In a nutshell, we could say that while the role of Italian as a de facto national language—regularly used in a number of written, institutional and formal domains, but also in ordinary, informal conversation—is beyond dispute, Italo-Romance dialects are gradually losing the social stigma that was attached to them when they represented the primary means of communication. As Berruto has recently argued, Dialect today is no longer generally perceived as the language of the lower socio-educational classes, nor is it perceived to denote ignorance or constitute a disadvantaging gap. It seems that dialect has lost the negative connotations and social stigmatization it bore fifty or so years and has assumed the character of an expressive enrichment in the individual repertoire. It is perceived as an additional device for creating meaning and is considered beneficial in appropriate situations. (Berruto 2018: 506)

This holds true for the province of Bergamo as well. As I have already pointed out, despite the ongoing domain loss and the harsh decline of native speakers, Bergamasco retains its role as the language of intimacy and solidarity. Its presence in the local linguistic landscape has become 11

I.e. forms of dialect resurgences, to borrow the words of Gaetano Berruto (2006).

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more and more pervasive, through commercial signs, business names and public advertisements. The public display of Bergamasco tends to be associated with the authenticity of local values, traditions and lifestyle, as well as with the expression of a local identity vis-à-vis the mainstream national one. While the attitudes shared by first-generation migrants are unlikely to undergo radical changes, language attitudes and competences among second and third-generation immigrants may differ considerably, as the studies carried out in other European countries attest. Since a good command of the national language is necessary in order to gain access to the most valuable job opportunities as well as to higher education in the local educational system, immigrants are inevitably led to perceive proficiency in Italian as a key skill to be transmitted to their offspring. Hence, competence in Italian is bound to improve at the expense of heritage language(s), like Akan, whose use is likely to be gradually restricted to a limited set of domains, such as informal communication among family members and relatives still living in Ghana.

6

Conclusion

The data collected so far suggests that first-generation Ghanaian immigrants do not speak Bergamasco for three intertwined reasons: (i) lack of input: Bergamasco functions as a we-code of the receiving community, whereas Italian is the unmarked choice when addressing outsiders; (ii) negative attitudes, that influence newcomers’ perception of the linguistic choices available to them in their new sociolinguistic setting; (iii) lack of motivation to learn the dialect, owing to an instrumental attitude to language learning and the low status of Bergamasco in the host community’s repertoire. The interplay of these factors triggers a self-reinforcing dynamic, which favours the maintenance of the status quo.

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Future proficiency in Bergamasco is more difficult to predict. An alternative sociolinguistic scenario could arise from the establishment of a second (and a third) generation, whose members manage to bypass the restrictions imposed by the local society’s current appropriateness norms and exploit the expressive, identity-related potential of the local dialect to gain acceptance as legitimate, entitled speakers of Bergamasco. As a result of school attendance and inclusion in a larger and more complex social network, second generation Ghanaians may attain a greater awareness of the development under way in the sociolinguistic environment in which they are embedded. In this regards, Roberta Scelta, whose MA dissertation focused on the community of Ghanaian immigrants in the Sicilian town of Palermo, noted that most of the subjects she interviewed displayed a deeper understanding of the twofold potential of the local Italo-Romance dialect: The data in our sample document two opposite circumstances: on the one hand, the [local Italo-Romance] dialect is perceived as an instrument of exclusion, adopted by the local people with a cryptic function; on the other, Sicilian provides a means of social inclusion. (Scelta 2017–18: 37; my translation)

Indeed, in small rural communities, where proficiency in Bergamasco is higher and the dialect still functions as a marker of local identity, developing a certain competence in the dialect may be read as a positive move towards integration (e.g. Bagna et al. 2003; Amoruso and Scarpello 2010). Ghanaian immigrants’ overall favourable orientation towards the values traditionally cherished in the receiving society (hard work, straightforwardness, resilience, etc.) may eventually win them access to Bergamasco. For this to happen, however, attitudes towards the dialect ought to change. Second generation Ghanaians ought to redefine the way they position themselves vis-à-vis the local dialect, and consider Bergamasco not as an instrument of exclusion, but as a means of social inclusion and integration, the utility value of which consists in the possibility of conjugating their Ghanaian roots and the status of “new Italians” granted to them by the law to the status of new bergamaschi (i.e. of new Bergamo people).

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References Amoruso, C., and I. Scarpello. 2010. Il dialetto nei discorsi degli immigrati: intrecci di sistema e scelte d’uso. In Actes du XXVe Congrès International de Linguistique et de Philologie Romanes, eds. Iliescu, Maria, Siller-Runggaldier, Heimi M., Danler, Paul, 4–12. Vol. IV. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Anyidoho, Akosua, M.E. Dakubu, and Kropp. 2008. Ghana: Indigenous languages, English, and an emerging national identity. In Language and national identity in Africa, ed. Andrew Simpson, 141–157. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Arthur, John A. 2008. The African Diaspora in the United States and Europe: The Ghanaian experience. Aldershop: Ashgate. Auer, Peter. 1984. Bilingual conversation. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Auer, Peter. 1988. A conversational analytic approach to code-switching and transfer. In Codeswitching: Anthropological and sociolinguistic perspectives, ed. Monica Heller, 187–213. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Auer, Peter. 1998. Introduction: Bilingual conversation revisited. In Codeswitching in conversation. Language, interaction and identity, ed. Peter Auer, 1–24. London: Routledge. Bagna, Carla, Machetti, Silvia and Vedovelli, Massimo. 2003. Italiano e lingue immigrate: verso un plurilinguismo consapevole o verso varietà di contatto? In Ecologia linguistica. Atti del XXXVI Congresso Internazionale di Studi della Società di Linguistica Italiana, Bergamo, 26–28 settembre 2002, eds. Valentini, Ada, Molinelli, Piera, Cuzzolin, Pierluigi and Bernini, Giuliano, 201–222. Roma: Bulzoni. Berruto, Gaetano. 1997. Code-switching and code-mixing. In The dialects of Italy, ed. Martin Maiden and Mair Parry, 394–400. London: Routledge. Berruto, Gaetano. 2006. Quale dialetto per l’Italia del Duemila? Aspetti dell’italianizzazione e risorgenze dialettali in Piemonte (e altrove). In Lingua e dialetto nell’Italia del Duemila, eds. Sobrero, Alberto, Annarita, Miglietta, 101–127. Galatina: Congedo. Berruto, Gaetano. 2018. The languages and dialects of Italy. In Manual of romance sociolinguistics, ed. Ayres-Bennett. Wendy and Carruthers Janice, 494–525. Berlin/Boston: Mouton de Gruyter. Chini, Marina. 2004. Plurilinguismo e immigrazione in Italia: un’indagine sociolinguistica a Pavia e Torino. Milano: Franco Angeli.

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Chini Marina, ed. 2011. Plurilinguismo e immigrazione nella società italiana. Repertori, usi linguistici e fenomeni di contatto. Studi Italiani di Linguistica Teorica e Applicata XXXVIII (1). Roma: Pacini Editore. Chini Marina and Andorno Cecilia, eds. 2018. Repertori e usi linguistici nell’immigrazione. Un’indagine sui minori alloglotti dieci anni dopo. Milano: Franco Angeli. Dako, Kari. 2003. Ghanaianisms. A glossary. Accra: Ghana University Press. Dakubu, M.E., and Kropp, eds. 1988. The languages of Ghana. London: Kegan Paul International. Dakubu, M. E. Kropp. 2009. The historical dynamic of multilingualism in Accra. In The Urban Languages of Africa, ed. Fiona, Mc Laughlin, 19–31. London/New York: Continuum. Fusco, Fabiana. 2017. Le lingue della città. Plurilinguismo e immigrazione a Udine, Roma: Carocci. Giacalone Ramat, Anna. 1995. Code-switching in the context of dialect/standard language relations. In One speaker, two languages. Cross-disciplinary perspectives on code-switching, eds. Leslie, Milroy, Peter, Muysken, 45–67. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Giacalone Ramat, Anna. ed. 2003. Verso l’italiano. Percorsi e strategie di acquisizione. Roma: Carocci. Francesco, Goglia. 2018. Code-switching and immigrant communities: The case of Italy. In Manual of romance sociolinguistics, ed. Ayres-Bennett. Wendy and Carruthers Janice, 702–723. Berlin/Boston: Mouton de Gruyter. Guerini, Federica. 2006. Language alternation strategies in multilingual settings. A case study: Ghanaian Immigrants in Northern Italy. Bern: Peter Lang. Guerini, Federica. 2008. Atteggiamenti e consapevolezza linguistica in contesto migratorio: qualche osservazione sugli immigrati ghanesi a Bergamo. In Lingua, cultura e cittadinanza in contesti migratori. Europa e area mediterranea, eds. Cecilia Andorno, Gaetano Berruto, Brincat Joseph, and Sandro Caruana, 113–163. Perugia: Guerra. Guerini, Federica. 2013. Language contact, language mixing and identity: The Akan spoken by Ghanaian immigrants in Northern Italy. International Journal of Bilingualism 18 (4): 363–383. https://doi.org/10.1177/136700 6913481138. Guerini, Federica. 2017. English and the Ghanaian diaspora in Northern Italy. In English in Italy: Linguistic, educational and professional challenges, eds. Cecilia, Boggio, and Alessandra, Molino, 223–236. Milano: FrancoAngeli. Guerini, Federica. 2018. «It sounds like the language spoken by those living by the seaside» Language attitudes towards the local Italo-Romance variety

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of Ghanaian immigrants in Bergamo. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 254: 103–120. https://doi.org/10.1515/ijsl-2018-0035. Gumperz, John. 1982. Discourse strategies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Huber, Magnus. 1999. Ghanaian Pidgin English in its West African context. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Matras, Yaron. 2009. Language contact. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Moretti, Bruno. 1990. Varietà del repertorio linguistico e fenomeni lessicali nel baby talk. Rivista Italiana Di Dialettologia 14: 139–155. Scelta, Roberta. 2017–18. Sankofa. Abitudini e risorse linguistiche nella comunità ghanese di Palermo. Unpublished Master’s Dissertation, Siena University for Foreigners, Dipartimento di Ateneo per la Didattica e la Ricerca.

7 Language Attitudes of Cameroonian Immigrants Towards Italian Dialects Raymond Siebetcheu

1

Introduction

The chapter focuses on the Cameroonian immigrant community, originating from one of the most linguistically diverse countries on earth (Eberhard et al. 2019; Siebetcheu 2020a, 2020b). The chapter deals with the position and function of Italian dialects and Cameroonian local languages in the complex Cameroonian community linguistic repertoire. At present, there are still no systematic studies relating to the use and attitudes of Cameroonian immigrants with respect to Italian dialects. Even in other European countries, there are no studies related to the use or R. Siebetcheu (B) University for Foreigners of Siena, Siena, Italy e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 F. Goglia and M. Wolny (eds.), Italo-Romance Dialects in the Linguistic Repertoires of Immigrants in Italy, Palgrave Studies in Minority Languages and Communities, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-99368-9_7

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perception of dialects of target languages by the Cameroonian community. Some studies, such as those by Guerini (2016) and Littig (2021) with respect to the Italian and German contexts, confirm this state of affairs. In this work, we will illustrate the first results of an ongoing research involving Cameroonian immigrants living in Italy. Before illustrating these results of our research, the chapter opens first with a discussion on the Cameroon’s sociolinguistic profile; then presenting an outline of Cameroonian immigration in Italy.

2

Sociolinguistic Profile of Cameroon

Cameroon has a peculiar linguistic history as a result of contacts with people and languages from various parts of the world. The interaction between people and languages started with the early European trade on the African west coast in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, to be followed a few centuries later by the colonialization in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, yielding such influences as those of Portuguese ivory and spice merchants, European slave traders, European and American religious missionaries, and of course German, French, and British colonialists (Tabi Manga 2000; Anchimbe 2012; Siebetcheu 2016). The linguistic outcomes of cultural and historical contacts reveal that Cameroon is the only African country to have known three former colonial languages: German, French, and English1 (Siebetcheu 2016). Regarding the colonial period, as Calvet (1974) observed, two dogmas marked the linguistic history of Africa, and therefore also of Cameroon: (a) colonial languages were considered as languages of civilization and modernity; (b) indigenous languages were considered as primitive languages.

1 “Historians confirm that there is no text stating that Cameroon was colonized by a specific country. Indeed, in 1884, Cameroon was under German protectorate. After the First World War, it became a territory under mandate from the League of Nations […]. But in fact, it does not escape the colonial administration” (Tabi Manga 2000: 15–16).

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This tension between colonial languages and African languages, reinforced by the widening gap between the written and the spoken forms, is also closely related to the language question in Africa (Bamgbose 1983; Mazrui 1997; Kamwangamalu 2016). Actually, according to Kamwangamalu (2016), at the heart of the ongoing debate of language question in Africa has been the problem of defining the role of African languages in juxtaposition with former colonial languages in the higher domains, especially in the educational system. In the same vein, Simo Bobda (2008: xi) observes that “[t]he language question in Africa involves, in one way or the other, the various languages used in the continent, namely the exoglossic languages, the indigenous languages, and pidginised languages like Pidgin English. It has to do with status planning, but also the structural forms of the languages considered.” Dealing with Cameroon in this work allows us to address this general African linguistic question in one of the most complex countries of the continent from the linguistic point of view. The debate concerning the use of local languages in contact with the most prestigious languages is a well-known issue in Cameroon through the distinction between local Cameroonian languages and official languages. In this chapter, we will use the concept of local African/Cameroonian languages. According to Ethnologue data (Eberhard et al. 2019), Cameroon has as many as 275 local languages (248 languages, according to Binam Bikoi 2012), which makes it the African country with the most complex and largest number of languages after Nigeria (with more than 500 local languages). With the current language policy leaning towards the former colonial languages, almost all our participants (as we will illustrate in this work), as indeed the majority of Cameroonians, claim that they do not know how to read and/or write their local languages. In 2008, the Cameroonian Government undertook the process of introducing some local languages into the secondary school syllabus. However, these local languages are not yet adequately integrated into the education system. Language education is, therefore, a real challenge where multilingualismthe heritage of this country—is paradoxically a problem rather than a resource for the populations themselves. By contrast, the trend towards monolingualism (despite the official bilingualism of the country)

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solves the problems of a minority of citizens. In this context, Bamgbose (1991: 2), referring to a situation he observed across the continent, argues that «[t]he fact that there are many languages is often used negatively to suggest that this is a distinct disadvantage especially from the point of view of communication and cost. […] The negative perception of multilingualism serves to diminish the status of African languages, presenting them as a problem rather than an asset». Ouane and Glanz (2010: 25) add that multilingualism in Africa is paradoxically seen and experienced as a threat to national unity and economic development, a situation that leads governments to force the majority of Africans to use an official language—often a foreign one—especially in the education sector. In doing so, they deprive themselves of the opportunity to build a quality education system based on the potential of a majority and no longer on the minority which masters the official language. The permanent contact between the local languages and institutional languages (French and English) generated three hybrid varieties in Cameroon: Pidgin English, Franfufulde, and Camfranglais (Cf. Anchimbe 2012; Siebetcheu 2016). In this work we will try to understand if these policies of closure towards lesser-used languages also occur in the migration context, especially with the Italian dialects.

3

Cameroonian Immigration in Italy: A Demo-Statistical Background

According to the Italian Statistical Institute, Cameroonian citizens residing in Italy are 16.046 after almost thirty years of immigration. Cameroon is ranked 1st among foreign immigrants from Central and Southern Africa in terms of the number of residents. Over 97% of the Cameroonian population is concentrated in Italy’s Central-North regions (Siebetcheu 2020a). This concentration of Cameroonians in the northern regions is due to the desire to reach their relatives, but above all, because it is the area where the major universities and the main professional outlets are located, given that study, work, and family reunion are the three main reasons for immigration of Cameroonians to Italy. Actually, a decade ago,

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the first four types of visas issued by the Italian Embassy in Cameroon were: Tourism, Studies, Business, and Family reunion (Siebetcheu 2012). This trend is still maintained today as 12.8% of Cameroonians have a work residence permit and 33.8% have a residence permit for family reasons. It is interesting to observe that 46.7% of Cameroonian immigrants have a long-term residence permit (Idos 2020). The long-stay residences, which mainly influence the Italian sociolinguistic framework, are those related to family reunion and work because they guarantee a permanent settlement in the territory through middle- or long-term migration planning. It is precisely to this presence of Cameroonian immigrants in Italy’s central-northern area that the cases analyzed in this work will refer. Table 1 illustrates the Italian provinces with the highest number of Cameroonian immigrants. This geographical distribution is important because it suggests the possible contact of the Cameroonians with the Italian dialects of these cities. The sociolinguistic situation faced by Cameroonian migrants is therefore composed not only of Italian but also of numerous dialects to which immigrants are exposed. This situation further amplifies the complexity of the Cameroonian community’s linguistic repertoire which assumes the characteristics of an “overloaded repertoire” (Berruto 1993: 7). Berruto and Cerruti (2015: 82) describe Cameroon as the typical case of countries with “very complex multilingual repertoires”. This sociolinguistic profile is certainly also valid for other African countries. Concerning the area of origin, about 70–80% of Cameroonians living in Italy mainly come from the Bamileke ethnic group, the Western region Table 1 Provinces of Italy with the highest number of Cameroonians (31st December 2019) Province

CMR*

Province

CMR*

Province

CMR*

Parma Turin Bologna Milan Rome Pavia

1.029 1.020 975 934 912 768

Perugia Padua Ferrara Treviso Brescia Florence

685 678 566 465 458 429

Modena Genoa Ancona Lodi Siena Trieste

365 299 286 277 246 227

Source ISTAT 2020 * Cameroonians

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of Cameroon collocated in the French-speaking area (Siebetcheu 2020a). This trend is linked to a strong migration tradition which we recognize in the Bamileke ethnic group both in other regions of Cameroon and in other countries of the world (cfr. Tabapssi 1999; Takougang 2014; Kamdem 2007). Recalling that the respondents of our survey were chosen at random, that is, without any filter with regard to ethnicity, the highest number of Bamileke in Italy is confirmed by our data insofar as more than 90% of those surveyed claim to have a Bamileke origin.

4

Theoretical and Methodological Framework of the Research

The work was developed along the same lines as other research of this type. For example, we referred to Clyne and Kipp (2003) who identify the factors and mechanisms operating in the processes of language maintenance and language shift in Melbourne through the study of language communities present as a result of immigration. Data were collected through the use of three investigation tools (questionnaire, interviews, and participant observation). This choice is useful to tackle the plurilingualism perceived, self-declared, and practiced in the Cameroonian community. The research has involved at the moment 528 immigrants residing in 15 Italian cities. The questionnaire proposed to Cameroonian immigrants is structured in four parts: (a) personal reference; (b) linguistic repertoire; (c) selfdeclaration of linguistic competence; and (d) perception and linguistic uses in the different contexts of interaction. As already noted, in this work we will focus attention on the perception and position of participants with respect to the use of Italian dialects. We are aware that self-assessments in sociolinguistic research do not always provide reliable data because participants can provide distorted information. Precisely for this reason, we have expanded and diversified the data, involving migrants residing in different cities. However, it must be said that even if what was declared by participants about their own language does not appear to correspond to what the researcher observed, it still represents information worthy of interest because it can suggest, on the one hand, a

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strong attachment to the chosen language and, on the other, a linguistic insecurity towards a specific language (see Molinari 2005: 147). To provide data on language uses, interviews and direct observations were added to the questionnaire. They aim to reconstruct the linguistic condition of the participants before and after the migration experience. In most cases, the information gathered during the interviews was provided by the husbands; in a few cases, the wives were also present. Parents interviewed illustrated their language profile and that of their children. Participant observation, as some examples will show, took place also in the presence of children and allowed us to propose some reflections regarding the possible enlargement, consolidation, and/or narrowing of the linguistic repertoires of this community in the coming decades. In this contribution, we will only provide some research results focusing on Italian dialects in some cases in a comparative analysis with Cameroonian local languages.

