Community and space in Italian sociolinguistics. The experience of the Linguistic Atlas of Sicily (Atlante Linguistico della Sicilia – ALS)
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/sols.32766Keywords:
PERCEPTUAL DIALECTOLOGY, SPEECH COMMUNITY, LANGUAGE AND SPACE, LINGUISTIC ATLAS, LIVED SPACE, LINGUISTIC ATLAS OF SICILYAbstract
Our paper focuses on the notions of ‘space’ and ‘community’ within the most recent developments of Italian sociolinguistics. This research area has roots in the tradition of Italian geolinguistic studies and has been enhanced by other research traditions. In fact, Italian sociolinguistics has reused the relationship between ‘community’ and ‘space’ investigated in the early 20th century by Benvenuto Terracini’s (1886--1968) seminal studies on ‘minimal linguistic point’ (‘punto linguistico minimo’) and on ‘community of speakers’. Since the Seventies and, with more weight, in the last decades, some important contributions coming from scholars such as Alberto Sobrero, Tullio Telmon and Giovanni Ruffino returned to Terracini’s issues, intertwining them with the approaches of variationist sociolinguistics. More recently models viewing community and space as contextualized discourse practices have been elaborated. In the most productive way, the Linguistic Atlas of Sicily (Atlante Linguistico della Sicilia, ALS) project uses the notions of ‘community’ and ‘space’ as they have been developed in the Italian geo- and sociolinguistic tradition. For more than twenty years, ALS has been exploring the Sicilian speaker’s language use, carrying out an innovative project. In this paper both theoretical assumptions and achievements of the ALS project will be discussed.References
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Trudgill, P. (1974) The social differentiation of English in Norwich. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Trudgill, P. (1986) Dialects in contact. Oxford: Blackwell.
Berruto, G. (1977) La sociolinguistica. Bologna: Zanichelli.
Britain, D. (2010) Language and space: The variationist approach. In P. Auer and J. E. Schmidt (eds) Language and space: An international handbook of linguistic variation. Vol. I. Theories and Methods 142–163. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
Calvet, L.-J. (1999) Aux origines de la sociolinguistique la conférence de sociolinguistique de l’UCLA (1964). Langage et Société 88: 25–57. Doi: https://doi.org/10.3406/lsoc.1999.2867.
D’Agostino, M. (2006) Fra ricerca empirica e storiogra?a. Modelli di spazio in linguistica. In Th. Krefeld (ed.) Modellando lo spazio in prospettiva linguistica 35–71. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.
D’Agostino, M. (2012) Sociolinguistica dell’Italia contemporanea. Bologna: Il Mulino.
D’Agostino, M. and Ruf?no, G. (2005) I rilevamenti sociovariazionali. Linee progettuali. Palermo: Centro di studi ?lologici e linguistici siciliani.
D’Agostino, M. and Paternostro, G. (eds) (2006) Costruendo i dati. Metodi di raccolta, revisione e organizzazione della banca dati nella sezione sociovariazionale. Palermo: Centro di studi ?lologici e linguistici siciliani.
Eckert, P. (1999) Linguistic variation as social practice. Oxford: Blackwell.
Francescato, G. and Solari, P. (1994) Timau. Tre lingue per un paese. Galatina: Congedo.
Frémont, A. (1976) La région, espace vécu. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.
Grassi, C. (1980) Von der Sprachgeographie zur Soziolinguistick. Ein Vergleich von Erfahrungen und Ergebnissen in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland und in Italien. Zeitschrift für Dialektologie und Linguistik 47: 145–159.
Grassi, C. (1981) Il concetto di spazio e la geogra?a linguistica. In H. Geckeler, B. Schlieben-Lange, J. Trabant and H. Weydt (eds) Logos Semantikos. Studia linguistica in honorem Eugenio Coseriu. Vol. V 59–69. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110863048.59.
Kerswill, P. and Williams, A. (2002) ‘Salience’ as an explanatory factor in language change: Evidence from dialect levelling in urban England. In M. C. Jones and E. Esch (eds) Language change: The interplay of internal, external and extra-linguistic factors 81–110. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Koerner, F. K. (2002) Toward a history of American linguistics. London: Routledge. Doi: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203361856.
Krefeld, Th. (2002) Per una linguistica dello spazio vissuto. In Th. Krefeld (ed.) Spazio vissuto e dinamica linguistica. Varietà meridionali in Italia e in situazione di extraterritorialità 11–24. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.
Labov, W. (1972) Language in the inner city. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Labov, W. (1982) Building on empirical foundations. In W. Lehmann and Y. Malkiel (eds) Perspectives in historical sociolinguistics 79–92. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1075/cilt.24.06lab.
Labov, W. and Preston, D. (2013) Foreword. Journal of Linguistic Geography 1: 1–3. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1017/jlg.2013.6.
Milroy, L. (1987) Observing and analysing natural language. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.
Paulston, C. B. and Tucker, G. R. (eds) (1997) The early days of sociolinguistics: Memories and re?ections. Dallas: SIL.
Pinello, V. (2017) Raccontare e rappresentare le lingue e lo spazio: l’esperienza dell’Atlante Linguistico della Sicilia. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner.
Rousselot, P. (1891) Les modi?cations phonétiques du langage étudiées dans le patois d’une famille de Cellefrouin (Charente). Paris: Welter.
Ruf?no, G. (1991) Dialetto e dialetti di Sicilia. Palermo: Il Pellicano.
Ruf?no, G. (1995) Percorsi di geogra?a linguistica. Palermo: Centro di