5

Structuring of the Linguistic Repertoire of Cameroonian Immigrants

To define the structure of the linguistic repertoire of Cameroonian immigrants, we refer to the three-fold model proposed by Mioni (1988): (a) high level (which coincides with a European language), medium level and low level; (b) high level (a national standard language competes in terms of prestige with a European language) and low level; and (c) absence of lingua franca both at the national and regional level. It should be noted that the situation in Cameroon is so complex that, depending on the geographical area, it is possible to identify type (a) and (c) repertoires. If we focus our attention on the Bamileke area, from which the largest number of Cameroonian residents in Italy originates, we note that their linguistic profile is attributable to the type (c) repertoire (Fig. 1) with two hierarchical levels (high and low level) dependent

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Africa (absence of a national standard language): High Level: European languages Low Level: Cameroonian local languages

Fig. 1 Third type linguistic repertoire (see Mioni 1988: 300)

Before Immigration HL French/English LL French/Cameroonian local languages /CFA/Pidgin English

After Immigration HL French/Italian / English LL French/Italian/Cameroonian local languages/CFA/Pidgin Eng/Italian dialects/ African languages

Fig. 2 Pre- and post-immigrant repertoires of Cameroonians

on the situational domains in which languages or linguistic varieties are used. According to us, it is possible to integrate this third type of repertoire with Berruto’s “dilalic model” (1995), where there is a functional overlap between the high variety (in our case French) and the low variety (a local language) in the informal domains of use, while the high variety remains the only one possible in functionally high domains. The representation of Cameroonian immigrants’ repertoire (Fig. 2, where CFA stands for camfranglais) illustrates the difference between the pre-immigration and post-immigration functional domains. Actually, in the migration context, the upper level is extended with Italian. In turn, Italian further widens the low level where French is already present, contributing to the erosion of the already restricted space of local and lesser used languages by overlapping them. In this representation (Fig. 2), we italicize the languages indicated only by some participants. As can be seen from Fig. 2, the Italian dialects, when declared, appear in the low level of the linguistic repertoire of Cameroonian immigrants. Table 2 quantifies the frequency of use of dialects, when they are used, as follows: 3% use them often, 11% use them sometimes, while 29% rarely use them. The interesting fact on which we must reflect is that 61% of participants declare that they do not use Italian dialects. When we ask the participants to indicate the languages they have learned after their

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Table 2 Frequency of use of Italian dialects Italian dialects (%) Always Often Sometimes Rarely Never

0 3 11 29 61

arrival in Italy, in addition to Italian and some immigrant languages, some Italian dialects still pop up. This data demonstrate that despite the still limited use, some Italian dialects are somehow present in the linguistic repertoires of the Cameroonians. We remember the dialects mentioned by the participants are, for example: Sienese, Neapolitan, Bolognese, Perugian, Modenese, Piedmontese, Ciociaro, Milanese and Marchigiano dialects. The limited use of Italian dialects by Cameroonian immigrants is linked to at least five reasons: (a) most of the Cameroonians who arrived in adulthood did not have the opportunity to learn these dialects with ease; (b) Italian dialects are not the priorities of Cameroonian adult immigrants; (c) In the wake of studies related to linguistic insecurity (Labov 1966; Calvet 1998), Cameroonians seem more linked to the official languages of Cameroon and Italy (French, English and Italian) rather than to dialects; and (d) the migratory project, mainly intellectual, of Cameroonians seems to distance the latter from Italian dialects and Cameroonian local languages by favoring the official languages, that would offer more job opportunities. This idea is also confirmed by the ISTAT survey (2017), focusing on the use of Italian language, dialects, and another languages used in Italy, which argues that 24.8% of those with a middle school diploma (or lower qualifications) almost exclusively use dialects at home and 33.7% with friends (against respectively 3.1 and 2.7% of those with a degree or higher qualification); e) the strong concentration of Cameroonians in the Northern Italy (specifically Northwest),—where, again according to ISTAT (2017)—dialects are less used than the Southern part of Italy), could be another reason pushing Cameroonians to not use dialects. Actually, In the Southern regions of Italy and on the Islands (with the exception of Sardinia) over 68% of

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citizens aged 6 and overuse the dialect in family—mainly or alternating with Italian—compared to about 31% in the Northwest. Indeed, in the North, the province of Trento (54.9%) and Veneto (62%) stand out for the use of dialect in the family, even if not exclusive. With respect to these considerations about the north western part of Italy, the participant Diane (34 years old, single, student-worker) observes the following “in 15 years in Milan-Milan (not the suburbs), I have not been able to learn Milanese well. In my opinion there is no real Milanese dialect. In Milan we are almost all foreigners or from other regions. I know a little bit, however, almost nothing”.

6

Language Attitudes Of Cameroonian Immigrants: The Use of Italian Dialects

As the research literature offers a variety of definitions of attitudes, the general and relatively straightforward definition provided by Sarnoff (1970) is widely used as a starting point (see also Riagáin 2008). For Sarnoff (1970: 279), an attitude is “a disposition to react favourably or unfavourably to a class of objects”. In the case of language attitudes, the “class of objects” which instigate such reactions are, of course, always language-related. Baker (1992: 29 cited in Riagáin 2008) has observed that some or all of the following “objects” have formed the focus of language attitude studies: language variation, dialect and speech style; learning a new language; specific minority languages; language groups, communities, minorities; language lessons; parents of children learning languages; language preferences and language use. However, this list is not exhaustive, this section will focus on the attitude and use of Italian dialects and local languages in the Cameroonian immigrant community in Italy. The analysis of language attitudes in Cameroonian families represents a complex operation not only because it refers to speakers, who, as we have seen, have a very complex linguistic profile, but also because it involves, in some cases, spouses with different ethnic origins or even nonCameroonians, who also add their languages in the family. According to our participants, in the Cameroonian community, the use of Italian

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dialects is still occasional and marginal. However, the long-lasting migration project allows Cameroonians to come into contact with Italian dialects by developing some skills, albeit limited. With this in mind, we asked our participants if they think Cameroonians born in Italy must know Italian dialects. Two main trends emerge to this question: one group responds positively, while another group is against it. For those that are favorable, the Italian dialects would serve for the following reasons: Participant 1: “per una buona integrazione” [for a good integration]; Participant 4: “per interagire meglio con le persone” [to better interact with people]; Participant 6: “perché i camerunensi nati in Italia si sentono italiani; e la conoscenza del dialetto è un modo per integrarsi e conoscere meglio la società in cui si cresce” [because being born in Italy Cameroonians feel Italian somewhere, and the knowledge of the dialect is always a way to integrate and better understand the society where one grows up]; Participant 9: “perché conoscere nuove lingue e nuovi dialetti è sempre una ricchezza” [because knowing languages and dialects is always a wealth]; Participant 15: “perché l’appartenenza culturale non è soltanto una questione di origine ma anche del contesto in cui si cresce” [because cultural belonging is not only a question of origin but also of the context in which we grow up]; Participant 17: “per un’integrazione e un arrichimento culturale dove le lingue di origine e i dialetti italiani sono allo stesso livello” [for a greater culture and integration, at the same level with language of origin and Italian dialects]; Participant 20: “per me chiunque nasce in Italia è italiano. Anche se hanno genitori camerunensi, essendo nati e cresciuti in Italia, conoscono poco o nulla del Camerun” [for me, anyone who born in Italy is Italian. Even if they have Cameroonian parents, being born and raised in Italy, they have little or nothing to do with Cameroon].

We can therefore note how the use of dialects is linked to the need for integration (1, 4, 6, 17), to cultural wealth (9), to the claiming of the role and importance of the place of birth with respect to the land of origin (20). This last vision seems a bit rigid and closes the possibility and necessity of preserving the Cameroonian local languages. But in general, the trend is that of opening up to Italian dialects not to cancel or ignore other languages but to add to them. Among those who do not contemplate the need to know Italian dialects, the reasons are the following:

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Participant 21: “dobbiamo focalizzare l’attenzione sui dialetti camerunensi” [we need to focus attention on Cameroonian dialects]; Participant 25: “non parliamo i dialetti italiani” [we don’t speak Italian dialects]; Participant 35: “I dialetti italiani sono inutili” [Italian dialects are useless]; Participant 37: “non sono importanti, non sono le nostre lingue. Prima dobbiamo imparare i nostri dialetti e solo dopo quelli italiani” [they are not needed, they are not our languages, first you have to learn our dialects and then the Italian ones]; Participant 43: “non mi sembra importante perché mi piacerebbe che i miei figli tornassero in patria. Il dialetto italiano non sarà utile in Camerun” [It doesn’t seem important to me because I would like my children to return home. The Italian dialect will not serve them in Cameroon]; Participant 56: “dipende, se vogliamo vivere per sempre in Italia, perché no? Altrimenti solo l’italiano standard è sufficiente” [It depends, if we want to stay permanently in Italy, why not! Otherwise only standard Italian is enough].

The picture that these results against the use of dialects provide us can be divided into three trends: Italian dialects are no useful to Cameroonians (21, 35, 37, 43); lack of adequate competence (25); preference for other languages (37); the use of a language is linked to the context in which one lives and to the migratory project (43, 56). These absolutely respectable positions, however, lead us to make some considerations. First, the use of languages cannot be limited to a specific geographical place. Secondly, in the global world in which we live, languages (even dialects) can serve and be used for various communicative reasons, not only of a professional nature, in any place and through the various tools of digital communication. So the Italian dialects should not only used in Italy. Thirdly, we comment on the reply of the Participant 37 who seems to contradict himself because he first says that “dialects are not needed”, then he adds that “they can be learned on condition that you first know the Cameroonian local languages”. As De Mauro (2016) observes, we know that our brain does not function as communicating vessels or as a toilet flush. So when a new language enters in the brain (one learns), the one previously learned/acquired does not exist. Languages can therefore be learned at any time, although from the point of view of various factors

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(including cognitive one) it is better to learn them as soon as possible, that is, from childhood. In our case, Cameroonian parents, if they want and have the competence, can teach local languages to their children from infancy. But when this does not happen or has not happened, one cannot "reserve a space in the brain" for the local language in the hope that the children will learn it in the future, refusing to fill that space by learning the Italian dialect. Fourthly, languages and dialects are not pathologies. We can therefore summarize by observing, in the light of research linked to linguistic ecology (Haugen 1972; Blackledge 2008), that there are no languages more important than other, but each language can be used in different contexts and according to the need. Studies show that the more languages we know, the better we are from a cognitive and many other points of view, even if we don’t always use these languages in all places (Garraffa et al. 2020). For Haugen (1972) language ecology is defined as the study of interactions between any given language and its environment, and considered that what was necessary was an analysis of the effect of the social and psychological situation of each language. Despite the overall positive perception with respect to the use of Italian dialects, clearly taking into account the perplexities of some Participants with respect to these idioms, our research shows that the acquisition and competence in Italian dialects is not the prerogative of most Cameroonians. In fact, on the basis of the data collected the fact that catches the eye is that the children of 83% of Participants declare to not have any competence in the Italian dialect. These data with respect to Italian dialects are linked on the one hand to the limited competence of parents and on the other to a lack of awareness of the value of lesser used or less prestigious languages. Furthermore, in some cases, we note the choice by the natives not to use the local dialect with immigrants. Guerini (2009) confirms this state of affairs also in his investigation which involved Ghanaian immigrants in Bergamo. Actually, none of the participants interviewed declared they were able to express themselves in dialect. This can perhaps be explained if we consider the tendency of the natives [...] to address immigrants preferably using the Italian language—indeed, in many cases it would be more correct to say a

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simplified variety of Italian—without resorting, if not in rare fragments of informal spoken, in the Bergamasco dialect. From this point of view the dialect can be compared to the we-code (in the sense of Gumperz 1982: 66) that people from Bergamo reserve for interactions within the local community, while Italian seems to be considered the most suitable code for communicating with those who perceive themselves as external to the community itself. The scarcity of input received in the host community is therefore one of the main reasons behind the absence of dialect in the repertoire [of the Ghanaian community] (Guerini 2009: 78–79).

However, the remaining percentage claims to have a competence which is limited in some cases to oral competence and in other cases to certain words and expressions. In this regard, let’s analyze the competence and perception of some participants with respect to Italian dialects. (1) [at the home of Vincent, bricklayer, 45 years old, residing in Monteroni d’Arbia, in Italy for 17 years, one 4-year-old son, he claims to have learned Sicilian and Neapolitan thanks to his work colleagues] Interviewer: “Quali lingue conosci?” [What languages do you know?] Vincent: “Conosco il francese, l’italiano, il ghomala, il pidgin-English, il camfranglais, ma anche il senese, il napoletano e il siciliano.” [I know French, Italian, Ghomala, Pidgin English, Camfranglais. I also know Sienese, Neapolitan and Sicilian.] Interviewer: “Ah sì? Come hai imparato il siciliano e il napoletano vivendo a Monteroni d’Arbia (Toscana)?” [Oh yeah? How did you manage to learn Sicilian and Neapolitan while living in Monteroni d’Arbia (Tuscany)]? Vincent: “Qui ci sono molti lavoratori siciliani e napoletani. Ho imparato un po’ di napoletano e siciliano perché a volte questi miei colleghi usano i loro dialetti tra di loro. Ma anche quando si rivolgono a noi, stranieri, perché lavoro con molti albanesi, usano molte espressioni dialettali.” [There are a lot of Sicilian and Neapolitan workers here. I learned a bit of Neapolitan and Sicilian because they often speak these dialects to each other. But even when they speak to us, since I also work with many Albanians, they also use many dialect expressions.] Interviewer: “Qual è il tuo livello di competenza linguistica in queste lingue?” [What is your proficiency level in these languages?] Vincent: “Capisco alcune cose quando parlano.” [I just understand something when they talk.]

This example confirms the strong prevalence with respect to the use of dialects by citizens of Southern Italy as already noted by Istat (2017).

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In other cases, the use of Italian dialects is determined by the presence of some Italian spouses in the families. This is the case of Jean Claude, who declares that his wife is Italian and occasionally speaks in Ciociaria dialect (Latium region) with their daughter. (2) [Conversation with Jean Claude. In Italy since 2001. IT engineer. He married and Italian wife and have a 13 year old daughter] Interviewer: “Quali lingue parlate a casa?” [What languages do you speak at home?] Jean Claude: “A casa parliamo italiano e ciociaro” [At home we speak Italian and Ciociaro] Interviewer: “Ah, il ciociaro?” [Ah, Ciociaro?] Jean Claude: “Sì, perché mia moglie ha origini ciociare. I suoi genitori sono di Frosinone, quindi spesso parla in ciociaro con la nostra figlia. E così, ho appreso anche io qualcosa.” [Yes, because my wife is from Ciociaria. Her parents are from Frosinone, so she often speaks Ciociaro with our daughter. So I learned something too.]

This example is also confirmed by the studies of Guerini (2009) which indicate how the presence of children at home can be a privileged channel for using Italian dialects in immigrant communities. Although generally considered a variety with less prestige than the Italian language, according to the study of Guerini (2009), the Bergamasco dialect seems to enjoy a considerable implicit prestige among some participants, as can be observed, for example, from the words of a Ghanaian father, who hopes that his son, born in Italy, can acquire and use Bergamasco dialect as soon as possible: “You are Bergamasco (son of Bergamo) (addressing the three-month-old son he holds in his arms), He is a Bergamasco (addressing the interviewer) !! @@ […] He cannot speak, He never speaks yet, but he would/ He would speak Bergamasco! (Guerini 2009: 79). The dialect is therefore an external code to the Immigrant community but ethnically marked, as in the perception of immigrants it is closely linked to the identity of the indigenous community (Guerini 2009: 79). According to the study of Goglia and Fincati (2017: 514) based on the Veneto dialect, the majority of participants stated that they spoke the Veneto dialect with Italian friends and classmates. These results seem to indicate that the dialect mainly mixed with Italian belongs to the

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linguistic repertoire of the second generation. Some pupils may even perceive it as the code to learn and use in the domain of communication with peers, where it loses the negative associations of its use in the school context or by adults (whether native or immigrant) (Goglia and Fincati 2017). In the same vein, Cameroonian children born and raised in Italy follow the way of life and linguistic attitudes of their Italian peers. So if their peers neglect or appreciate the dialects, the Cameroonians will also neglect or appreciate them. Like all children of immigrants, children of Cameroonians are more exposed to dialects spoken in the cities where they were born and/or grew up. Participants 4, 19, 57, and 73 affirm, for example, that their children are able to interact respectively in the dialect of Siena, Modena, and Perugia. Cameroonian children born in Siena, therefore, speak, like Sienese children, so much so that from the forms “Io fare [Infinitive form verb to do]” and “Io andare [Infinitive form verb to go] they used when they were 2 years old”, now they have often and willingly use “Io fo [io faccio = I do]” and “Io vo [io vado = I go]”. The form is typical of the Tuscan language and consist in the transition from the diphthong “uo” to “o” in forms such as bono < buono (good), novo < nuovo (new), foco < fuoco (fire), voto < vuoto (empty). However, this use of Sienese expressions does not prevent some of them from distancing themselves from local linguistic habits. We report the case of an interaction that we witnessed during direct observation between a 3-year-old Cameroonian child, born and residing in Siena, and an Italian woman of about 70. The child was surprised by the old woman’s Tuscan gorgia [“Tuscan throat”],2 a phonetic phenomenon governed by a complex of allophonic rules characteristic of the Tuscan dialects, in Tuscany, especially the central ones, with Florence traditionally viewed as the center. (3) [At the free water fountains station with Romeo (45 years old) and one of his son (3-years-old). Romeo lives in Italy for 20 years]. Romeo’s son: “Non si dice hoca hola, si dice coca cola” [we do not say hoca hola, we say coca cola] (continued) 2 It is characterized by “the spirantization of voiceless intervocalic stops -p-, -t-, -k- until the level zero: […] fokho/foho […]” (Sobrero and Miglietta 2006: 162).

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(continued) The old woman: “hoca hola” Romeo’s son: “No! Si dice coca cola, perché non sai dire?” [No! We say coca cola. Why can’t you say it?] The old woman: “perché non mi piace” [because I do not like it]

A survey in the schools of Siena points out in this sense the invitation of some teachers to pupils not to use dialects, focusing only on Italian (see Siebetcheu 2018). This choice that we observed in many Italian schools, underlines the Italian monolingual trend (Vedovelli 2010). However, some studies indicate that many teachers use Italian dialects with students, including second-generation ones (Goglia and Fincati 2017; Guidoni 2018). Recalling again the Istat survey (2017), 14% of Italians (over 8 million) mainly use dialect, while 32% use both Italian and dialect. These data indicate that despite some reticence, dialects are still present in the linguistic repertoires of Italians and “new Italians”, even if in some cases only through the reference to expressions, phrases to express one’s own state.

6.1

Conclusion

This study on the dynamics of Cameroonian languages transplanted into the Italian diasporic context allowed us to observe the presence, even if with low vitality, of Italian dialects in this community. In this context, according to Gumperz (1982), code-switching produces conversational inferences where the choice of language can be as meaningful as the content of the message. In this perspective, further results of our research relating to the analysis of conversations of Cameroonians in family contexts and in other places of aggregation will point out if in the language choices of Cameroonians there are also expressions and linguistic forms related to Italian dialects. These dialectal traces in the conversations of the Cameroonians, if present, will confirm the description and expansion of the linguistic repertoire of the Cameroonians on the basis of the self-declarations of the latter as we have presented in this work. Furthermore, the fact that only 8% of our participants report

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being able to use Italian dialects reflects the trend towards monolingualism in the Italian society despite the plurilingual capital and richness of Italy. This observation also underlines the climate of linguistic insecurity as well as the stigmatization that we still observe around the Italian dialect. As already illustrated by studies on language and immigration in Italy (Bagna et al., 2003; Chini, 2004; Chini and Andorno, 2018; Dal Negro and Molinelli, 2002; Vedovelli, 1981, 2017), our study also shows us that Italian dialects are gradually finding their place in the linguistic behaviors of Cameroonians, especially thanks to the presence of Italian spouses in the family, but also thanks to the contact of Cameroonian children with other Italian children living in the cities where they were born and /or where they grew up. While waiting for more in-depth results in further studies, we can still emphasize that even if we focus only on Italian dialect accents, we can say that they already constitute a great heritage for Cameroonian immigrants as they are bearers of new identity values.

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8 The Senegalese Diaspora in Rome: Romanesco and Other Nonstandard Varieties in the Face of Standard Language Ideologies Maya Angela Smith

1

Introduction

As the various chapters in this volume show, immigrants in Italy cultivate attitudes about language and life through their experiences speaking, hearing, and reflecting on standard Italian and Italo-Romance dialects. Showcasing the voices of the Senegalese community in Rome and their musings on their linguistic repertoires (e.g., standard Italian, Romanesco, and other Italo-Romance varieties, informal registers, etc.), this chapter demonstrates how language ideologies and linguistic practices highlight the dynamic nature of language and identity in the context of migration. While historically France was the main destination for Senegalese migration to Europe, the past few decades have witnessed rapid growth of the Senegalese diaspora in Italy to the point where there are now M. A. Smith (B) University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 F. Goglia and M. Wolny (eds.), Italo-Romance Dialects in the Linguistic Repertoires of Immigrants in Italy, Palgrave Studies in Minority Languages and Communities, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-99368-9_8

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over 100,000 people of Senegalese origin residing there.1 This migration pathway began in earnest in the 1980s and 1990s when Senegalese migrants, particularly Wolof men from northwestern Senegal, settled in northern Italy.2 While Senegalese migration has traditionally been heavily male, women are making gains and now represent almost 28% of Italy’s Senegalese population. In fact, in 2019 women made up over 36% of new arrivals and 38% of Senegalese who obtained Italian citizenship. Furthermore, family reunification has now replaced work as the primary reason for Senegalese migration.3 The geographic dispersal is also evolving with northern Italy no longer the only draw.4 Although Lombardy , Tuscany, Emilio-Romagna, Veneto, and Piedmont are still the most popular Senegalese destinations, Lazio, where Rome is located, is now ranked sixth. This chapter presents the Senegalese community in Rome through an ethnographic case study. During a three-month period in 2010, I conducted semi-structured interviews and participant observations, recorded natural conversations, and took extensive field notes of my interactions with 25 people of Senegalese descent (17 men and eight women aged 23–42). Out of those 25, three became principal informants who I followed around on a regular basis. I also interviewed language instructors and public servants of Italian descent. At the time, there 1 As a former French colony where French is the only official language, Senegal has longstanding ties to France through a robust history of migration and exploitation (e.g., tirailleurs sénégalais or infantrymen in France’s West African colonial regiments during World War I and II, Senegalese laborers during the 1950s and 1960s). However, as France limited migration during the economic downturn in the 1970s and 1980s, Italy became an important destination. 2 Much literature examines Senegalese migration to northern Italian cities (e.g., Carter’s [1997] focus on Turin and Riccio’s [2003, 2006] look at Bergamo and at Ravenna and Rimini. See also Riccio [2002], Schmidt di Friedberg [1993], Smith [2019]). 3 ISTAT (2020) shows that as of 2020, 102,112 Senegalese live in Italy (73,921 men and 28,191 women), which is 2.8% of the foreign population. In 2019, 4637 Senegalese migrants arrived in Italy (2962 men and 1675). The same year, 2869 Senegalese obtained Italian citizenship (1781 men and 1088 women). Importantly, the primary reason Senegalese are currently migrating to Italy is for family reasons (15,901), followed by asylum (11,553) and work (11,405). 4 According to Nozzoli (2020), 3802 Senegalese reside in Lazio. The most populous region is Lombardy (33,306), followed by Tuscany (12,139), Emilio-Romagna (10,919), Veneto (8750), and Piedmont (7154). Rome, as the capital, is also important as a migrant center in general. Presently, 12.4% of its population (347,655 foreigners out of a population of 2,808,293) is composed of migrants, which is much higher than the 6.1% foreign-born population in Italy at large (roughly 3.6 million foreigners out of 60 million people). See also ISTAT (2020).

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were only about 1000 Senegalese in Rome (a number that has more than tripled since then), but they were highly visible, particularly because many of them were street vendors in high traffic areas. For instance, I met many of my interviewees by spending time at Roma Termini (see Smith 2019). I also attended dance and music classes, becoming acquainted with the thriving Senegalese artist community in Rome. The participants in the study represented the diversity you would expect to see in Senegal. They included a wide range of educational backgrounds from those who only completed primary school education to those who had earned bachelor’s or master’s degrees. Coming from a country where 80% speak the main national language Wolof, the vast majority of Senegalese in Rome considered Wolof their maternal language, and all but one were fluent in it. Many interviewees also spoke one of the many other national languages (e.g., Pulaar, Sereer, and Jola) as maternal languages. Many could also communicate in various second languages, such as French, which was the language of officialdom (i.e., administration and schools) as well as the language of la francophonie and France’s colonial past; Italian, which was normally learned upon migrating to Italy; English, which was a popular foreign language that people learned through various means both in Senegal and in Europe; and Spanish, for those who had spent time in Spain (see Cissé 2005; O’Brien 1998; McLaughlin 2008; Swigart 2008). These vast linguistic repertoires reflected the complex migrant pathways in which Senegalese participate. As Toma and Castagnone (2015) have shown in their research on Senegalese migration between France, Italy, and Spain, at least 10% of Senegalese migrants use the porous borders within the European Union to practice “onward mobility,” living in one EU country before moving to another. Many of the people I interviewed in Rome had also lived in France and Spain or discussed moving onto these countries after their time in Italy. Those in my study represent just a snapshot in time of a dynamic and highly mobile community that has travelled all over the globe.

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Theoretical Approach

Most literature on Senegalese in Italy concerns economic interests, societal assimilation, or, occasionally, literary production (see Carter 1997; Riccio 2002, 2006; Schmidt di Friedberg 1993; Khouma 2014; Orton 2012). Other than personal essays by Italo-Senegalese author Pap Khouma, who writes about his inability to be accepted as Italian even though he speaks the language fluently, linguistic experiences of Senegalese-Italians or Senegalese in Italy are seldom considered. Even when language issues emerge in research, such as in Carter (1997), they are not the primary focus. This chapter therefore fills this gap by exploring the language practices and attitudes of Senegalese in Rome as they reflect on their experiences with standard Italian, informal registers of Italian, Romanesco, and other Italo-Romance dialects. Language practices are the “habitual patterns of selecting among the varieties that make up [a community’s] linguistic repertoire” (Spolsky 2004: 5). Regardless of whether they exist in monolingual or multilingual environments, speakers are confronted with an array of options each time they participate in a speech act. As Guerini (2011: 110) articulated, Language practices are the result of the lexical and grammatical features that individual speakers adopt — either consciously or unconsciously — whenever they choose a certain (social, geographical or stylistic, i.e. more or less formal) variety from among those included in the “architecture” of a language (Berruto 1987) or when they choose between different linguistic systems. The choice is governed by a set of shared— and largely implicit — rules as to which language (or variety) is appropriate in different domains or when addressing different interlocutors, and which is discouraged or inappropriate.

The choices people make are directly related to their beliefs about languages, speakers, and contexts, otherwise known as their language ideologies. Language ideologies, commonly explored in the field of linguistic anthropology but also in sociolinguistics and other related disciplines,

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include both the macro (societal beliefs) and the micro (individual attitudes) and even go beyond language itself: “Ideologies of language are significant for social as well as linguistic analysis because they are not only about language. Rather, such ideologies envision and enact links of language to group and personal identity, to aesthetics, to morality, and to epistemology” (Woolard and Schieffelin 1994: 55–56). Furthermore, as Irvine (1996: 267) contended, the “moral and political interests” that emerge from this relationship is “a crucial mediating factor.” In other words, language ideologies help explain the value judgments that individuals attach to specific languages and their culturally constructed attitudes toward using these languages. By exploring language ideologies, we uncover how societies and individuals conceptualize language, identity, and the moral and political implications of each (see Woolard 2010; Swigart 2008). For instance, the discourses circulating in Italian society display the complicated relationship that Italians have with standard Italian and regional varieties. With the passing of 1999 law on minority languages, Italian legislation made Italian the official language of Italy while simultaneously protecting recognized minority languages.5 Up until then, Italian was the de facto language, used in education, government, and other official sites regardless of its actual status. Then in 2007, Italian’s official status was further solidified when it was written into the constitution. Meanwhile, two years prior, Lazio’s regional government passed Law no. 12, which legislated “the protection and promotion of the dialects of Rome and Lazio.”6 As such, parallel legislative efforts have both enshrined Italian as the language of the land while making room for regional varieties in a certain capacity. However, in practice legislation has had little effect in ensuring the vitality of regional languages.

5 Article 1 of law 482/1999 states that “la lingua ufficiale della Repubblica è l’italiano” (The official language of the Republic is Italian). 6 For more information on minority language legislation, see Gambarota (2011: 4), Coluzzi (2008: 215), and Legge (1999). Lazio’s 2005 law established “the Institute for the Protection and Promotion of the Dialects of Lazio (ITPDL) and a Regional Centre for the Documentation, Research and Development of the Linguistic Heritage of Rome and Lazio. This law also provides for use of the local dialects on radio and television and their teaching at school” (Coluzzi 2008, 222–223).

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Competing forces have influenced speakers’ attitudes and practices. On the one hand, standard Italian is spoken throughout Italy and is a foreign language taught in various parts of the world. For those who want to travel to or live in different regions of Italy, standard Italian is necessary. For access to most employment opportunities and engagement with mass media and cultural production, standard Italian is required. It is virtually impossible to exist long term in Italy today and not speak Italian. On the other hand, speakers of regional languages and dialects express great pride in the identities that these varieties bestow upon them. Regional varieties tie speakers to their locality, history, and communities. They evoke notions of home and all the associated affective qualities. However, even with the positive associations that speakers make to their varieties, actual usage does not necessarily reflect these attitudes: “general support for threatened languages is nowadays not hard to come by …, but concrete commitment is a very different matter” (Parry 2002: 56– 57). The position of the rightwing Lega Nord best incapsulates linguistic ambivalence as its members vacillate between wanting to protect their hyperlocal linguistic heritage from a centralizing state while at the same time safeguarding a broader Italian national identity from immigrants who fail to assimilate (see Guerini 2011: 114). Although the Lega Nord does not speak for all Italians, their language ideologies highlight the complexities inherent in any multilingual society. Furthermore, the inclusion of Italian as the official language of the republic in the constitution coincided with debates on immigration, highlighting just how central immigration is to notions of Italian identity. Even though the use of regional varieties is steadily declining, they are still present in linguistic repertoires, and attitudes about them are still central to how many Italians think about themselves. This is the complicated context that migrants encounter when they arrive in Italy, and they must navigate these societal language ideologies as well as their own language attitudes, which they have been cultivating their entire lives. Ethnographic, sociolinguistic research on Senegalese in Rome sheds light not only on the way people use language but also on how they position themselves in their new society.

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175

Language Use in Rome: Romanesco and Other Nonstandard Varieties in the Face of Standard Language Ideologies

While standard Italian as a national language began to emerge in the 1870s, regional varieties managed to prosper for more than a century. As late as the 2000s, “approximately 60% of Italians continue[d] to speak their local dialects in addition to Italian” (Cavanaugh 2008: 19). That said, the most recent statistics show that not even half the population use dialect—32.2% use both standard Italian and a dialect among family while 14% speak primarily in dialect. More importantly, exclusive usage of dialect has steadily declined among all age groups. For instance, people over 75 are most likely to only speak in a dialect, but that rate has dropped from 37 to 32% between 2006 and 2015.7 As Coluzzi (2008: 220) and UNESCO (2003) noted, the local dialect of Rome, known as Romanesco, Roman, Romano, or Romanaccio, has been labeled as severely endangered.8 According to the 2015 data, the region of Lazio, where Romanesco is most widely spoken, was ranked fourth in percentage of speakers who spoke only or predominantly in Italian among family.9 Romanesco exists in a state of diglossia or bidialectalism with standard Italian. As the low variety, Romanesco is spoken primarily in informal situations among family or friends while as the high variety, standard Italian is used in written communication, formal settings, and with strangers (see Ferguson 1959; Berruto 1989). However, as Berruto (2018: 507) explained, Romanesco and standard Italian are not clearly 7 While the percentage of Italo-Romance speakers has decreased, the percentage of the population who speak a non-Italo-Romance maternal language has increased. In 2015, almost 10% of the population spoke a foreign mother tongue (up from about 4% in 2006) (ISTAT 2015). 8 Leone (2014: 92) offers a detailed discussion of the semantic implications attached to each label. Of the four labels mentioned, only Romanaccio has a pejorative connotation. The rest are seen as relatively neutral. 9 According to ISTAT (2015), Lazio (59.2%) was only behind Toscana (74.9%), Liguria (70.1%), and Lombardy (59.8%). Meanwhile, a mere 7.3% of inhabitants in Lazio speak only or predominantly in Romanesco and 25.5% speak either in Italian or Romanesco among family.

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delineated separate entities but instead “form the opposite poles of a single continuum, consisting of a range of intermediate varieties progressively closer to one of the poles and very difficult to separate from each other.” Furthermore, “it is often difficult to decide whether a production in such intermediate varieties pertains to dialect or to Italian” (507). Distinguishing between intermediate varieties in the Romanesco-Italian continuum is particularly difficult because while Romanesco is a central Italian variety, its extensive contact with literary Tuscan, the dialect that would eventually become standard Italian, means that Romanesco resembles standard Italian in many ways (see D’Achille 2011). As my own data will show, there is a range of nonstandard language usage (e.g., informal Italian, Romanesco) among the Senegalese community in Rome, which is not always easy to classify. Romanesco is most prevalent in Trastevere, a neighborhood just west of the Coliseum, where one appropriately finds the statue of Trilussa (Carlo Alberti Salustri) whose nineteenth-century poetry and satire about the middle and ruling classes helped bring Romanesco to a larger public. Another important figure is the Roman poet Giuseppe Gioachino Belli who penned 2279 sonnets in Romanesco during the first half of the nineteenth century. Writing in the introduction to his sonnets that he was using the language of “la plebe di Roma” (the peasants of Rome), he described it as “una lingua infine non italiana e neppur romana, ma romanesca” (a language that in the end is not Italian or even Roman but Romanesco) (see Lepschy and Lepschy 2016: 474; Belli 1978). It was Belli’s poetic use of Romanesco, along with Trilussa’s, that elevated it from a spoken regional dialect to a literary language. However, today Romanesco is primarily a spoken language. While similar to standard Italian, Romanesco differs in various ways, such as the use of truncated words, especially for infinitives (e.g., dà for dare, parlà for parlare) (see Pratt 1966: 168–169; Borrelli 2002: 28). There are also differences in vocabulary: “ciàvrài for avrai; mo (Latin modo) for adesso; j’ha for gli ha, monnezza for immondizie, nun (or nu’ ) for non.”10 In addition, as Pratt noted, “such a description of the bocca 10

Pratt (1966: 168) has taken these examples from Carlo Bardella’s Piccolo dizionario romanesco, a text I have been unable to find.

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romana will not suffice without mention of the important initial expletives (at times explosive) which constitute such an integral part of the dialect speech and written dialogue, the bèh, embèh, vabbèh; the aòh! aèh! nooh! and even auuugruuu sounds” (Pratt 1966: 168). Among my interviewees, vabbèh was particularly popular. While this is not an exhaustive list, there are several pronunciation differences that give Romanesco its distinct sound. The deaffrication of intervocalic /t/ to // is probably the most recognizable and happens whether the intervocalic voiceless fricative occurs within a word (e.g., piascére for piacere, duscènto for duecento, rèscita for recita) or at the beginning of a word following a vowel (la scéna for la cena) (see Bertinetto and Loporcaro 2005: 135; Lepschy and Lepschy 2016: 475). Similarly, the approximate palatal /j/ replaces the lateral approximate palatal /L/. An example is figlio /fiL o/, which becomes /fijo/ in Romanesco and can be spelled fijo even though the letter j does not exist in standard Italian orthography (D’Achille 2011). Meanwhile, according to Belli, “in Romanesco intervocalic s is always voiceless” (Lepschy and Lepschy 2016: 476). Therefore, casa (house) and cassa (trunk, case, cash register) would both be pronounced /kasa/. Speakers of Romanesco also tend to elongate consonants (a process called gemination). Examples include innammorato for innamorato, libbro for libro, or reggia for regia. Furthermore, morphosyntactic differences exist between standard Italian and Romanesco. For instance, Romanesco speakers may follow regular plural rules in cases that would be exceptions in standard Italian: “la fedeltà al paradigma tradizionale dei maschili in -o / -i, con plurali come auti ‘autobus’ e euri ‘euro’” (fidelity to the traditional paradigm for masculine words -o / -i with plurals such as auti and euri instead of gli auto and gli euro) (D’Achille 2011). Romanesco may also use pronouns in different ways such as when the object pronoun te replaces tu as a subject (e.g., Io sto bene, e te?; Te che dici?) and ci replaces lo as an object pronoun (e.g., Ci sei?) (D’Achille 2011). The Romanesco of Belli and Trilussa has transformed into what we hear today on the streets of Rome. Even with the increased usage of Italian, English, and migrant languages, Romanesco still exists and  

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evolves. Focusing on the language attitudes and linguistic practices of Senegalese in Rome, this chapter will depict the subtle dynamism of Romanesco and other nonstandard language usage.11

4

Empirical Data

As mentioned above, the most recent data from ISTAT shows that a fewer than a third of the inhabitants of Lazio speak Romanesco at least occasionally. As this volume points out, use of Italo-Romance dialects is strongest in the Northeast and Southern regions, not in Rome. However, nearly half of the Senegalese I interviewed in Rome spoke Romanesco or something other than standard Italian in some instances. And whether they used it or not, most of the interviewees offered detailed opinions about Romanesco, other Italo-Romance varieties, and informal registers of Italian. This section highlights the lived experiences of nine of my 25 Senegalese interviewees in Rome as they reflect on second language acquisition, language attitudes, and linguistic repertoires and practices (see Table 1).12 Through their words, we get a more complex understanding of their varied lived experiences with language.

4.1

Naza, 36 Years Old, Five Years in Italy

Naza arrived on an artist visa and toured throughout Europe, particularly in France. She had never planned to live in Italy, but chronic health issues forced her to settle down, and by chance she wound up calling Italy home for the time being. Her career as a dance instructor did not cover all her expenses so she worked as a babysitter and a home care provider for the elderly to supplement her income.

11 There are more Romanesco features than what I have included here. The following are instructive resources: Pratt (1966), Bertinetto and Loporcaro (2005), Lepschy and Lepschy (2016), Ravaro (2005), Vaccaro (1971), D’Achille (2011), Wanted in Rome (2017). 12 ~ denotes limited speaking ability. All names are pseudonyms. The full list of interviewees can be found in Smith (2019).

Age

36

36

33

26

23

40

27

32

32

Name

Naza

Ndour

Keita

Anta

Ngoné

Ablaay

Kati

Badu

Isidore

4.17.10

4.2.10

2.10.10

3.8.10

3.7.10

3.7.10

4.23.10

2.27.10

3.13.10

Date

M

M

F

M

F

F

M

M

F

Sex

Diourbel (central Senegal)

Dakar

Paris

Casamance

Dakar

Dakar

Fatick (central Senegal), Dakar Dakar

Dakar

Place of birth/ Childhood

Wolof

Pulaar, French Wolof

Jola, Wolof

Wolof

Wolof

Wolof, Bambara

Wolof, Pulaar

Jola, Wolof

Maternal Languages

Pulaar, Portuguese, French, Italian, English

Italian, ~French, ~English

English, Italian

French, Italian

French, ~Italian

French, Italian

French, Italian, English, ~Spanish

Sereer, French, Italian, English, ~Spanish

~Pulaar, French, Italian

Additional Languages Spoken

Table 1 Senegalese interviewees in Rome (in order of appearance)

Some primary school Bachelor’s degree Some high school High school diploma Bachelor’s degree Some primary school High school diploma

Some primary school J.D

Education

?

9

6

5

2

5

mos

10

10

5

Yrs in Italy

Senegal, Italy, Portugal

France, Italy Senegal, Italy

Senegal, Italy

Senegal, Italy, Spain Senegal, Italy Senegal, Italy

Senegal, Italy

Senegal, Italy

Countries lived

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Naza was multilingual and had some primary education. She spoke Jola as her maternal language and considered herself fluent in Wolof, French, and Italian. I asked her about her experience learning Italian, which in some ways came naturally to her. Already speaking a Romance language helped, especially because she never had time to take Italian classes. She relied on similarities between French and Italian for comprehension, even though she admitted that people sometimes laughed at her French accent. She also had ample settings to practice speaking (i.e., work environments and friendships with Italians). She proudly proclaimed that her Italian was much better than her brother’s even though they had been living in Italy for the same amount of time, because he spent all his time with Senegalese and she preferred hanging out with Italians. However, one of the biggest challenges she had in learning Italian, other than the fact that they spoke too fast for her, was encountering Romanesco. As she exclaimed with frustration: “Il romano per me è un po’—non mi piace tanto perché tagliano le frasi. Non è chiaro per me” (Romanesco for me is a little—I don’t like it very much because they cut off sentences. It’s not clear to me). Naza touched on a major difficulty that immigrants face in learning the language of their adopted homes. In places where multiple linguistic varieties are spoken, access to the dominant variety is not always straightforward. Naza viewed Romanesco almost as an intrusion, something that took her attention from learning standard Italian and inserted confusion into her linguistic journey. Naza was not alone in this discomfort with regional varieties. Carter (1997) reported similar issues among his Senegalese informants in Turin: One Senegalese migrant, a recent arrival to Italy who was educated in French schools all his life and was working in construction in Italy, once complained: ‘This language is so difficult, Italian. At work my boss is Piedmontese and so he speaks Piedmontese. Another is Sicilian and he speaks only Sicilian. With all these languages, how am I to learn Italian?’ (143–144)

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In this case, migrants confronted several different regional varieties so even learning the local one was insufficient in navigating the linguistic environment in which they found themselves. Many of the people I interviewed disliked Romanesco. In Naza’s case, she didn’t appreciate the truncated forms because they impeded comprehension. For others, they cited philosophical reasons, conveying how they valorized and hierarchized languages. For example, Ndour, one of the few people I interviewed who had taken Italian language classes, preferred speaking italiano accademico (formal or “academic” Italian).

4.2

Ndour, 36 Years Old, Ten Years in Italy

Ndour was from Fatick, a central region of Senegal. He spoke Wolof and Pulaar as maternal languages as well as Sereer, French, Italian, English, and some Spanish. He had learned each European language in some sort of school setting. With a JD, Ndour was one of the most educated people I interviewed. He had come to Rome on a scholarship after completing his studies in Finance Law in Senegal. He was married to an Italian wife and was a proud father of a one-year-old daughter. When he realized that he was going to make Italy his home, he signed up for a language course, which included language instruction and field trips throughout Italy to learn about Italian culture. This course taught him to distinguish between what he learned on the streets and in the classroom: Quando stavo studiando i primi tempi, parlavo in un modo che quando sono arrivato lì, mi hanno detto che questo non è un buon modo. In generale dicono che gli Italiani non parlano bene l’italiano: ‘Tutto quello che tu hai imparato fuori, lascialo e tu vieni qua per imparare.’ E quindi ho imparato a parlare un italiano molto corretto per non dire veramente l’italiano accademico… Voglio, quando veramente faccio le cose, le faccio nel modo più perfetto. (When I was studying for the first time, I spoke in a way that when I got there, they told me that [how I spoke] was not good. They say that in general Italians don’t speak Italian well: “Everything that you learned

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outside, leave it and come here to learn.” And so, I learned to speak a very grammatically correct Italian, not to mention a formal Italian…I want, when I really do something, I do it in the most perfect way.)

In his quest for perfect Italian, Ndour embodied the language ideologies prevalent in his language course, ideologies that placed a negative value judgment on the local way of speaking. It was unclear whether Ndour was referring to an informal register of Italian or to Romanesco. Regardless, what one heard on the street was deemed inferior. As a highly educated person who learned most of his second languages through formal instruction, Ndour championed a high register of standard Italian. He was not alone in this quest to speak what others dubbed l’italiano vero (real Italian).

4.3

Keita, 33 Years Old, Ten Years in Italy

Keita was from Dakar, the capital of Senegal, and spoke Wolof and Bambara as maternal languages. He differed from Ndour in that he only had a primary education; however, his linguistic profile and his time in Italy were very similar. Keita spoke French, English, and Italian, as well as some Spanish that he picked up when he had lived in Spain for a year before moving to Italy where he was a drummer for a Senegalese band. Like most of the people I interviewed, Keita had learned Italian per la strada (in the street). Even though his language acquisition was relegated to this informal learning environment, he shared many language attitudes with Ndour concerning l’italiano vero (real Italian) and the average Italian’s language ability: Anche gli Italiani non parlano l’italiano bene… perché ogni paese di loro che sia Lazio ou Toscana ou Lombardia qualcosa, hanno ognuno i loro dialetti…Qua ci stanno parecchi dialetti. Io adesso sto parlando italiano e la gente qua, gli italiani, mi dicono, ‘Parli benissimo. Sei bravo.’ Però se vado in un altro paese, secondo me, sono già indietro, nel senso, non è che sono indietro perché io parlo italiano normale, capito? Non cerco

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di prendere l’ascento romanaccio ou ‘a fa’ o qualcosa là.13 Se devo dirti come—cosa stai a fa, preferisco dirti in italiano, che cosa stai facendo. E più italiano, capito? (Even Italians don’t speak Italian well because each region whether it is Lazio or Tuscany or Lombardy, whatever, they have their own dialects…Here there are several dialects. I am speaking Italian now and the people here, Italians, tell me, “You speak wonderfully, you are good.” But if I go to another region, in my opinion, I am behind in the sense—it’s not that I’m behind because I speak normal Italian, you know—it’s that I don’t try to learn the Romanaccio accent or “a fa” or something like that. If I need to tell you cosa stai a fa?, I prefer to tell you in Italian: che cosa stai facendo? It is more Italian, you know?)

When I asked if he preferred Italian, he clarified: Non è che io lo preferisco. Il problema è che si non riesco, si non parlo italiano vero, perché italiano vero, dovunque vai, l’italiano vero, la gente ti capisce. Anche se dopo c’hanno i loro dialetti o qualcosa del genere.14 Pero sanno che sto parlando italiano normale...Se vai a Napoli…quello proprio non è italiano... Poi anche per bisogno è un po’ complicato perché anche loro ti dicono, ‘Guarda anche noi Italiani non parliamo bene italiano.’ Si sbagliano sempre. Italiano puro, vero, è troppo difficile. Anche giornalisti. Per uno che è straniero, già è cosa grande. (It’s not that I prefer it. The problem is that if I can’t, if I don’t speak real Italian—because real Italian, wherever you go, with real Italian, people understand you. Even if they have their own dialects or something like that afterwards. But they know that I am speaking normal Italian…If you go to Naples…that really is not Italian…Then even out of necessity, it is a bit complicated because they also tell you, “Look, we Italians don’t speak Italian well either.” They always make mistakes. Pure, real Italian is too difficult. Even journalists. For someone who is a foreigner, it is already a big deal.)

13 14

Keita pronounces accento /laEnto/, denoted as ascento in the transcription. According to Pollett (2021), c’hanno is common in Roman dialect.

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These excerpts highlight Keita’s personal language attitudes. His ability to master the standard language evoked praise from the native population, which he saw as one of the greatest compliments a person could receive when speaking a target language. He took pride in this recognition. As Keita traveled to other parts of Italy and confronted various varieties, he recognized that his inability to speak those varieties could put him at a disadvantage. At the same time, he was content speaking standard Italian because it would be understood wherever he went. For a population that traveled, such as those in my study, it was most useful to learn the language of the largest number of people, in this case, what Keita called l’italiano vero. He, therefore, treated standard Italian as a language of mediation, a different view to Ndour’s conceptualization of standard formal Italian as something to almost be placed on a pedestal. Keita also voiced the societal language ideologies he encountered. According to him, Italians were self-deprecating when it came to their ability to speak Italian. He mentioned that even in professions such as journalism where there was an expectation to speak standard Italian, Italians often deviated from the norm. By juxtaposing this judgment with the positive responses that he got from locals as a foreigner speaking Italian, Keita put further emphasis on standard Italian’s complicated positioning in society. The standard language was worthy of praise, especially when spoken by non-Italians, but it was not something that all Italians felt the need to perfect. Importantly, this excerpt also showed the richness of Keita’s linguistic repertoire. Even though he did not try to learn Romanesco, he could identify it. For instance, he made the distinction between cosa stai a fa? and che cosa stai facendo? (what are you doing?), where the truncated infinitive replaces the present progressive. This example demonstrated that he had achieved a high enough level of competence in both varieties to be able to use them in their respective contexts. His speech also included Romanesco characteristics. He pronounced intervocalic /t/ as // in words like ascento and disciamo. He used ci in ways that were not common in standard Italian but that were found in Romanesco such as c’hanno. In addition, Keita occasionally substituted French words for

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Italian: se became si, and o became ou.15 While Keita spoke fluent Italian and valued its standard form, his practices were more expansive than his language attitudes suggested.

4.4

Anta, 26 Years Old, 5 Years in Italy; Ngoné, 23 Years Old, 2 Years in Italy

Keita was not the only one to indicate the importance of standard Italian as a language of mediation while also conveying the understated value of Romanesco. Anta and Ngoné offered a complementary perspective. Anta and her younger sister Ngoné were traditional dancers from Dakar. They spoke Wolof as their maternal language and French as a second language. Anta had spent three years in college in Dakar but left to attend a hairstyling school. Ngoné had completed some high school and then followed in her sister’s footsteps. Wanting a change, Anta decided to travel to Italy, and Ngoné joined her a few years later. Anta considered herself fluent in Italian while Ngoné knew enough to get by. In Italy, they both worked as hairdressers and dancers. There were a lot of opportunities in summer to perform throughout Italy with their traveling dance troupe. They described using standard Italian as a language of mediation when they were on the road. When I asked them if they spoke any other Italian varieties, Anta replied: Forse romano, un po’ perché abitiamo a Roma. Quando vado io nelle altre città per fare spettacolo, quando parlo con loro, loro dicono “eh, tu, tu sei romana.” [laughs] ...L’italiano standard è meglio, così. Puoi parlare con tutti. È la lingua giusta. (Perhaps Romanesco, a little, because we live in Rome. When I go to other cities for shows, when I talk to them they say, “Huh, you, you’re Roman.” [laughs] … Standard Italian is better. You can talk to everyone. It is the correct language.) 15

Si is also the Romanesco version of se as seen in the Roman proverb: “L’amore nunn’è bbello si nun’è litigarello” (Zanazzo 1886: 30), which in standard Italian would be “l’amore non è bello se no è un po’ litigioso” (Love isn’t beautiful unless it’s a bit argumentative). It is, therefore, possible to read si as either Romanesco or French.

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The adjective giusta (correct) and the inclusive nature of puoi parlare con tutti (you can talk to everyone) validated their own use of standard Italian. However, although they preferred standard Italian for pragmatic reasons, the way that Anta laughed when people in other towns would call her Roman suggested a certain attachment to this regional identity that speaking in dialect afforded her. She took on aspects of the local culture, which she essentially adopted, and which adopted her. Meanwhile, Ngoné had negative attitudes about Italy and Italian in general. She preferred Spain where she had lived prior. When I asked her if she liked the Italian language, she exclaimed, “Non mi piace tanto ma che devi fa?”(I don’t like it very much but what can you do?). Regardless of her language attitudes, her practices showed that she had adopted some of the local inflections—her truncated fa punctuating her exclamation. This infectiousness of local linguistic inflections appeared throughout my research.16

4.5

Ablaay, 40 Years Old, 5 Years in Italy

Ablaay, a high school graduate from the southern region of Casamance, Senegal, ruminated on the affective qualities of local culture and Romanesco in a similar way to Anta. His maternal languages were Wolof and Jola. He also spoke French and Italian. Throughout the year, he taught Senegalese dance in Rome and, during the summer, performed at festivals throughout Europe. When I interviewed him, he offered me a huge meal of chicken mafé (a delicious dish with peanut sauce). During our conversation about language, he shared the following: La lingua che ho studiato è una lingua buona. Però la lingua che ho imparato nella strada è diversa. Sempre degli insulti, sempre delle battute, capito? Sembra di una lingua della battuta…Quando parlo, quando voglio fare un discorso, parlo la lingua della scuola. Ma quando discuto 16

For instance, Alfa, a 39-year-old man from Dakar who had spent 11 years in Italy, knew first-hand the power of Romanesco when he mused: “Cerco di parlare l’italiano perfettamente. Però se sei a Roma e tu parli con una persona romana, subito tu parli romano.” (I try to speak Italian perfectly. But if you’re in Rome and you talk with a Roman, suddenly you’ll speak Romanesco.)

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con i miei amisci, ogni tanto porto la lingua della strada perché loro mi lo danno proprio. Rispondo così. (The language I studied is the good language. But the language I learned on the street is different. Always insults, always jokes, you know? It sounds like a language for jokes…When I speak, when I want to make a point [or engage in more serious dialogue], I speak the language of school. But when I want to talk with my friends, every now and then I bring the language of the street because that is what they give me. I respond in kind.)

Like Ndour, Ablaay was one of the few interviewees who had attended Italian language classes. Also like Ndour, he expressed value judgments for the different varieties he spoke, labeling the language of class as the “good” language. However, Ablaay differed from Ndour in one very important way. He was less concerned with achieving a perfect “academic” or formal Italian. Instead, his valorization was contextdependent. Standard Italian had many uses, but other varieties had their own charm. The way he spoke with friends allowed him to land insults and jokes more effectively. It also solidified his status in what Lave and Wenger (1991) called a community of practice, where members coalesce around a certain passion and learn from each other.17 In remarking, porto la lingua della strada perché loro mi lo danno proprio (I bring the language of the street because that is what they give me), he made the local variety sound almost like a gift that was shared among his friends. While he never outright named this language, referring to it as la lingua della strada, he could be either talking about Romanesco or an informal register of Italian with local inflections. Regardless, this form diverged from standard Italian, and throughout our discussion, he presented the occasional Romanesco feature such as the intervocalic // in words such as amisci.

17

See also Wenger (1998).

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Kati, 27 Years Old, 6 Months in Italy

Kati, a French journalist of Senegalese descent, was from Paris but had moved to Rome to be with her Italian boyfriend. She spoke Pulaar and French as maternal languages. She had learned English as a foreign language and had picked up Italian through her boyfriend. When I asked her about the linguistic situation in Italy, she responded, Je m’intéresse il dialetto romano. Ça me fait penser un peu au slang. C’est une manière de voir les choses aussi. Parfois c’est beaucoup plus drôle, beaucoup plus imagé, beaucoup plus poétique que l’italien standard. On me dit que c’est mal vu. J’aime bien aussi le sicilien... (The Roman dialect interests me. It makes me think of slang a bit. It is also a way of seeing things. Sometimes it is much funnier, much fuller of imagery, much more poetic than standard Italian. They tell me it’s frowned upon. I also like Sicilian.)

In evoking the poetic imagery of Romanesco, Kati suggested how language was more than just a vehicle to convey information. It had the power to create an ambiance. Language also provided a peek into how a speaker understood their world (“a way of seeing things”). Romanesco, with its colorful images and laughter-inducing ability, with its jokes and insults, offered a linguistic richness that its speakers might not find in standard Italian.

4.7

Badu, 32 Years Old, 9 Years in Italy

While Kati briefly mentioned her appreciation for Sicilian, Badu, from Dakar, shared his opinion of Neapolitan. Badu, who spoke Wolof as his maternal language, had only a couple of years of primary education and, therefore, had not learned a lot of French. He moved to Italy for a change of scenery and found work first as a bouncer, then as a street vendor. In both jobs, he picked up quite a bit of English. He currently worked as a steelworker.

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In our conversation, he mentioned that he could speak some Neapolitan even though he had not spent much time in Naples: Ho imparato il napoletano per i miei amici [senegalesi] che stanno li a Napoli. Quando mi chiamano, parlano tipo napoletano …Quello è difficile, si, ma la lingua è oppure bella. (I learned Neapolitan with my [Senegalese] friends that are there in Naples. When they call me, they speak a kind of Neapolitan…That is difficult, yes, but the language is also beautiful.)

It is important to note the expansive nature of language attitudes and practices among the Senegalese community in Italy. They often went beyond their local environment. Badu had never lived in Naples, but he thought it was valuable to learn the local variety of another region simply because he had friends who spoke it. Even though it was a difficult prospect, it was worth it simply for capturing its beauty.

4.8

Isidore, 33 Years Old, Unknown Amount of Time in Italy

While Badu’s interest in regional varieties outside Rome was impressive, Isidore took this commitment to a whole other level. From Diourbel in central Senegal, Isidore spoke Wolof as his maternal language in addition to Pulaar, French, Portuguese, Italian, and English. After graduating high school, he had gone to Portugal to study for a year and then decided to move to Italy where he worked for an organization that helped recent Senegalese arrivals. Calling himself a polyglot, he proclaimed, “mi piacciono e mi fascinano le lingue” (Languages fascinate me and I like them). He then remarked, “Parlo più il romano che l’italiano perché siamo con i romani qui. Questo è sempre per zona. Quando sono andato a Parma, il mio amico senegalese di Parma parlava italiano di Parma... Dopo cinque giorni, io cercavo di parlare con le loro parole.” (I speak Romanesco more than Italian because we are with Romans here. It is always region dependent. When I went to Parma, my Senegalese friends in Parma spoke the Italian of Parma…After five days, I tried to speak with their words.)

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Isidore’s overarching language ideologies influenced his linguistic practices. Having professed his love of learning languages in general, it was only natural for him to attempt to pick up the local varieties that he encountered in his travels. He valorized these varieties because they allowed him to be accommodating and meet people on their terms.18 As he put it, he spoke Romanesco “because we are with Romans here.” Surveys of Italians’ linguistic practices and attitudes showed that speaking a local variety connected people to their region, home, family, and friends. In much the same way, Isidore opted to learn these varieties when he travelled in order to connect to the communities that mattered to him.

5

Discussion

The qualitative data from this study encapsulated the perspectives of Senegalese in Rome as they reflected on language and linguistic variation. The nine people introduced here often overlapped in how they understood their linguistic experiences while also detailing their unique and variegated relationships with standard Italian, informal Italian, Romanesco, and other nonstandard varieties. They formulated sophisticated ideologies about language acquisition and linguistic practices that help us better understand how people handle the linguistic situations encountered during the process of migration. Many of the interviewees privileged standard language ideologies. For people like Naza, confronting linguistic variation caused frustration because the existence of Romanesco impeded acquisition of the official language. Meanwhile, someone like Ndour saw Romanesco more as a challenge to conquer in his quest for linguistic perfection than a source of frustration. It was almost as if this challenge made his success in learning a high register of Italian that much more satisfying. He was, therefore, motivated by the intrinsic value associated with learning a language for learning’s sake as long as that language was the prestige 18

In Senegal Abroad (2019: 25), I show how practicing linguistic hospitality, along with being multilingual and mobile, was one of the main tenets of what I termed Global Senegality.

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variety.19 Keita’s motivations also stemmed from the overt prestige he attained by aligning himself with the standard language. However, he focused more on the external validation he received when impressing Italians with his language abilities than on the intrinsic value that Ndour cited. Keita also positioned himself against the backdrop of larger societal conversations about language, namely the notion that even Italians did not master the official language of their country. Other interviewees, meanwhile, detailed the draw of nonstandard varieties such as Romanesco by speaking about affect and the emotions tied to language. While Anta argued that standard Italian was better because it could be used throughout Italy, her positive depiction of being called Roman when she traveled indicated certain ownership claims on this localized identity. Her laughter in talking about this experience further proved this positive association with Romanesco. Anta’s perspective also highlighted the tension between Italian as a national language with broad appeal and Romanesco as a regional variety that allowed for tapping into the local culture. Meanwhile, Ablaay and Kati focused on the qualities of the language variety itself (e.g., the language of insults and jokes; colorful, poetic, and funny) as well as the camaraderie it created among friends to articulate its affective nature and value to a given speech community. Anta, Ablaay, and Kati’s ruminations of Romanesco highlighted the covert prestige associated with this nonstandard variety and its construction of a group identity. By speaking in Romanesco or using an informal register of Italian, members of the Senegalese diaspora could create opportunities of integrating into local communities of practice. Finally, other interviewees showed that an investment in varieties other than standard Italian went beyond the confines of Rome. Badu and Isidore homed in on the richness of Italy’s linguistic environment and the desire to travel and take advantage of this expansive linguistic variation. Furthermore, Badu’s enthusiasm for Neapolitan and Isidore’s interest in Parmigiano captured a certain ethos that I found in my larger study on the Senegalese diaspora in Paris, Rome, and New York. Senegalese in diaspora fashion themselves as multilingual travelers where “the convergence of multilingualism and mobility is a way of life” and which bestows 19

See Labov (2006) for a thorough discussion of overt and covert prestige.

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upon them “an overwhelming sense of pleasure and prestige” (Smith 2019: 31). Importantly, while my data suggest that Senegalese migrants achieved covert prestige with communities they encountered throughout Italy, they were not necessarily looking to integrate in order to settle down. Learning local varieties was instead part of a larger practice of multilingual mobility. All the excerpts included in this chapter contribute to language ideology theorization. While language ideologies emerge from personal experiences with languages and the communities that speak them, these ideologies also travel and evolve during the process of migration. For the Senegalese I interviewed in Rome, they developed complex ideas about language through socialization, schooling, and national discourses while in Senegal and then adapted these attitudes in their new contexts. They picked up on Italian societal discourses about standard language and nonstandard varieties as well as filtered these ideologies through a perspective rooted both in Senegal’s postcolonial linguistic hierarchy and its dynamic multilingualism. All of these considerations influenced my interviewees’ relationships with, attitudes about, and uses of the range of language varieties they encountered in Rome and in Italy at large.

References 2007. Italian becomes official language ... of Italy. Reuters. https://www.reu ters.com/article/oukoe-uk-italy-language/italian-becomes-official-languageof-italy-idUKL3041879820070330. Accessed 7 July 2021. 2017. Rough guide to Rome’s most used expressions. Wanted in Rome. https:// www.wantedinrome.com/news/rough-guide-to-romes-most-used-expres sions.html. Accessed 7 July 2021. Belli, Giuseppe Gioachino. 1978. Sonetti, ed. Giorgio Vigolo. Milan: Mondadori. Berruto, Gaetano. 1987. Sociolinguistica dell’italiano contemporaneo. Rome: La Nuova Italia Scientifica.

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Lave, Jean, and Etienne Wenger. 1991. Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Legge 15 Dicembre 1999, n. 482. http://www.parlamento.it/parlam/leggi/994 82l.htm. Accessed 7 July 2021. Leone, Andrea R. 2014. Ideologies of personhood: A Citizen sociolinguistic case study of the Roman dialect. Working Papers in Educational Linguistics 29(2): 81–105. Lepschy, Anna Laura, and Giulio Lepschy. 2016. The ‘Standard’ pronunciation of Italian and Giuseppe Gioachino Belli. The Italianist 36 (3): 471–477. McLaughlin, Fiona. 2008. Senegal: The emergence of a national lingua franca. In Language and national identity in Africa, ed. Andrew Simpson, 79–97. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Migliorini, Bruno, and Thomas Gwynfor Griffith. 1984. The Italian language. London: Faber and Faber. Nozzoli, Ginerva. 2020. Istat, a Roma aumenta la popolazione grazie agli stranieri. I numeri romani del nuovo censimento. Roma Today. https://www. romatoday.it/politica/istat-censimento-2019-comune-roma-.html. Accessed 7 July 2021. O’Brien, Donal Cruise. 1998. The Shadow-politics of Wolofisation. Journal of Modern African Studies 36 (1): 25–46. Orton, Marie. 2012. Writing the nation: Migration literature and national identity. Italian Culture 30 (1): 21–37. Parry, Mair. 2002. The Challenges to multilingualism today. In Multilingualism in Italy past and present, ed. Anna Laura Lepschy and Arturo Tosi, 47–59. Cambridge: Legenda. Pollett, Andrea. 2021. Introduzione al dialetto romanesco. Roma virtuale. http://roma.andreapollett.com/S8/dialetto.htm. Accessed 7 July 2021. Pratt, Kenneth J. 1966. The Dialect of Rome. Italica 43 (2): 167–179. Ravaro, Fernando. 2005. Dizionario romanesco. Roma: Newton Compton. Riccio, Bruno. 2002. Senegal is our home: The anchored nature of Senegalese transnational networks. In New approaches to migration?: Transnational communities and the transformation of home, ed. Nadje Sadig Al-Ali and Khalid Koser, 68–83. London: Routledge. Riccio, Bruno. 2003. More than a trade diaspora: Senegalese transnational experiences in Emilia-Romagna (Italy). In New African Diasporas, ed. Khalid Koser, 95–110. London: Routledge. Riccio, Bruno. 2006. Migranti per il co-sviluppo tra Italia e Senegal: Il caso di Bergamo. CeSPI . http://www.cespi.it/it/ricerche/migranti-il-co-sviluppotra-italia-e-senegal-il-caso-di-bergamo. Accessed 7 July 2021.

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9 Immigrants as New Speakers of Italo-Romance Dialects: A Study of Sociolinguistic Representations in the Emilia-Romagna Region Valeria Villa-Perez

1

Introducing the Research on linguae minores and Immigrants

When the subject of linguae minores (Berruto 2016) is approached, that is to say “le ‘piccole’ lingue romanze, le lingue romanze non assurte a lingua nazionale standard” (Berruto 2016: 11), among which we can include the Italo-Romance dialects (Berruto 2018: 497), the dominance relation with a lingua maior almost always raises the question of the linguae minores’ vitality. In all likelihood, it can be affirmed that V. Villa-Perez (B) Jean Monnet University, Saint-Étienne, France e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 F. Goglia and M. Wolny (eds.), Italo-Romance Dialects in the Linguistic Repertoires of Immigrants in Italy, Palgrave Studies in Minority Languages and Communities, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-99368-9_9

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Italo-Romance dialects1 are endangered languages because, despite their presence and visibility within the public space, “[their] value within the linguistic market has not substantially increased” (Berruto 2018: 520). Although the concept of vitality might be vague (a language can be extremely, very, not very vital, etc.), the biology metaphor suggests that a language has the same characteristics as a living organism and at the same time that this organism could not live without the speakers using it. The concepts of ethnolinguistic vitality (cf. Giles 2001) and of representations (cf.—among others—Moscovici 1961; Boyer 1990; Jaffe 2020) are hence intertwined with that of lingua minor ,2 influencing its learning and discovery for both native and non-native speakers. It can be said that in a situation of linguistic immersion for immigrants and in a multilingual context, vitality plays a double and imbricated role. On one hand, the use and the learning process of a lingua minor can be influenced by the representations that the speakers have of it and, consequently, this factor conditions the language’s vitality; on the other hand, non-natives can build representations on dialects if they have a minimal vitality. As a matter of fact, the vitality and the dominance3 1 As the introduction of this book has highlighted, the designation of dialect has mostly no pejorative connotation and is often used by speakers and Italian researchers. Nonetheless, we cannot deny that this term is in opposition to a more noble one, language, as in Italy only a few idioms are officially recognised as languages (for example, the ones from the linguistic minorities defined by the Law 482 from 1999). The European terminology of “minority or regional language” does not seem appropriate to replace the word dialect since the European Charter of Regional or Minority Languages (Council of Europe 1992) “explicitly do not include dialects of the official language(s)” among regional or minority languages, hence overlooking the important distinction between primary versus secondary/tertiary dialect” (Berruto 2018: 497). In addition to this, the Charter does not distinguish between “regional” and “minority” language (Colonna 2020: 93), a distinction which would be without a doubt a very useful (Dall’Aquila and Iannaccaro 2004: 105–107), at least for considerations on the possible application of the concept of regional language to the context of Italian dialects (Berruto 2018: 497), where a well-rooted academic tradition divides, for example, dialects from minority languages (cf. VillaPerez 2021). Berruto suggests, as we have been pointing out, the terms lingua minor or langue collatérale (Eloy quoted by Berruto 2018: 497). 2 In this contribution, we would use as synonyms lingua minor , dialect, Italo-Romance dialect and local idiom. 3 Moretti (2015: 236) distinguishes four specific cases: a situation of the dominance of the dialect, a situation of the dominance of the standard language, a classic situation of diglossia, a situation where the distribution of languages is less transparent than in a context of classic diglossia.

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of linguae minores within the society, in other words the nature and extent of the domains interested by the use of dialects, can influence the learning choices of the newcomers and determine some “variazioni per esempio nelle motivazioni per l’apprendimento e nella quantità di input che gli apprendenti ricevono” (Moretti 2015: 236). In contexts like Italy where the national language is dominant and dialects are subordinate systems, the question arises to “who” learns the dialect, “how”, “when”, “where”, “with which prior linguistic knowledge” and “why”, as Moretti (2015: 234) reformulating Fishman (1965) stated. Besides, the small number of studies in the field of learning/acquisition of dialects by migrants—and vice versa, the profusion of works on the acquisition of Italian—has been interpreted in the past by some researchers (e.g. Bernini 2001: 53) as evidence that Italians do not speak in dialect to non-natives. Yet, there is indeed a transmission of these languages to non-natives, but how, when and where does it take place? The Italian studies in the field of sociolinguistics of immigration (e.g. Amoruso 2002; D’Agostino 2004; Guerini 2008; Santipolo Tucciarone 2004; Villa 2015; Villa-Perez 2018) showed that the speakers of dialects do not constitute a homogeneous linguistic community and may be Italian (or not) and/or of second generations of immigrants. In the regions where these languages benefit from an important vitality like in Sicily or in Veneto, migrants can also develop forms of Italian-dialect bilingualism. However—and without making any contradiction—we will show that the vitality criterion is not the only one to determine the discovery and the use of the local idiom. The sociolinguistic representations in this regard and social networks4 (Milroy 1987) play an equally important role—even if they do not entirely explain a very complex Italian dynamic.

4

In his works, Milroy (1987) defines social networks as the total set of relations, links, or contacts an individual has with others (for example the family circle, friends, the professional circle, etc.) which influences their language practices.

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In this paper, we want to re-examine some excerpts from our field survey made in Emilia-Romagna with adult migrants (Villa 20145 ) in the light of recent theoretical elements. We intend to assess to what extent the analysis of our study’s data provide information not only on Italians’ dialect representations but also on their vitality. We are therefore basing our current study on the hypothesis that first-generation migrant citizens6 could be considered as “new speakers” who contribute to the preservation and upholding of the linguae minores. Thus, we will start with the illustration of the theoretical framework, then the context of the study, and the methodology aspects; finally, we will present the analysis of the data at the base of our conclusive considerations.

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Theoretical Issues of the Study

The theories on “representations”, resulting from works in the fields of social psychology and sociolinguistics will be the key to examine the construction of representations of the dialects from Emilia-Romagna and Italy in the records of migrants made during the field study. The data will be analysed according to a double grid: on one hand, the sociogenetic model by Moscovici (1961)—based on the process of objectification and anchorage—on the other hand, the sociolinguistic model by Boyer (1990), which makes a distinction between representations and stereotypes (Boyer 2007) regarding minority languages. Back to the defining questions. A social representation is “an indistinguishable set of cognitive elements related to a social object”, an interpretation and understanding grid of reality, composed of opinions, 5

The main research question of our Ph.D. was focused both on the role the knowledge of dialects and representations about Italian sociolinguistic landscape and Italians’ repertoire played in the socialisation practices between immigrants and Italians and more generally in the social integration process. 6 An answer on the Sicilian regional level is given in this volume by Mari D’Agostino who compares the results of two field studies, both made between 2000 and 2018.

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beliefs and knowledge that are “specific to a culture, a category, or a social group and related to objects from the social environment” (Rateau and Lo Monaco 2013: 4). This set has four principal characteristics: it is “organised” (the elements maintain relations), “shared” in the same social group, “collectively produced” and “socially useful7 ” (Rateau and Lo Monaco 2013: 4). The representations of languages do not elude this dynamic. If the representations on dialects from the interviewed migrants are taken into consideration, they are interesting in many ways and recall the representations, stereotypes and conversations of Italians. As a matter of fact, the processing of the present “is never secludedly done and we always do it by interacting with someone else” (Rateau and Lo Monaco 2013: 3) and its reconstruction is built with an eye to the past: A social representation has as the fundamental property of being historical. This means on one hand that it comes from history understood as the becoming of societies, and on the other hand, that it has a history understood as a logical temporal development typically connecting genesis, transformation, and decline. Hence, this representation is at the same time a product of the future and a future product. (Rouquette 1994: 179)

This look at the past is essential to make assumptions on the way the representations of non-natives are built through interactions with others. The representations of Italian speakers do not disregard the formerly relations of diglossia and currently “dilalia”8 between Italian language and the dialects. Boyer, quoting Lafont, specifies that: A linguistic use never exists without its representation. The metalinguistic faculty that men have and enables them to reflect on their language at any given time of the linguistic production in a situation of diglossia, becomes 7

Translated by the author of this article. Berruto (2018: 497) described “dilalia” as follow: “the concept […] was introduced by Berruto (1987b; 1989a) to capture the cases in which a clear functional differentiation exists (with a High variety and a Low variety), as in (classic) diglossia, but unlike diglossia, there is a functional overlap in spoken domains, with both L and H varieties used in ordinary conversation and primary socialization”.

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a reflection on diglossia itself. The interaction between practices and the representation of these practices hence create an indivisible set. (Lafont 1980: 82 in Boyer 1990: 108)

Consequently, we can use the term “sociolinguistic” representations because—just like attitudes—they are fully an object of study of sociolinguistics, which is “indivisibly a linguistics of social uses of the language(s) and of the representations of this/these language(s) and its/their social uses, identifying both consensus and conflicts (Apothéloz 1982) and hence tries to analyse linguistics and social dynamics9 ” (Boyer 1990: 104). Jaffe (2020: 70) calls them “linguistic representations”, which, at an individual level, are “observable in discursive practice including: (a) explicit metalinguistic commentary and acts of evaluation (aesthetic, pragmatic, moral, normative, etc.) (b) the labelling of codes (“language”, “patois” etc.)”; then, at an individual and collective level “individual and collective LRs reflect, embody and are windows on dominant discourses, models, schemas and stereotypes related to languages, language practices and speakers” (Jaffe 2020: 70). If we want to consider Italo-romance dialects’ ethnolinguistic vitality in discourses of immigrants about their language practices or Italians’ language practises, an objective or subjective approach can be chosen. The objective approach focuses, for example, on status, demographic or institutional data. The subjective one concentrates on investigating attitudes and representations about the group’s linguistic vitality. The group perceptions are extremely important: Giles (2001: 473) underlined that “vitality is not a static factor but, rather, a malleable social construction depending on social group membership and fluctuating socio-political circumstances”. Nevertheless, as in most studies about endangered languages, the concept of “membership” does not include non-native speakers or, to be more precise, immigrants. This is the reason why it would be difficult to define the profile of migrant speakers from a sociolinguistic point of view since the literature does not seem to take into consideration nontraditional and outside-the-native-community speakers, as we noticed 9

Translated by the author of this article.

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with the UNESCO criteria (2003) regarding speakers of endangered languages. Even in the categorisation made by Bert and Grinevald (2010), the competences of the migrants cannot be located. These authors identify fluent or traditional speakers (total language acquisition), semispeakers (with partial language acquisition, but with a complete reception), terminal speakers (who have some receptive competences and limited production), rememberers (partially competent individuals), ghost speakers (denying their linguistic competences) and neo-speakers (who learned the language in revitalisation programs). As a matter of fact, if the last category includes outsiders to the community, they are not speakers who learned an endangered language in informal contexts. With this in mind, we will present the context of our study and the methodology implemented.

3

The Research Context and Methodological Aspects

The interview is one of the favoured means for the analysis of the speakers ’ representations. We have set this methodological tool during the field study carried out in Emilia-Romagna region (between 2009 and 2014), by combining a qualitative approach with a sociolinguistic perspective of the “proximity methodology” (Rispail et al. 2018). Such a methodology takes place in: A proximity logic [that is] practiced as closely as possible to the phenomena one wishes to bring light to, to the actors who embody them, to the context holding them, but also to the researchers who examine them with all their theoretical and experiential sensitivity.10 (Paille 2011)

This Italian region, located in the North East of Italy, experiences a reduced use of dialects compared to regions like Veneto or Sicily. As an example, in 2006, the mixed use of Italian and dialects was 29% within 10

Translated by the author of this article.

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the family circle, 30.8% with friends and 21.4% with strangers (ISTAT 2014: 6). In 2012, an important decrease of the exclusive use of dialects was observed, yet a rise of the combined use of the local languages and Italian could be noticed: 35.1% of the speakers use these languages with their families, 32.1% with friends, 14.2% with strangers (ISTAT 2014: 6). To summarise, while it is true that the use of the dialect in every social situation becomes scarce in Emilia-Romagna, a limited dynamism remains. In the informal sphere, the alternation of codes in the form of code-mixing and code-switching between Italian and dialect is more common (Foresti 2009). These sociolinguistic dimensions are decisive to understand how the migrants’ language socialisation takes place in regions where the vitality of dialects is decreasing, as opposed to regions where the vitality of dialects is still high, such as the case of Sicily and Veneto mentioned before. To do this, we interviewed 51 informants of disparate origins, of age ranging from 18 to 60, living in Italy for at least a year and for no longer than 10 years. Migrants have mostly been interviewed in their workplace (stores, private houses, parks, etc.), which seemed to be a decisive criterion for the increased possibility of contact and socialisation with natives in a professional context and within the urban space. Most informants are from Bangladesh (10), Pakistan (8) and China (7). This disparity of origins11 can also be explained by greater presence of certain communities in the commercial sectors in Bologna’s and Forli’s12 centres, where the interviews took place.13 Most of the informants had plurilingual skills: nearly all of the informants (42/51) knew at least two languages besides their first languages. More generally, about twenty different languages are mentioned. 11

We chose not to focus on a specific community to have an idea on integration through the dialects of immigrants coming from several countries and also because of the migratory polycentrism which characterises Italy. 12 Hence a lesser number of women (20 women and 30 men), less present in those business sectors. We will not take into account differences between the use of dialects in Bologna or Forlì which are not significant. 13 To do so, we selected in this contribution some excerpts from interviews with migrants working in the urban commerce sector, men and women, interviewed equally in Bologna and Forlì.

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The plurilingual experience of the migrants—and the possibility to compare the sociolinguistic context of the country of origin—has also influenced the representations of the dialects and contributed to the objectification of the components of the Italian sociolinguistic space.

4

Analysis: Migrants and Dialects of Emilia-Romagna and Other Dialects

In this section, we will show that the analysis of the interviews highlights the possibility to formulate some hypothesis on the construction of the non-natives’ representations of dialects of Emilia-Romagna, and also of other dialects of the peninsula. It is also possible to draw some considerations about their influence on the interactions between migrants and Italians, and the dynamics of contact with these languages. In order to do so, and to observe the dynamics of transmission and discovery of the dialects by immigrants, we will consider some excerpts taken from our data taking inspiration from four (out of nine14 ) factors by UNESCO (2003) with the aim of estimating the linguistic vitality in the linguistic repertoire of immigrants. Since the aim of this chapter is to observe both speakers’ (immigrants) representations on dialects in socialisation practices with Italians and the vitality of these languages in the region studied, as modestly indicated in our data, we decided to base our demonstration on UNESCO factors about endangered languages, as we can consider Emilia-Romagna dialects. Among those criteria, only the ones referring to the transmission between generations (intergenerational language transmission, 1), to the speakers (absolute number of speakers 2, the proportion of speakers within the total population, 3) and their attitudes (community members’ attitudes towards their language, 8) have been kept, as the others parameters did not explicitly relate to the speakers, the focus of our study. 14

Others UNESCO’ factors for the evaluation of the vitality of an endangered language are: trends in existing language domains (4), response to new domains and media (5), materials for language education and literacy (6), governmental and institutional language attitudes and policies including official status and use (7), amount and quality of documentation (9).

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Intergenerational Language Transmission and Immigrants

We will begin by analysing the topic of intergenerational language transmission. No matter if a speaker is Italian of origin or not, the question of transmission of dialects always arises. The most common example is the familial transmission (by parents and grandparents). Nonetheless, the young informant Mus., a receptionist in a university of Bologna, of Moroccan origins and schooled in Italy since primary school, affirms to have learned the Bolognese—as many children and young Italians—by “exposition” (Berruto 2018: 518): on the bus and in the streets: Ex. 115 Val. E come l’hai imparato il dialetto? And how did you learn the dialect? Mus. Il dialetto? A sentire parlare i nonni in autobus tutte le mattine. The dialect? By listening to the grandpas in the bus every morning. Val. (ride) (she laughs) Mus. Sì:: con i nonni in giro che senti parlare, poi magari anche gli amici Yes with the grandpas we can hear speaking then also maybe friends Val. E secondo te+ il dialetto dove si parla? And according to you Where is the dialect spoken? […] Mus. Lo parlano dai nonni in piazza fino ai nonni in autobus + perché poi il dialetto adesso generalmente lo parlano solamente i nonni e giovani adesso tendono a perdere il dialetto Grandpas speak the dialect in the square or on the bus because then today the dialect generally is spoken only by grandpas and young people now have the tendency to forget the dialect. Val. A scuola quando eri al liceo, nessuno? i ragazzi non parlavano in dialetto? 15 The transcription conventions are as follows: Abc Participants are identified with the three initial letters of their name; + pause within the turn; ::: phonological elongation; BOLD indicates emphasis or increase in voice volume; [ superimposed utterances; […] deliberate omission of some items; ((xxx)) intervention by the transcriber; Italics highlights expressions or words in Italo-Roman dialects.

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And at school when you were in high school, nobody? Young people did not speak in dialect? Mus. Ma pochissimo, c’è proprio l’uno per cento c’è ti dico, dai lo senti, dai in giro Very very few, one percent of young people there I tell you: we can hear it in the street.

For Mus., the favoured speakers of dialects are elderly and Italian is the dominant language for the language practices of young people in Bologna. Here, the external environment forms the main context of knowledge of dialects and an opportunity to elaborate on the representations. Regarding his statement about the knowledge of Bolognese, the subjective value in the expression “to know or to speak a dialect” (and this matter also applies to Italians) should be noted: for some people, this means to sporadically use words or expressions, while for others, to “speak Italian” could correspond to the use of an italianised dialect (Ruffino 2006). This informant also attributed to the dialect an identity and cultural value, as we can see in Example 2: Ex. 2 Val. Che cos’è per te il dialetto? What does the dialect mean to you? Mus. Il dialetto bolognese è quello che la gente::: è quello che identifica Bologna↓ ecco! è un’identificazione:: perché:: se tu conosci il dialetto bolognese:: vuol dire che conosci i bolognesi↓ VUOL DIRE culturalmente sai↑ che quel dialetto viene parlato in quel determinato posto+ e quindi è un’identificazione. c’è:: non puoi parlare il dialetto bolognese a Napoli (ride) The Bolognese dialect is what people this is what identifies Bologna, there! This is an identification because if you know the Bolognese dialect That means you know Bolognese people THAT MEANS that you culturally know that such a dialect is spoken in such specific place and so this is an identification. You can’t speak the Bolognese dialect in Naples.

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We can witness here, through the interview, the anchorage completing the objectification of this representation, the reflection of which is underlined by “ecco!” (you see) “è un’identificazione” (it’s an identification). With regard to the subject of anchorage, we can leverage what was stated by Rateau and Lo Monaco (2013: 8): “the new object is to be assimilated to already known forms, to familiar categories. At the same time, it will be part of a network of significations which are already present”.16 The central function of social networks (links in various contexts with the natives) for the discovery of Bolognese is also highlighted: if you know the Bolognese dialect, that means you know Bolognese people. The next excerpt, relating some parts of the conversation with Cri., a young Romanian woman interviewed in a café, highlights the centrality of social networks. Even if she has few opportunities to hear the Sicilian, spoken by her boyfriend, she can give examples of sentences of dialects of Apulia. Ex. 3 Val. Ah e come conosci il dialetto del sud? How do you know the dialects of the South? Cri. Ah sempre così a parlare con i ragazzi:: + o a lavorare tipo: quando lavoravo prima all’ippodromo eravamo in tanti ↓ albanesi: rumeni e la maggior parte degli italiani erano quelli venuti dal sud pugliesi + che facevano medicina qua a Bologna e parlavano così un po’ tra di loro + o magari quando si doveva dire una cosa:: la dicevano così: ce si bedda (ride) perce ridi addu stai vin a qua:: in dialetto per far un po’ ridere. Ahalways like that speaking with young peopl or working for exampl When I was working at the racetrack, we were many Albanians, Romanians and most of the Italians were the ones coming from the South Apulia + who studied medicine here in Bologna and they talked a bit like that between them or else when they had to say something they said it like that You’re pretty (she laughs) why are you laughing where are you? come here in dialect as a joke.

16

Translated by the author of this article.

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Here, still in Bologna, in another professional context, the protagonists of Cri.’s story are young students from Apulia from the faculty of medicine. The dialect is part of their language repertoire, which goes against stereotypes on dialect speakers as being little or even not schooled and underprivileged. Like in Apulia, Sicilian dialect is used by young people—in a continuum and alongside other languages—as communicative and expressive resource and as a form of “polylanguaging”, which Alfonzetti (2017: 450) defined as follows: young educated speakers move along a continuum, going from the ‘entirely pure’ end of standard Italian to the opposite end of entirely ‘impure uses’, with the intentional mixing of different varieties of Italian: regionalisms, technical terms, jargon words, very formal and informal styles, hybridisms, real switches into the Sicilian dialect or other regional dialects (especially Roman), loanwords and switches into several foreign languages, such as English, French, Spanish, etc. Latinisms and Latin quotations are also quite frequent, due to the fact that speakers are mostly university students in humanities, who exploit the values of culture and erudition traditionally associated with classical languages in order to build up their polyhedral identity. (Alfonzetti 2017: 450)

Furthermore, the joint use of dialects and other languages among young people reminds us of the dominance of the alternating of codes and limited and controlled use (“parlavano cosi un po’”) of the local idiom with a playful purpose (“in dialetto per scherzare”). Alfonzetti employed a fitting metaphor and compared the sporadic and humorous use of the dialects by young Italian speakers from upper and middle classes to wearing ripped jeans: a fashion trend, not a sign of poverty (2009: 245). She added that an unmoderated use of the dialect would lead to a social sanction: Mi sembra quindi controversa l’opinione secondo cui un consolidato rapporto con l’italiano renda più serena la valutazione del dialetto: stereotipi, opinioni negative e pregiudizi nei confronti dei giovani che parlino veramente in dialetto permangono. (Alfonzetti 2009: 245)

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The informants also gave representations of dialect speakers, often by associating the elderly or, for example, by dismissing in this category children, underlining their potential shame in using dialects. This representation echoes the natives’ opinions. Jaffe (2020: 71) clarifies on this point that “individual LRs are: a. stances or positions of speakers relative to language practices in the immediate communicative context and/or to circulating discursive regimes, b. both structured by and constitutive of collective ones”. As a matter of fact, the dialect has been (and in all likelihood still is) perceived as the language of adults, its use most of the time being forbidden to children, at least during the phase of language acquisition of Italian (Alfonzetti 2009: 241). Children learn at school that the linguistic choice, non-marked and adapted to this kind of formal context, is Italian. Speaking in the dialect is a marked linguistic choice, unapproved by the teachers, who usually discipline the children (Guerini 2011: 110) who use it. Language policy in education is a powerful conveyor of representations on the linguistic market, and their influence in the promotion (or the depreciation) of individual plurilingualism is no longer to be proven. As a matter of fact, if the representations are progressive, stereotypes are much harder to get rid of. In a rather recent article, published in the Italian newspapers, a teacher of a Liceo Classico from the South condemns the weaknesses of her pupils from Calabria in Italian, pointing out the causes: precarious social situations and constant and harmful use of the dialect. In this article the use of dialects by some of her colleagues in class is also criticised (Corriere della Sera, 10.07.201917 ). Finally, these data modestly showed to what extent the question of transmission of dialects is a complex dynamic overtaking generational dimensions, both for natives and non-natives. The youngest learn the dialects with their peers, on the internet,18 or thanks to the surrounding context that can substitute the central role of the family as a traditional place of transmission.

17

Cf. Macrì, Carlo. 2019. Io, professoressa del Sud, tra studenti abituati a comunicare in dialetto. Corriere della Sera, July 17. 18 Social media (Facebook, Instagram, etc.) are a new domain of Italo-Romance dialects which shows their use and vitality.

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Proportion of Speakers Within the Total Population: Which Place for Migrants?

If we go back to criteria 2 and 3 of the UNESCO factors (2003) on speakers and their number, and if among those speakers we also add migrants, taking the examples of the corpus, it becomes difficult to describe with precision the type of dialect speaker that the migrants belong to. The views of the informants are not always unanimous on this point. According to Mat., a young Chinese man, learning the dialect of Forli is not useful for his job in a café, where most of the customers are young (and implicitly not supposed to speak the dialects). Ex. 4 Val. Cosa pensi del dialetto? What do you think about the dialect? Mat. No nel mio lavoro no+ però:: è bello comunque per il mio lavoro non serve No in my job no+ but it is beautiful anyway but for my job it is not useful Val. Non serve It is not useful: Mat. Sì perché noi soprattutto tutti ragazzi giovani Yes because here mostly young people Val. Secondo te dove si parla il dialetto? According to you where is the dialect spoken? Mat. Secondo me:: dove parlano molto:: quei posti dove che girano gente anziani+ che a loro preferiscono parlare con dialetto + ad esempio vai circolo, vai qualsiasi circolo comunista, repubblicano loro parlano tantissimo↓ dialetto According to meWhere they speak a lot :: those places where older people go they’d rather speak in dialect for example you go to the club, any communist, republican club they speak a lot in dialect

On the other hand, the use of dialects is once again associated with elders and “clubs”—places of political meetings, typical of the Emilia-Romagna region—and reinforces the idea of the presence of local idioms within the urban space. Usually, it can be said that the representations of the dialects

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of this region are not negative, which can also seem paradoxical because it can be observed: an inverse relationship between the re-evaluation of a dialect and its diffusion in use: a dialect may still be stigmatized in regions where it is relatively more frequently used (the South), while speakers’ opinions toward it have become more positive in regions where it is less used (the North-West). (Berruto 2018: 507)

The representation according to which non-natives are not speakers of dialects is also widespread among migrants. In the next excerpt, Sof., a Chinese shop assistant seller in clothes shop in the centre of Forlì, affirms that she does not know any dialect except for some Roman words. Ex. 5 Val. E tu conosci qualche dialetto italiano? And do you know any Italian dialect? Sof. Italiano no magari se uno parla un po’ romanaccio capisco però altre no Not Italian, maybe if someone speaks a bit of Roman I can understand but not the other ones Val. E ti viene in mente qualche parola? And can you think of any word? Sof. Eh::: annamo (ride)? Ah ho degli amici che parlano dialetti romanaccio che sono proprio cinesi ma parlano romanaccio. Let’s go (she laughs)? AhI have some friends who speak Roman dialects who really are Chinese but they speak Roman.

This case is very specific, because of its rarity compared to other examples from the corpus, since the exposition to the dialectal/regional variety of Rome has been verified thanks to the informant’s Chinese friends, Italoromance dialects’ “new speakers”. To define this variety, Sof. uses the term “romanaccio” which is also a regional and local naming referring to Roman (D’Achille 2007: 260). Indeed, the latter possesses three different linguistic labels: “romano”, “romanesco” and “romanaccio”, the latter

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reiterating with the suffix “-accio” the pejorative value,19 also signalled by the suffix “-esco”20 (D’Achille 2001). This given example (the imperative annamo) triggers an interesting memory: some of her Chinese friends can speak Roman despite the fact that they are Chinese first-generation immigrants (“sono proprio cinesi”).

4.3

Community Members’ Attitudes Towards Their “Own” Language

This last example partially disputes criterion 8, which implicitly shows (“their own language”) natives as favoured speakers of dialects and hence dismisses migrants or external members of the community. That being said, most of the interviews implicitly show, as previously highlighted, the attitudes and representations of “the others”. Among the second generations in Veneto, for example, the Veneto dialect is spoken with Italian friends or companions, which seems to indicate that the dialect mainly mixed with Italian belongs to the linguistic repertoire of the second generation. Some pupils may even perceive it as the code to learn and use in the domain of communication with peers, where it loses the negative associations of its use in the school context by adults (whether native or immigrant 21 ). (Goglia and Fincati 2017: 514)

In the sixth excerpt, Gia., a Ukrainian informant, immediately establishes a dichotomy between the use of the dialect in the private, family, informal spheres (the dialect being a language spoken mostly within the family) and the public, institutional, formal spheres where, on the contrary, the dialect is ruled out and where it is even “inappropriate”.

19

We cannot make hypothesis about the connotation (positive or negative) given by the informant to the term “romanaccio”. 20 From the Renaissance era until the Unity of Italy, the progressive Toscanization of Rome language has taken place because of the presence in the Papal court of the upper classes of Roman society, often not from Latium, and who used Italian and not the dialect. The latter was, on the other hand, the code of the most underprivileged circles. This situation hence explains the pejorative naming of “romanesco” instead of “romano” (D’Achille 2001). 21 This is our underlining.

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Ex. 6 Val. L’ultima domanda. Secondo te dove si parla il dialetto in città? Last question. According to you, where is the dialect spoken in town? Gia. In città:::? Credo che di più a casa parlano. Vuoi dire di questo genere? Che le famiglie in casa parlano di più:: perché comunque quando vai in un ufficio non è una cosa molto adatta:: direi (ride) e così per strada per esempio quando incontrano gli amici+ ad esempio i compaesani come si dice? Si può [ dire?] In town? I think they speak more at home. Do you mean things like that? Families at home speak more because when you go to an office it is not an appropriate thing anyway I’d say (she laughs) and like that in the street when they meet friends for example compatriots how do we say? Can we say that? Val. [Sì sì Yes yes

In all likelihood, we can venture the hypothesis that this emerging representation of diglossia has been influenced by natives or that it was constructed based on the observation of legitimised or disapproved contexts of dialects. The last example under study relates to the knowledge of Italian accents. Mic., who is a young Romanian, says she can recognise the Neapolitan accent, which has a trait of coarseness, a widely spread stereotype among Italians, which can even be applied to a greater extent to all the Southern accents. Some studies (for example Di Ferrante 2007: 338) showed the stigmatisation of the Neapolitan accent, which is associated with a low socio-professional condition, a low level of study, and even sometimes links with the organised crime. Ex. 7 Val. Eh:: conosci altri accenti italiani? EhDo you know any other Italian accents? Mic. Se sento qualcuno che parla:: napoletano o di giù:: o di Milano o da qualche parte:: mi accorgo dall’accento:: però del resto:: non è che conosco altri dialetti::

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If I hear someone speakNeapolitan or from there or from Milan or elsewhere I can recognize the accent but by the way I don’t know any other dialects. Val. E il napoletano come lo riconosci? And how do you recognise the Neapolitan? Mic. Ma perché è molto grezzo! Si sente (ride) ti accorgi subito But because it is very coarse! When you hear it(she laughs) you can tell right away

Some reflections can be expressed on stereotypes of migrants regarding particular linguistic varieties, in other words, “a fossilised and stigmatising representation” (Boyer 1990: 103). We can infer that they are due to the will to distance oneself from a group of speakers, even to the refusal to be part of this social or regional category, which a determined language is associated with (Dal Negro and Guerini 2007: 130–132). This consideration seems relevant when reading the stereotypes of foreigners against their often-disapproved accents. As a matter of fact, the naming used to designate Italians from the South (“quelli di giù”) enables her to distance herself and at the same time to claim the affiliation to Northern Italy. We can make the hypothesis that this detachment may be an identity act, like Le Page and Andrée Tabouret-Keller did by underlining, on one hand, the way people tend to wish to be similar in their language behaviour to the groups they want to be identified with, and on the other hand, how they tend to distance themselves from the groups they want to be distinguished from (Le Page and Tabouret-Keller 1985: 181). Finally, the migrants’ social network is fundamental in the formation of sociolinguistic representations and stereotypes regarding regional varieties and dialects, upon which ambivalent attitudes of the natives have a real influence and repercussions: it is the environment that is more influential – the language at home, street, school, and mass media […]. Not only do situational variables seem more important in links with attitude to bilingualism, but there is the notion of such attitudes being part of the social norms and values. (Baker 1992: 93)

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This ambivalence is most noticeable in the South of Italy. Former studies dating back to the 1980s, about the attitudes of the speakers from the South of Italy regarding their accents and dialectal varieties, showed that while natives ascribe some qualities linked to an identity and a common sharing to the dialects, they still tend to auto-denigrate them. This attitude can be considered as a form of auto-odi (self-hatred) a concept that must be approached within its complexity and linked to a sacralisation of this apparently contradictory language: evoking auto-odi as it is, could have initially implied that this psycholanguage manifestation, that we will first define as a manifestation of hostility and disdain toward the group of origin after an identification of the speaker with the dominant group (Ninyoles 1969; Kremnitz 1990), could be understood as an autonomous set reflecting through attitudes and speeches exclusively articulated around the notion of disdain, and self-disdain in this case. […] We assert once more that the idea of autoodi as a conflictual manifestation, should, on the contrary, be approached within its complexity and in its apparent oppositions.22 (Colonna 2016: 181–182)

5

Conclusive Issues: Immigrants as New Italo-Romance Dialect Speakers?

The analysed data highlighted an important point: the elaboration of the representations of the dialects from Emilia-Romagna is not independent from the representation of natives. Besides, the circulation of the languages and their speakers just as the internal mobility (of Italians or migrants) led to the following observation: the interviewed migrants had some knowledge “about” and “of ” the dialects of Emilia-Romagna and other areas. If the criterion of vitality is decisive for Italo-romance dialects’ transmission and to determine the discovery and the use of the local idiom, other factors are important, among which the social network of the migrants, leading (or not leading) to opportunities of dialects’ exposition. 22

Translated by the author of this article.

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As we mentioned in the introduction, we aimed to re-examine and extend the analysis of our field research in the light of theoretical studies linking sociolinguistic representations and endangered language vitality and in the light of our major hypothesis about first-generation immigrants as “new speakers”. The latter is a point worth thinking about at least for two imbricated reasons. Firstly, even though, according to the equivalence principle, research about dialects should treat them as other languages, in fact, they occupy a strange or marginal position in the field of (socio)linguistic studies— this is called by Moretti “dialects’ paradox” (Moretti 2015: 227–228)—in particular if we think about studies on the acquisition by non-native speakers. Secondly, this is maybe the reason why it is difficult to find a concept to define their status of outsider speakers of the regional community: one should go beyond the inner identity dimensions and the sense of belonging linked to those languages and, more importantly, go beyond the representation of a traditional (and native) speaker in classical taxonomies. The notion of “parlanti evanescenti”—that is to say fading speakers— quoting Moretti (2015: 235), seems interesting for immigrants’ sociolinguistic profile. In other words, they are speakers with partial competences who usually do not use the dialect but could eventually speak it, who learned it unintentionally and who did not start an active learning process due to the subordination of dialects to the national and dominant language. The variety of speakers of endangered languages is crucial, and (socio)linguists: […] question what means to be (or not to/no longer be) a “speaker” of an endangered language. We take an interest in the profiles of the speakers, according to their age, to the conditions in which they acquired or learned the language, to their social status, their relationship with the language, their attitudes, and more generally to their language biography.23 (Gasquet-Cyrus et al. 2017: 18–19)

23

Translated by the author of this article.

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That is what Legardez and Simonnaux (2006) defined as a “socially current question”24 regarding the discipline of reference which could be extended to the relations and language practices of second immigrants’ generation with lingue minores. In a perspective of dialect’s obsolescence or loss, questions about whether to include the role of immigrants as “new-speakers” of Italoromance dialects in the maintenance or revitalisation of an endangered language would probably be an important issue for future sociolinguistic fields of enquiry.

References Alfonzetti, Giovanna. 2009. Italiano e dialetto tra generazioni. In Dialetto, usi, funzioni, forma, ed. Giovanna Marcato, 241–246. Padova: Unipress. Alfonzetti, Giovanna. 2017. Italian-dialect code-switching in Sicilian youngsters. Sociolinguistic Studies. Special Issue: Sociolinguistic research in Italy 11 (2–4): 435–459. Amoruso, Chiara. 2002. La comunità ivoriana a Palermo. Frammenti stranieri di un’immagine urbana. In Percezione dello spazio, spazio della percezione, ed. Mari D’Agostino, 111–133. Palermo: Centro di Studi filosofici e linguistici siciliani. Baker, Colin. 1992. Attitudes and language. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Bernini, Giuliano. 2001. Varietà di apprendimento di italiano L2 e varietà del repertorio dei nativi italofoni. In L’italiano e le regioni, ed. Fabiana Fusco, Carla Marcato, 53–69. Udine: Forum Editrice. Berruto, Gaetano. 2018. The languages and dialects of Italy. In Manual of Romance Sociolinguistics, ed. Wendy Ayres-Bennett and Janice Carruthers, 494–525. Berlin/Boston: Mouton de Gruyter. Berruto, Gaetano. 2016. Sulla vitalità delle linguae minores. Indicatori e parametri. In Vitalità, morte e miracoli dell’occitano, ed. Aline Pons, 11–26. Pomaretto.

24

Belonging to Legardez and Simonnaux (2006), les “questions socialement vives” are complex questions with three vitality levels: within society, within reference knowledge, and scholarship knowledge.

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10 The Venetian Dialect in the Communicative Repertoires of Moldovan Migrant Caregivers Matthias Wolny

1

Introduction

The role of housekeeping personnel and private carers, among which the so-called badanti (a term indicating a caregiver who very often lives with the client), is essential to the functioning of the Italian health and care system. The almost exclusively female and migrant workers very often come from Eastern Europe and, in most cases, live with their clients in order to provide a 24/7 service, enjoying very limited spare time. For this reason, the migrant women who work as badanti, cleaners and nannies represent a very prominent facet of the exploitation of globalised female workforce in the Italian reproductive labour economy (Ehrenreich and Hochschild 2002). M. Wolny (B) Department of Culture Studies, Tilburg School of Humanities and Digital Sciences, Tilburg University, Tilburg, The Netherlands e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 F. Goglia and M. Wolny (eds.), Italo-Romance Dialects in the Linguistic Repertoires of Immigrants in Italy, Palgrave Studies in Minority Languages and Communities, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-99368-9_10

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In the city of Venice, the regional capital of the Veneto region, where this research is situated, the local dialect is widely used and possesses a high prestige. This high prestige stems from the history of the Venetian dialect, which for centuries served as language of administration and court as well as of literature in the Venetian Maritime Republic (Ferguson 2007). Especially among the elderly population of the city, which is the group encompassing most of the migrant care personnel’s clients, there are still to be found many (almost or mainly) exclusive dialect speakers. In every-day life, the communicative setting of an elderly dialect speaker and a non-native care person can be very problematic for both parties. In this chapter, however, the focus lies on the migrant caregivers for whom the work with their elderly clients often represents their first work experience in Italy, while they still struggle to settle in, socially and linguistically. Furthermore, they have to deal with the responsibility of being most of the time alone with their clients who in many cases need medical assistance. Besides the social and the linguistic level, this setting may be very difficult to handle also on a psychological level. This chapter analyses data gathered in the city of Venice during the fieldwork sessions for a larger research project. The data on female Moldovan caregivers represent a relatively large subcorpus based on semistructured open-ended interviews and observation notes. This analysis is centred on three research questions: first, which is the role played by the VenetianVenetian dialect in the communicative repertoires of the migrant caregiverscaregiver; second, which is the value assigned by the migrants to the VenetianVenetian dialect (if at all); and finally, which are the strategies applied to deal with the difficulties of every-day life when the migrant speakers are forced to cope with the impact of the dialect on their repertoirerepertoire and the communicative tasks they have to face. An important aspect of the last question is that migrants often prepare for their departure to Italy through language classes and self-study. Being these stages of language learning aimed at the standard language, getting into contact almost exclusively with dialect speakers in their everyday life confronts the migrant speakers with completely unexpected communicative tasks which may trigger very different reactions. The first part of the chapter presents the research background, while the second part presents a discussion/analysis of the data. The first part of

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the chapter includes a very brief summary of migration flows to Venice and the history of the Moldovan community in the city, an overview on migrant caregivers in Italy, the sociolinguistic situation of the Italian Northeast as well as a methodological and theoretical background. Given that the data regarding the migrants’ contact with the local dialect is a by-product of a much broader research, the very heterogeneous examples are presented following the migration timeline of the participants: first, the (linguistic) preparation before undertaking migration and, second, the sociolinguistic impact upon arrival in the Venice area. In the frame of this chronological order, different topics such as language acquisition trajectories or every-day communicative tasks are discussed.

2

Migration to Venice and the Moldovan Community

Thanks to the development of a fabric of small and medium-sized industrial and commercial areas, in the last decades of the past millennium, the Veneto region has transformed into a major destination for immigration both from other Italian regions and from foreign countries—with migration from abroad getting an ever-stronger weight. In this regional context, the city of Venice is a rather special case which sees a clear division between the modern part of the city, the mainland Mestre, and the historical city centre situated in the Venice lagoon. Compared to the rest of the Veneto region, immigration to the city of Venice shows a slight delay in time. In more recent years, however, Venice has caught up with the other urban centres of the region. By the end of 2019, as shown in Table 1, the Moldovan community of Venice ranks third only behind the Bangladeshi and the Romanian community. Figure 1 shows how the Moldovan community grew very fast at the beginning of the new millennium and in short time became one of the biggest immigrant communities in the city. In more recent years, however, the Moldovan population in Venice has considerably diminished. With the statistical data at hand, it is difficult to give an interpretation of this trend as population flows are not

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Table 1

Top 10 migrant communities in Venice as of 31 December 2019

Country of origin

Males

Females

Total

Bangladesh Romania Republic of Moldova PR China Ukraine Albania Macedonia Philippines Kosovo Sri Lanka

4426 2615 1328 1736 558 874 759 638 495 380

2436 3525 2747 1842 1892 774 655 745 312 339

6862 6140 4075 3578 2450 1648 1414 1383 807 719

Source www.demo.istat.it 6,000 5,325 4,996

5,000

4,5654,484

4,639

4,836

4,604

4,460 4,1444,075

4,000

3,733 3,150

3,000 2,209 2,000

1,546

1,796

1,250 824

1,000

0

25

63

140

Fig. 1 Development of the Moldovan community in Venice 2000–2019 (Source www.demo.istat.it)

discussed in detail in the migrant-related data sets. Given the concurrent increase of the Romanian community, at least part of the decrease of Moldovan residents in Venice could be ascribed to Moldovan citizens obtaining Romanian, and therefore EU, citizenship. In fact, some of the participants of the broader corpus either showed interest in obtaining

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Romanian citizenship to improve their legal status in Italy or already possessed dual citizenship. As shown in Table 1, nearly two-thirds of the Moldovan migrants in Venice are women. This reflects a general tendency among many Eastern European communities all over Italy. In fact, Eastern European women account for a huge share of migrant care persons at the service of Italian families. Besides care work, Moldovan women are employed in the restauration and tourism sector, but also in office jobs. The care work, however, very often marks the access to the Italian labour market. Among the participants of my research, most women have a rather high level of education. Many of them have attended university or comparable educational institutions. Furthermore, many women in the corpus had worked as professionals or public employees back in Moldova. Therefore, they are very often highly over-qualified for their care jobs in Italy. The individual personal situation of my participants varies a lot and it would be impossible to categorise or put them into general terms. In fact, very young women who came to Italy directly after completing their education go along with much older women who came to Italy after almost a whole life of work experiences collected between the former Soviet Union and the post-Soviet Republic of Moldova. The family status of the participants ranges from married women with their family back home to widows or divorced women who try to build a new life abroad or to collect money to finance the education of their children or grandchildren.

3

Private Caregivers in Italy and the So-Called badanti

The situation and societal role of female migrants as care workers is widely documented and discussed in Italian social sciences (Catanzaro and Colombo 2009). These migrant caregivers cover a central role in the Italian healthcare system. Especially the so-called badanti have become emblematic among the occupational sectors of the Italian migrant labour market. Since the 1990s, these badanti, very often of Eastern European

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origin (Zucchetti 2004), represent a pillar in the homecare for the elderly, the sick and the disabled. In this employment sector, the employee is usually expected to live with the client(s) and to offer a 24/7 service with a huge responsibility for the person they work with (Colombo 2007). These female migrant care workers are part of what Castles and Miller (2009) call the feminisation of global migration, one of the central aspects of globalised migration. In Italy, the weight of migrant women in the care system is determined by different social, demographic and economic reasons. Ambrosini (2004, 150–151) identifies three major reasons: first, the traditional family-bound character of the Italian welfare system combined with the absence of a state-run welfare system; second, the ageing population; and third, the growing involvement of married women in the labour market. This last aspect leads to a relocation of the care work from the shoulders of female family members to those of migrant women. Generally speaking, the working conditions in the care sector are very hard due to poor remuneration and the physically and psychologically demanding nature of the job. For female migrant caregivers the working conditions are even harder since very often they are expected to live with the assisted person, to offer very extended working hours (leaving them very limited spare time), a factual absence of privacy and an even poorer remuneration compared to the non-migrant personnel in the same sector. Besides these structural aspects, also some migrationinduced aspects must be considered. Many migrant women at the first stage of their migration experience in Italy work as badante, often without a legal status of permanence. Such an uncertain legal situation causes the migrant women to become even more vulnerable, since the lack of a legal status offers a leverage for the employers to pay less or to demand more working hours. Furthermore, many women leave their own family in the area of origin and therefore live in a situation of high psychological stress caused by this separation (Salazar Parreñas 2001). The—forced—closeness between a caregiver and the client often causes a reciprocal emotive involvement, especially when the relation shows a certain stability in time. Such an emotive involvement may cause very different effects. In some cases, the badante may be treated like a relative and therefore be integrated in the family life quite well. In other

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cases, the emotive closeness may cause a sentiment of obligation towards the client or the family of the client causing some sort of dependency on the employer. Where the client is severely sick, this emotive proximity may translate into emotive stress caused by the suffering of the client. The working conditions of migrant caregivers, especially this aspect of living together with the clients, offer interesting implications affecting the communicative level. In fact, from a point of view of language acquisition, the situation of full-immersion in a foreign language with the elderly clients and their families may lead to a very fast learning. In the case of the Veneto region, the communicative reality of the badanti includes the contact with a dialectal variety which often represents the dominant if not the only available code of the elderly.

4

Language Use in the Veneto Region

In Italy, the vitality , prestige and actual use of dialects differ significantly from region to region. The most vital areas of dialect use are to be found in the South and the Northeast of the Peninsula. In fact, in regions like the Veneto area the local dialects may be found outside classical domains of dialect use like the family, especially among the older speakers. Besides the local Venetan dialects, the linguistic repertoire of the Veneto region includes Italian and regional varieties of Italian, the so-called italiano regionale (Cerruti 2011; Telmon 1994), which are influenced to different degrees by the dialectal varieties, especially (but not exclusively) regarding pronunciation patterns and lexicon. Historically speaking, “[t]he prestige of Venetian depended upon the socio-political hegemony of the Serenissima” (Tuttle 1997, 263). This high prestige is reflected in an enormous amount of written evidence which includes both literature and administrative texts. Over the centuries, the dialect of Venice, the capital city, heavily influenced other dialects of the Northeast spoken in those areas to which the rule of the Maritime Republic had spread (Marcato 2002). Despite this important role as the language of an irradiating regional centre, in the course of time, the Venetian dialect, as many other Italo-Romance dialects, underwent a steady process of italianisation (Ferguson 2007).

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Recent statistical surveys show that, on a national level, Italian has become the dominant code in all domains including the family (Berruto 2018; ISTAT 2017). This national trend, however, translates into very multi-faceted regional realities composed by very different levels of dialect vitality and use. The relatively strong position of the local dialects in the Veneto region translates into an important part of the regional identity (Perrino 2019). It is for this reason that in the last decades, with the rise of populist extreme right-wing political parties especially in Northern Italy, the Venetan dialects (or at least intentionally accentuated regional varieties of Italian) are used as a sort of exclusionary we-code mainly against foreign residents and newcomers.

5

Methodology and Data Collection

I gathered the raw data at the basis of this chapter between 2009 and 2015 as part of a larger data collection in the province of Venice. The examples used here are taken from the transcripts of 26 semistructured interviews with Moldovan migrants in the city of Venice. During the data collection process, I conducted semi-structured interviews mainly in community locations (e.g. the Romanian-Orthodox parish) or at the homes of the participants. Usually, the interviews were conducted in a face-to-face setting with one participant at a time. In all cases the language used during the interviews was Italian. Since all participants showed sufficient competence of Italian, no translation from/into Moldovan was necessary. During the interviews, the fact that the interviewer was a fellow foreigner (of German origin) facilitated the accommodation process of the participants in the interview situation because of the shared experience as foreigners in Italy. Due to the fact that the interview sessions were part of a broader research project, the interviews were not focused on dialect-related topics but included the migratory project and the migrants’ trajectories, their sociolinguistic biographies, the participants’ communicative repertoires and their attitudes towards the elements of their repertoires as well as different aspects of the every-day language uses. Even though the

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domain of dialects was no outspoken focus of the interview guidelines, at different stages of the interviews many of the participants discussed the Venetian dialect, its use and their attitudes towards dialects in the specific Veneto case as well as in general. In total, the Moldovan subcorpus from which the examples stem consists of approximately 14 hours of recordings.

6

Theoretical Background

The central aspect of analysis in this chapter is the migrant caregivers’ repertoire and the Venetian dialect’s impact on their repertoire. In recent sociolinguistic research the migrants’ communicative repertoires were central to the discipline’s examination of the interplay of globalised migration and language. This section will briefly collocate the rationale of this chapter in the theoretical framework of recent sociolinguistic and ethnographic research with a special eye on the speakers ’ repertoires and comparable theoretical constructs. The seminal definition of verbal repertoire by Gumperz (1964, 137) comprised “the totality of linguistic forms regularly employed in the course of socially significant interaction” at the community level. Later on and in different steps the concept of repertoire was expanded to embrace more than just the linguistic aspects of communication and to be referred also to the individual speaker (Blommaert and Backus 2013; Busch 2012; Dal Negro and Guerini 2007). The notion of repertoire allows to analyse the communicative choices of the speaker considering both the resources of their repertoires and the norms of their use. Following Busch (2013, 21), the modern-day conception of the repertoire includes the languages, dialects, styles, registers, codes and routines which are typical for every-day interaction at the individual and the community level. In more recent times, with the emergence of globalised migration, sociolinguistic research needs to take into account the highly individualised migrant trajectories and the consequential effects on the migrants’ communicative repertoires. Guerini (2006, 58) points out that, given this high level of individualisation, “individual repertoires may turn out

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to be more complex than the repertoire shared by the community as a whole”. As a consequence, the individuals’ repertoire has to be directly linked to the speakers’ biography (Blommaert 2010) which, in the case of globalised migrants, may show rather odd combinations of linguistic codes, like, for instance, in the present case of the Venetian dialect in the repertoire of Moldovan migrants. In this understanding of repertoire as an outcome of the speakers’ biographies, the communicative resources are not to be seen as stable and simply summed up but as instable and subject to processes of re-hierarchisation or re-shuffling over time which is conditioned by processes of learning and use. Therefore, in recent sociolinguistic research on multilingualism and multilingual competences, different complementing notions regarding the individuals’ repertoires have emerged. A very striking theoretical coinage is the toolkit metaphor advanced by Lüdi (2011a). In fact, Lüdi compares the use of the right linguistic resource at the right time and for the right purpose to the use of different tools by a tinkerer. The multilingual resources in this understanding are therefore at the disposal of the speaker who has to choose which of the communicative tools s/he should best employ in a determined situation in order to perform a determined task. Furthermore, Lüdi (2011b, 92) links the command of an appropriate or legitimate linguistic resource to communicative power: La capacità di interagire verbalmente con successo nella lingua appropriata alla situazione (cioè “legittima”) procura potere. Il potere di una persona dipende, in altre parole, dal suo repertorio: non padroneggiare la lingua giusta, al contrario, colloca il soggetto in una posizione di impotenza. [The capacity to successfully verbally interact in the language which is appropriate in a determined situation (that is the “legitimate” language) gives power. The power of a person depends, in other words, on his/her repertoire: not mastering the right language, by contrast, puts the subject in a position of powerlessness.]

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The sections dedicated to data analysis will show that, especially in the communication with the elderly clients, some (at least passive) competence of the Venetian dialect determines for the migrant caregiver not only the success of a given communicative task but also the role s/he takes within the family and, in the end, the fact of being accepted by his/her client(s). The same section will illustrate some examples of migrants deliberately enhancing their linguistic toolkit while preparing for their move to Italy—and will describe to which extent these processes of toolkit enhancement eventually proved to be successful or not. Another useful theoretical notion which is aimed at expanding, or rather complementing, the original understanding of the speakers’ or communities’ repertoires is the one of truncated repertoire introduced by Blommaert (2010): [W]e see very fragmented and ‘incomplete’ – ‘truncated’ – language repertoires, most of which consist of spoken, vernacular and non-native varieties of different languages, with an overlay of differentially developed literacy skills in one or some languages (depending on the level of literacy at the time of migration).

In this view on a speaker’s multilingual competence also the bits and chunks of languages, like salutations or particular lexical elements without a broader knowledge of a language, are included in the individual’s repertoire. However, rather than truncated repertoires, here we are dealing with truncated resources, since it is actually the knowledge in a given linguistic code which is limited and not the repertoire as a whole. In the present case, the knowledge of the Venetian dialect represents exactly such a truncated resource in the migrant speakers’ repertoires.

7

Linguistic Preparation of the Migration to Italy

Language learning is a key aspect of the sociolinguistic biographies of migrants (Busch 2013; D’Agostino 2007). This learning process does not necessarily start only once reached the area of arrival. In fact, the literature on labour migration shows evidence of language skills as part of a

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general skill set which has to be developed prior to undertaking migration. In this context, Lorente (2018) gives a detailed description of how in a workforce exporting country like the Philippines the communicative toolkit (including also non-linguistic features of communication) of the future labour migrants is developed on an institutionalised basis. This institutionalised development of those skills which are relevant for the foreign labour market described for the Philippines very much differs from the situation of Moldova. In fact, the data on Moldovan migrants only show evidence of personal initiatives to learn the language of the intended area of arrival before actually leaving the place of origin. These initiatives can be compared to a tailor-made addition to the personal communicative toolkit aimed at facilitating communication once reached the area of arrival. The decision to get linguistically prepared for the new working environment may reflect the relatively high level of education achieved by the migrants, especially Eastern European women. In fact, many of the female participants of my research moved to Italy either directly after completing university (or a comparable educational institution with a technical orientation) or after a work experience as a professional. In the latter case, e.g. women who worked as teachers (sometimes for many years) decided to emigrate because of the poor and often delayed salaries offered by the Moldovan State. Besides the personal processes of language planning, the decision of migrating often appears to be well-considered and accompanied by a well-formulated migration project. These short- or mid-term migration projects are aimed at a concrete economic purpose, like building a house in the area of departure or funding the education of the children or grandchildren. Example 1 of Participant 01 (Part. 01) shows the process of self-study before actually moving to Italy. At the moment of her interview Part. 01 was 42 years old. She had arrived to Italy two years before the interview and had settled directly in the mainland part of Venice. She holds a university degree in engineering and had worked as an industrial engineer back in Moldova. In Italy, she worked both as a household assistant and a cleaner.

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Example 1: MW Ha fatto dei corsi? Part. 01 No, da sola. Ho comprato, diciamo così, la guida di conversazione italiano-romeno e [...] italiano… ho imparato MW Complimenti, davvero: non è facile studiare da soli una lingua… Part. 01 Ma perché ho detto, si assomiglia molto a italiano, nostra lingua. No so, ma anche per me è stato facile perché… sono sempre stata per i / per i primi, diciamo così, a scuola, all’università […] davvero quando mi faceva i documenti là, a casa, per preparare di venire qua, sceglievo tutti quelle parole, diciamo così, che pensavo che sono proprio / avrò bisogno di loro. E poi sono venuta qua, ho cominciato a coniugare i verbi [ride] e poi… è facile, non so, per me è stato facile. Per il mio tipo di studio, diciamo così, perché ho studiato anche all’università. Lavoravo e studiavo e… sono abituata da sola tutto fare MW Did you attend classes? Part. 01 No, by myself. I bought, let’s say, a conversational guide Italian-Romanian and […] Italian… I learned like that MW Congratulations, really! It’s not easy to learn a language on one’s own… Part. 01 But because I said, our language is very similar to Italian. I don’t know but for me it was easy because… I’ve always been among the best, let’s say, at school, at the university […] really, while I prepared my documents over there, at home, in order to prepare for coming here, I chose all the words, let’s say, I thought that are really/ I would need them. And when I arrived here, I started to conjugate the verbs [laughs] and then… it’s easy, I don’t know, for me it was easy. For my type of education, let’s say, because I studied also at the university. I worked and I studied and… I am used to do everything by myself

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Part. 01 explained how she managed to learn Italian all by herself with the help of a conversational guide. Thanks to her preparation she did not seem to have suffered a bad impact with the dialect in Italy like many others. In her account, she offers different reasons why her preparation for the new linguistic situation in Italy was successful: first of all, she mentions the typological proximity of Moldovan and Italian as a main reason for her easy access to learning Italian from the books. She offers, however, also some biographical motivations for her learning success. In fact, she underscores her good education (she holds a university degree) and also her experience with studying while working on a full-time job. And so, while collecting all necessary papers for her migration, she made use of her time to study Italian. Participant 02 (Part. 02), 31 years of age at the time of the interview and by the time already residing in Italy for seven years, reports a very similar experience. She holds a degree in psychology and had also had a short experience as psychologist back in Moldova. Example 2: MW

Come ha imparato Lei l’italiano? Attraverso dei corsi oppure così, parlando? Part. 02 No, no… Ho studiato da sola ancora quando ero in Romania sapevo che devo venire, ho preso il libro e l’ho imparato tutto, mi sembrava di sapere italiano e arrivata qua non ho capito niente. Perché parlavano tutti poi il dialetto, la maggior parte… e poi man mano nel giro di due mesi… MW Però non ha fatto un corso? Part. 02 No. Però l’ho studiato bene. Ho preso proprio la grammatica e l’ho studiato come si deve MW How did you learn Italian? With language classes or just like that, talking? Part. 02 No, no… I studied all by myself when I was still in Romania [the participant’s migration stage prior to the arrival in Italy; MW] I knew that I would come here, I took a book and studied it all, I thought I could speak Italian and when I arrived here, I didn’t understand a word. Because everyone

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spoke the dialect, the majority… but then step by step after two months… [she got along with the conversations; MW] MW But you did not attend any classes? Part. 02 No. But I studied it well. I took the grammar and studied it properly Similar to the account of Part. 01, Part. 02’s self-study was based on standard Italian grammar (“I studied it properly”). Contrarily to example 1, she reports on the strong impact she had with the Venetian dialect once she arrived in Venice (“I thought I could speak Italian and when I arrived here, I didn’t understand a word. Because everyone spoke the dialect”). This first linguistic impact with her new environment, however, did not discourage her and after a short period of linguistic acclimatisation she managed to get along. Example 3 shows the experience of Participant 03 (Part. 03) who was 59 years old at the time of the interview and had been living in Italy for nine years. After earning her university degree, Part. 03 worked as a teacher back in Moldova. After divorcing she decided to move to Italy and started working as a badante. Later on, however, she managed to get a job as a cultural mediator1 at the local administration. Example 3: MW Come ha imparato l’italiano? Part. 03 TV e corsi. TV – parlavo bene, e dopo i corsi per la grammatica. Corsi io ho fatto all’AUSER, società AUSER, ho fatto primi corsi miei, e dopo ho fatto quando faccio mediazione davano anche corsi più… più forti, per scrivere. E il problema… problema è non da parlare, ma scrivere l’italiano MW How did you learn Italian? 1 In Italy, the so-called mediatore /mediatrice culturale are employed by the authorities, especially at the municipal level, in order to establish possibilities of contact and exchange between the authorities and the migrant communities. These cross-cultural mediators work for example with schools in order to establish the contact between migrant parents and the school administration (see Villano and Riccio 2008).

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Part. 03 Television and classes – I spoke quite well [after watching television in Italian; MW], and after that I took classes for the grammar. I took classes at the AUSER association [a charity association offering, among others, language classes in Italian; MW], I took my first classes, and after that, when I started working as a mediator, they offered classes more… more difficult, for writing. And the problem… the problem is not to talk but to write in Italian. Her approach was slightly different than the one described in the first two examples. In fact, during her initial stage as a badante, she learned Italian by watching television. After acquiring a decent level of spoken Italian, however, she decided to attend classes to improve her level of Italian grammar. Then, when she started working as a mediator, she attended further classes aimed at learning how to properly write in Italian. Examples 1–3 show some similarities in the participants’ dealing with the initial stages of their migration process from a linguistic point of view. First of all, all three participants show the awareness of deliberately enhancing their linguistic toolkit in order to soften the (linguistic) impact of their arrival in Italy. By doing so, they apply different strategies and benefit from the typological proximity of Moldovan and Italian as fellow Romance languages. Furthermore, they show a general ability to plan and decide which road to undertake in order to achieve their learning goal. This last aspect may be connected to their experience in the educational system and the participants’ familiarity with learning processes in general. From the examples also emerged, however, the discrepancy between Italian learned from the books and the dialect speaking reality in Venice.

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239

Getting Into Contact with the Venetian Dialect

The linguistic impact of Venetian shine through in many parts of the broader corpus. For a structured approach to the topic, this section is divided according to different sub-topics: first, how the participants experienced their first contacts with the dialect; second, which values they attributed to the dialect; and finally, what is the dialect’s role in the participants’ linguistic toolkits.

8.1

Communicative Problems Caused by the Dialect—And Possible Solutions

During the interviews, when discussing the working environment of the participants, the dialect showed to be a recurring, often problematic topic among the women who worked or had been working as badanti. Example 4 illustrates this linguistic aspect of the women’s working reality. Example 4: MW Capisce il dialetto? Part. 04 Sì, perché ha [sic!] lavorato con le vecchiette che… parlava sempre in dialetto, un po’… MW Do you understand the dialect? Part. 04 Yes, because I worked with old ladies who… always spoke in dialect, a little… Participant 04 (Part. 04), 49 years of age at the time of the interview and residing in Venice for more than seven years, describes the communicative situation at work in a very concise and direct way: her dialect competence is directly motivated by the language use of her elderly clients. Her account of the “old ladies who […] always spoke in dialect”, confirms the statistical data on dialect use by older age groups in family settings (ISTAT 2017). The above-described closeness of the badanti together with the fact that the “old ladies” are at their own homes, surely

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contribute to creating a near-family setting, even though the badante is actually no real family member. It is worth noting, however, that the “old ladies” speaking exclusively in the dialect is not at all presented as a problem by Part. 04. Participant 05 (Part. 05), a 36-year-old man who arrived in Venice about four years before the interview, is a rare example of a male badante. In fact, he worked and lived with a client at the very beginning of his stay in Venice and later moved to other branches. Example 5 is taken from a part of the interview in which this initial stage of his migrational experience in Venice is discussed. Example 5: Part. 05 l’unica problema [sic!] era che mi parlavano in veneziano e non capivo. L’italiano anche sì lo capivo un po’, ma… il veneto l’ho imparato… Part. 05 the only problem was that they talked to me in Venetian and I didn’t understand. I understood Italian a little but… the Venetan dialect, I learnt it During his account, Part. 05 described his initial stage in Italy as rather unproblematic, with the sole exception of the Venetian dialect. In fact, his client and the clients’ relatives kept talking to him in the local dialect. Even though he understood Italian “a little” at the time, he didn’t manage to understand the dialect. These initial communicative difficulties seem, however, to be only a short parenthesis in his experience, since he immediately states that in the end he just “learnt” the dialect. From this point on, he gave no account of further communicative problems with the locals. Besides the migrants working with the elderly, also migrants working in other branches confirm the communicative difficulties with the elderly in Venice, as shown in Examples 5 and 6. In these cases, the (exclusive) use of the dialect is seen as the main reason for the communicative difficulties.

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Example 6: MW Per quale motivo capisce male gli anziani? Part. 06 Un motivo/ motivo penso che loro… boh… prima di tutto parlano dialetto e capita che non sanno neanche italiano diciamo bene come/ come che si parla… e penso che questo è un problema… ma alla fine ci capiamo MW Why don’t you understand the elderly? Part. 06 A reason/ reason I think that they… uhm… first of all they speak dialect and it happens that they don’t even know Italian, let’s say, well like/ like one should talk… and I think that this is a problem… but in the end we understand each other Example 6 shows the account of Participant 06 (Part. 06), a 35-year-old construction worker. At his workplace he frequently gets into contact with older clients with whom there are some problems of communication. According to Part. 06, the main reason for these problems is that the clients “speak dialect” and sometimes “don’t even know Italian […] well like […] one should talk”. Even though the conversation usually seems to come to a good end, he explains the communicative difficulties by a lacking standard competence of his interlocutors. This argumentation is quite significant, since he does not seem to feel obliged to question his own language skills. Furthermore, in his account a negative labelling of the dialect in opposition to the standard shines through (“Italian […] like one should talk”) which is made more explicit by other participants, as we will see further on.

8.2

Observations Regarding the Dialect and Attitudes Towards the Dialect

Apart from reports of the communicative difficulties encountered at the workplace, the corpus also offers meta-linguistic observations as well as expressions of language attitudes towards the dialect.

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Example 7 is emblematic for the participants underscoring the similarity between Moldovan and Italian. This similarity is often seen by the participants as the main reason for their getting along quite well in Italy compared to other (Eastern European) migrants with a linguistic background of non-Romance origin. Example 7: Part. 07 no ma per dirle che il dialetto, il dialetto qui Veneto è molto vicino alla nostra lingua, sono tantissime parole che assomigliano alla nostra lingua […] Part. 07 Just to tell you that the dialect, the dialect here in Veneto is very close to our [Moldovan] language. There are many words that resemble our language […] While discussing her communicative repertoire, Participant 07 (Part. 07), a 42-year-old woman with a university degree in literature, stresses the similarities between the dialect and the Moldovan language. For her, this similarity is the reason why she understands the dialect. It is noteworthy, however, that she points out the similarities only between the Venetian dialect and Moldovan, whereas she does not include Italian in this comparison. An overarching topic in the interview happens to be the negative (and sporadically also the positive) attitudes of the participants towards the dialect. As already seen in Examples 2 and 6, the Moldovan participants very often express negative attitudes towards the Venetian dialect or dialects in general, as Examples 8 and 9 will underline. Nevertheless, there are also less negative statements regarding the dialect, as we will see in Example 10. In Example 8, Participant 08 (Part. 08), a 43-year-old woman who had been a high school teacher of language and literature in Moldova, expresses an extremely negative view on the dialect and on dialects in general.

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Example 8: Part. 08 io te lo dico, mi piacerebbe che io parl/ parlerei una lingua proprio italiana italiana, pura italiana, perché… come anche noi moldavi, diciamo, non parliamo una lingua pura, perché siamo stati/ cioè usiamo parole russe di più. Per es/ esempio come parlano rumeni, loro proprio hanno una lingua pulita, perfetta, così. Però gli italiano cè usano tanto il dialetto, e questa… mi p/ per esempio alla televisione, quando parlano, mi piacciono le persone che parlano proprio letteraria pura. Io sono… Sono di questa, per parlare una lingua pura. Sì va bene, se sai il dialetto, va bene, però per me mi piacerebbe una italiana pura. Ma non solo una italiana, anche in tutte le lingue, se parli la tua lingua, proprio… diciamo pura, è meglio, perché una lingua bella, così… Part. 08 I tell you, I’d like to speak true Italian, pure Italian, because… also we Moldovans, let’s say, don’t speak a pure language, because we were/ that is, we use more Russian words. For ex/ example like Romanians speak, they really have a clean language, perfect, like that. But Italians use a lot the dialect, and this… for/ for example in television, when they speak, I like the persons who speak the pure literary language. I am… I am in favour of speaking a pure language. It’s okay if you know the dialect, it’s okay, but for my part I’d like pure Italian. But not only Italian, also all languages, if you speak your language really… let’s say purely, it’s better because a language is beautiful, like that… Her account starts by expressing the wish to learn “pure” Italian. This desire for a pure language is opposed on the one hand to Moldovan, which she defines as not being a pure language because of the many Russian loanwords, and on the other hand to the dialect(s) frequently used by Italians. In her attitude, she seems heavily influenced by a standard-only ideology as well as by a sense of inferiority of the Moldovan language towards the Romanian language spoken in Romania, which is not affected by Russian loanwords.

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A similar stance is expressed in Example 9 by Participant 07 (Part. 07). Example 9: Part. 07 Non c’è problema, però sa che a me non piace il dialetto. Mi… è una lingua un po’/ per me brutta, non lo so, in questi/ c’è tra virgolette diciamo, ma per me va bene l’italiano Part. 07 There’s no problem but you have to know that I don’t like the dialect. For me… it’s a language a little/ let’s say “crude”, I don’t know, in/ in quotation marks, let’s say, but for me Italian is okay Part. 07, uses slightly mitigated expressions for describing a similar attitude to Part. 08. In fact, she states that she does not “like the dialect” because of its “crude” nature. She does neither mention any similarity to the Moldovan language nor a desire for a “pure” language. Example 10 shows a very different view on the dialect which is expressed by Part. 04 after a conversation on the understandability of the local dialect in general. Example 10: MW Ma le piace il dialetto? Part. 04 Mah, questo una cosa che… sua, di nazionalità. Non posso dire mi piace o non mi piace, perché c’è e basta MW But do you like the [Venetian] dialect? [following a conversation on the understandability of the local dialect; MW] Part. 04 Mah, this is a thing… of nationality. I cannot say that I like it or that I don’t like it, because it is there and that’s it When asked if he liked the Venetian dialect, Part. 04 states that it is not in his power to express a statement of like or dislike since the dialect is tied to the “nationality”, probably intended as regional identity. It shows a rather pragmatic approach to reality when he states: “I cannot say that I like it or that I don’t like it, because it is there and that’s it”.

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245

Dialect Use—Venetian in the Speakers’ Toolkits

The use of the Venetian dialect by the migrant speakers seems to be limited to one-word replies or short phrases, often with a playful or comic intent. In Example 11, Participant 09 (Part. 09), a woman aged 23 years at the time of the interview who had been in Italy for three years, working as a cleaner in a private household, tells about her contact with the dialect used regularly by her employers. Example 11: MW Le capita anche di usare il dialetto? Part. 09 Ma a volte quando sono al lavoro che… a volte stiamo scherzando… magari io non capisco e loro mi spiegano e io ripeto e ci facciamo i scherzi… MW Do you sometimes use the [Venetian] dialect? Part. 09 Sometimes when I’m at work… sometimes we are fooling around… Maybe I don’t understand [something said in the dialect] and they [the employers] explain it to me and I repeat it and we joke… Apparently, the fact that Part. 09 is not completely familiar with the dialect does not prevent her employers use the Venetian dialect when talking to her. It seems, however, that this behaviour may be used by both the employers and the employee as a way of playfully cheering up the workplace. When discussing her active competence in the dialect, Participant 10 (Part. 10), 46 years of age, in Italy for four years by the time of the interview, displays single words taken from every-day conversation at the workplace and explains how conversations with the employers take place.

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Example 12: MW Sa dire delle frasi o delle parole in dialetto? Part. 10 Uh… parole…. “sabo”, “magnar”, “va ben”, “va bon”… eh, queste sono parole che… [ride] ma quando / questi che lo so io, ma lavoro ne due famiglie dove si parla tanto in veneto e senza volerlo mi dicono qualche paroli in veneto e un po’ alla volta io li capisco… non gli/ non gli/ non parlo io ma gli rispondo italiano quando mi chiede “oh [NOME], hai imparato!” no, no ho imparato ma quando tutti volti, tutti giorno ti dicevano una parola… si impara MW Can you say phrases or words in dialect? Part. 10 Uh… some words… sabo [saturday], magnar [to eat], va ben, va bon [both meaning: it’s okay]… eh, these are the words that… [laughs] but when / these which I know, but I work in two families where much Venetan is spoken and without wanting to, they say to me some words in Venetan and slowly I understand them… I don’t/ I don’t/ I don’t speak but I answer in Italian when she asks “oh, [NAME], you did learn!” no, I didn’t learn but if all the time, every day they say a word… then you learn She describes her working life and how she gets to know some expressions in Venetian just by repeating phrases or single words. However, Part. 10 as well seems to prefer Italian, since she states that she replies in Italian to whatever she is asked. She stresses that she does not actively learn the dialect—as suggested by her employer’s question—but that the perpetual presence of Venetian makes sure she finally understands some expressions in the dialect. In Example 13, Part. 03, narrates an episode drawn from her working experience, in which she unintentionally produces an utterance in Venetian or at least containing some elements of Venetian.

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Example 13: MW E capisce un discorso fatto in dialetto? Part. 03 Sì, veneziano sì. Perché prima ho la base di veneziano e dopo… No, sono stata a Padova, e dopo sono stata a Venezia Lido e non capivo […] E un giorno ho detto “strucca, per cortesia, quel bottone” e ha cominciato a ridere, la persona, e ho detto “ho sbagliato?” perché io sempre ho chiesto permesso, se io sbaglio, di essere sempre corregerme/ corregge / correggermi e lui “no, no, è facilissimo, ma una straniera parla veneziano!” [ride] – “strucca” è veneziano, ci son tante parole ma non capisco, ma non lo parlo… ho due o tre parole ma, preferisco italiano parlare. […] Preferisco completamente… capisco tutto ma rispondo in italiano MW And do you understand a conversation made in the dialect? Part. 03 Yes, Venetian yes. Because first of all I have a base of Venetian and then… No, I was in Padua and after that I was in Venezia Lido and I didn’t understand […] And one day I said “strucca, per cortesia, quel bottone” [“Press that button, please” in Venetian; MW] and the person [the interlocutor; MW] started to laugh and I said “did I do something wrong?” because I always asked to be corrected if I make an error and he [said] “no, no, everything easy, but a foreigner speaks Venetian! [laughs] – “strucca” is Venetian, there are many words but I don’t understand, I don’t speak… I have two or three words but I prefer to speak Italian. […] I completely prefer… I understand everything but I answer in Italian In fact, Part. 03, says “press that button, please” at least partially in Venetian as “strucca” is the Venetian imperative of a verb meaning “to press”. When her interlocutor starts laughing because of the unexpected expression, she seems a little puzzled as she immediately suspects that she made an error. But instead, the interlocutor was just surprised and amused that “a foreigner speaks Venetian”. Nevertheless, also Part. 03 prefers to speak Italian.

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This last set of examples has shown that some Moldovan migrants have a very straightforward approach to the Venetian dialect which is in clear opposition to the negative judgements described in the previous section. However, none of the Moldovan migrants stated to be actually trying to develop an active competence of the dialect and to be willing to eventually speak the dialect.

9

Discussion and Conclusion

The evidence presented in this chapter has offered a snapshot of a specific sub-group of globalised migrants, the female migrants from Moldova working as caregivers in Italian households at some stage of their migration experience. During this kind of work, the migrants come into contact with speakers of the local dialect. The first part of the data analysis has shown the linguistic preparation of future migrants or of newly arrived migrants. Given the typological proximity of Moldovan and Italian, they chose to get prepared for their move to Italy through self-study of the Italian language. By doing so, the migrants showed that, because of their educational level, they are willing to study and that they also possess the necessary strategies and resources (e.g. a conversational guide). Furthermore, the evidence documents a wide diffusion of standard language ideologies in different contexts, both as the linguistic varieties of reference for the self-study and as counterpart of the Venetian dialect or dialects in general. Regarding this aspect, example 8 offered an important insight on how a speaker considers also Moldovan a non “pure” variety compared to the Romanian language spoken in Romania. In fact, the influence of Russian caused by the Soviet rule and the role of Moldovan as regional language with little prestige compared to Russian in the Soviet Union (Grenoble 2003) may have influenced the speakers in the perception of their mother tongue. Another reason for the diffident attitude of most Moldovan migrants in the corpus analysed here may be the clear role of Venetian as identity marker for the regional Venetian identity and as a we-code of the

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autochthonous population (Chini 2011). This aspect is further strengthened by the appropriation of the Venetan dialect by extreme right-wing politicians for their political propaganda. There is, however, no direct evidence for any migrant being influenced by this phenomenon. Yet, the dialect as a political propaganda tool may have caused unconscious effects on the migrants’ perception of the dialect in the Italian Northeast. Though, the most important reason for the migrants’ preference of standard Italian seems to be the very conscient and deliberate construction of the communicative repertoires shown by the migrant speakers. In fact, most of them do not see their migration experience as a permanent move, since short- and mid-term migration projects with a well-defined economic goal, like building a house in the area of departure or funding the education of children or grandchildren. Therefore, a complete adaptation of the regional linguistic repertoire is beyond the scope of their migration experience. This aspect is strengthened by a very pragmatic reasoning: Italian has a much higher probability to become a useful communicative resource in the future than any dialectal variety (Guerini 2018). When turning to the every-day communicative experiences, we have seen different possible outcomes of being confronted with the dialect as main code of the elderly clients. First, the discomfort created by the unexpected code adds up to the general discomfort or stress of the particular situation as an almost 24/7 caregiver. Second, the migrants may show a very pragmatic approach of learning by doing and (partial) acquisition of the dialect; a process in which they are seconded by their Romance mother tongue; and finally, the right away refusal of the dialect as seen in the context of the standard language ideologies discussed above. Regarding these possible reactions, one should not underestimate the possible frustration that could arise from being over-qualified for the care work and the subsequential self-denial for the sake of the migration project (Salazar Parreñas 2001, 2005). Nevertheless, there is also a rather positive possible scenario in which the migrant caregiver uses the live-in workplace as a full-immersion language class and a first step of settling into the Italian labour market, nourished by the hope of obtaining better-paid and more gratifying jobs in the future.

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Index

A

Akan 128, 129, 133–135, 142 Albania 7, 8, 81, 82, 87, 89, 105, 226 Albanian 7, 8, 86, 89, 91, 92, 96, 126 Algerian 89, 90, 96 Apulia 85, 208, 209 Arabic 8, 89 attitude 6, 10, 11, 13, 14, 55, 61, 107, 108, 120, 127, 132, 136, 137, 140–143, 156, 169, 172–174, 178, 184–186, 189, 190, 192, 202, 205, 213, 215, 216, 230, 231, 241–244 autochthonous 80, 95, 98, 249

Bambara 25, 33, 179, 182 Bamileke 151–153 Bangladesh 7, 27, 30, 81, 105, 204, 225, 226 Basque 104 Bergamasco 11, 113, 131, 132, 136–144, 161 Bergamo 11, 13, 55, 109, 126, 127, 131–133, 141, 142, 144, 159, 170 Bernese 50, 69 bilingual 4, 49, 70, 92, 103, 106, 113, 129 bilingualism 92, 149, 199, 215 Bologna 10, 118, 151, 204, 207, 209 Bolognese 10, 118, 155, 206–208 Bulgarian 86

B

badante 228, 237, 238, 240 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 F. Goglia and M. Wolny (eds.), Italo-Romance Dialects in the Linguistic Repertoires of Immigrants in Italy, Palgrave Studies in Minority Languages and Communities, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-99368-9

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Index

C

Calabrese 89 Calabria 85, 90, 210 Cameroon 105, 148–153, 155 Camfranglais 150, 154 Cape Verdean 8, 104, 113 Cape Verde Creole 8 caregiver 14, 223–225, 227–229, 231, 233, 248, 249 China 7, 82, 105, 204, 226 Chinese 7, 23, 27, 82, 89, 90, 211–213 Ciociaro 155 code-switching 1, 8, 9, 12, 49, 51, 52, 59, 60, 62–64, 66, 68, 70, 129, 133, 163, 204 community 13, 24, 47, 48, 80, 85, 88, 95, 103, 105, 106, 127, 131, 133, 136, 137, 139, 142, 143, 153, 160, 163, 171, 187, 191, 204, 205, 213, 230–232

D

diglossia 4, 175, 198, 201, 214 dilalia 4, 49, 51, 55, 201 discourse 31, 41, 139, 173, 192, 202 Dutch 113

E

Edo 8, 90, 106 Egypt 7, 82 Emilia-Romagna 14, 105, 200, 203–205, 211, 216 endangered language 14, 198, 202, 203, 205, 217, 218 English 8, 25, 48, 49, 89, 90, 106, 108, 110, 117, 127, 128, 130,

133–135, 148, 155, 171, 177, 179, 181, 182, 188, 189 ethnolinguistic vitality 198, 202

F

family 4, 5, 8, 11, 13, 20, 29, 52, 58, 59, 68, 69, 81, 85, 86, 88–91, 93, 94, 96, 105–107, 130, 150, 151, 156, 163, 164, 170, 175, 190, 199, 204, 210, 213, 227–230, 233, 239 Filipino 27, 82, 89, 90 Florence 151, 162 foreigner talk 30 Forlì 204, 212 France 29, 169–171, 178, 179 Franfufulde 150 French 13, 25, 33, 48, 49, 89, 148, 150, 154, 155, 171, 179–182, 184–186, 188, 189 Friulian 3, 12, 78–80, 86, 89–92, 94–98 Friuli Venezia Giulia 79–82, 96 Fula 25, 26

G

Galician 104 Gambian 25 German 29, 50, 69, 89, 90, 148, 230 Ghana 125–127, 130, 132, 142 Ghanaian 8, 11, 13, 27, 55, 82, 109, 125–128, 130–133, 137, 140, 142–144, 159, 161 Ghanaian Pidgin 8 Ghomala 160 ghost speaker 203

Index

globalisation 223, 228, 231, 248 Gorizia 79, 81–83 H

Hausa 128 I

identity 49, 94, 95, 97, 104, 106, 120, 137, 142, 161, 164, 169, 174, 186, 191, 207, 216, 217, 244, 248 ideology 48, 50, 54, 69, 243 Igbo 8, 90, 106, 108, 114, 115 immigrant language 2, 11, 94, 155 India 7, 55, 82, 105 interlanguage 12, 31, 32, 34–37, 43, 48, 54, 56, 64–66, 68, 69 Italian 2–14, 19, 20, 25, 27, 30–33, 35–38, 40, 41, 43, 50, 53–55, 57–60, 64–66, 68, 77–80, 83–86, 89–98, 106–111, 113, 114, 116–119, 129, 131–133, 135–142, 148, 151, 154–156, 161, 163, 169–182, 184–187, 189–191, 199–201, 203–207, 210, 213, 214, 229, 230, 236, 238, 241–243, 246, 248, 249 italiano giovanile 4 Ivorian 9, 109 Ivory Coast 55, 125

L

language accommodation 138 language acquisition 11, 48, 84, 178, 182, 190, 203, 210, 225, 229 language ecology 159 language learning 14, 84, 95, 97, 140, 143, 224, 233 language maintenance 2, 4, 143, 152, 218 language mixing 20, 129 language policy 149, 210 language practice 172, 199, 202, 207, 210, 218 language shift 4, 8, 94, 107, 138, 140, 152 language socialisation 204 language transmission 205, 206 Latin 79 Lazio 170, 173, 175, 178 Limburgish 113 lingua cum dialectis 50, 68, 70 lingua franca 30, 40, 106, 128 linguistic community 199 linguistic vitality 10, 14, 20, 52, 78, 106, 107, 111, 118, 163, 173, 197–200, 202, 204, 205, 210, 216–218, 229, 230 loanword 135, 243 Lombardia/Lombardy 105, 170, 175

M J

Jola 25, 26, 171, 179, 180, 186 K

Kosovaran 82, 89

255

macro-diglossia 49 Maghreb 21, 55 Mandinka 25–27 Marchigiano 155 Mauritian 22, 27 Milan 52, 151, 156

256

Index

Milanese 155, 156 minority language/lingua minor /minoranze linguistiche 2–4, 12, 14, 15, 78, 80, 90, 95, 103, 104, 113, 119, 120, 156, 173, 198, 200 Modena 151, 162 Modenese 155 Moldova/Moldavia 7, 82, 87, 90, 105, 225, 227, 234, 236, 237, 242, 248 monolingual 4, 6, 106, 107, 134, 163, 172 Moroccan 7, 8, 10, 27, 82, 86, 90, 96, 206 Morocco 7, 82, 105 mother tongue 40, 54, 80, 95, 97, 128, 175, 248, 249 multilingualism 9, 11, 29, 129, 149, 150, 191, 192, 232

N

Naples 10, 12, 50–59, 64, 66–70, 85, 189 native speaker 49, 50, 53, 54, 107, 113, 142 Neapolitan 12, 51–53, 55–62, 64–70, 89, 90, 155, 188, 189, 191, 214 neo-speaker 203 new speaker 12–15, 103, 104, 108, 118–120, 200, 212, 217, 218 Nigeria 7, 105, 106, 108, 125, 149 Nigerian 8, 55, 82, 105, 106, 108, 126, 130 Nigerian English 8, 106 Nigerian Pidgin English 8, 106 non-native speaker 47, 198, 202

nonstandard 14, 176, 178, 190–192

O

onward mobility 171

P

Padua 12, 58, 86, 105–109, 111, 114, 151 Pakistan 7, 82, 96, 105, 204 Palermitano/Palermitan/Palermo dialect 9, 55, 56 Palermo 9, 10, 19–25, 27, 28, 32, 34–36, 41, 43, 56, 109, 118, 143 Pavia 85, 151 Perugia 151, 162 Perugian 155 Philippines, the 82, 234 Pidgin English 149 Piedmont 85, 170 Piedmontese 10, 85, 155 plurilingualism 84, 86, 91, 92, 94, 95, 97, 98, 152, 210 polylanguaging 209 polylingualism 29 Pordenone 79, 81–83 Portugal 179, 189 Portuguese 8, 89, 137, 148, 179, 189 prestige 3, 9, 54, 55, 67, 69, 95, 128, 129, 136, 161, 190–192, 224, 229, 248 Pulaar 33, 171, 179, 181, 188, 189 Punjabi 8

Index

R

Regional Italian (italiano regionale) 12, 20, 31, 50 register 14, 169, 172, 178, 182, 187, 190, 191, 231 rememberer 203 repertoire 3, 12, 14, 29, 48, 50, 51, 53, 64, 68, 85, 86, 88, 91, 92, 96, 98, 126–129, 131, 136, 153, 154, 200, 209, 230–233 representation 14, 87, 154, 198–203, 205, 207, 208, 210–217 resource 10, 29, 49, 84, 98, 126, 133, 149, 209, 231–233, 248, 249 revitalisation 218 Roman/Romanesco 14, 169, 172, 175–178, 180–191, 206, 212, 213 Romania 7, 81, 82, 87, 89, 105, 226, 243, 248 Rome 13, 14, 58, 82, 109, 151, 169–179, 181, 186, 188–192, 212, 213 Russian 54, 89, 243, 248

S

Sami 104 Sarakole 25 Sardinia 155 Sardinian 3 semi-speaker 203 Senegal 7, 14, 25, 33, 125, 170, 171, 179, 181, 182, 186, 189, 192

257

Senegalese 10, 13, 25, 109, 118, 126, 169–172, 174, 176, 178, 180, 182, 186, 188, 189, 191 Serb 82 Sereer 171, 179, 181 Sicilian 11, 12, 19–22, 28, 30–32, 35, 37, 38, 40, 41, 43, 89, 90, 143, 188, 200, 208, 209 Sicily 4, 19, 20, 28, 31, 35, 85, 86, 199, 203, 204 Siena 151, 162, 163 Sienese 155, 162 Slovenian 79 social network 57, 143, 199, 208, 215, 216 Spain 171, 179, 182, 186 Spanish 89, 113, 137, 171, 179, 181, 182 speaker 4, 8, 13, 14, 29, 30, 37, 50, 52, 69, 78, 85, 97, 98, 104, 106, 107, 109, 113, 116, 119, 120, 127, 128, 140, 156, 174, 175, 177, 188, 198, 199, 203–206, 210–212, 215–217, 229, 231–233, 245, 248 Sri Lanka 7, 27, 105, 226 standard language 14, 184, 190–192, 198, 224, 248, 249 stereotype 137, 200–202, 209, 210, 214, 215 substratum 50

T

they-code 55, 66 traditional speaker 114, 203 Trento 156 Trieste 79, 81–83, 151 truncated repertoire 29, 233

258

Index

Tunisian 8, 10, 27, 90, 118 Turin 55, 56, 85, 151, 170, 180 Turinese 55 Tuscan 3, 162, 176 Tuscany 162, 170 Twi 90

Venetan/Venetian 12–14, 90, 104, 107–111, 113–120, 224, 229, 230, 237, 239, 240, 242, 244–249 Veneto 55, 104–107, 111, 113, 116, 119, 130, 224, 225, 229, 230 Venice 14, 117, 224–227, 229, 230, 234, 237–240

U

Udine 12, 79–83, 86, 87, 95–97 Ukraine 7, 53, 54, 58, 59, 62, 68, 82, 105, 226 Ukrainian 7, 10, 12, 51, 53, 54, 56–58, 68–70, 82, 89, 213

W

we-code 11, 12, 113, 119, 132, 137, 142, 230, 248 Wolof 25, 26, 33, 170, 171, 179–182, 185, 186, 188, 189

V

Y

value judgement 55

Yoruba 8, 106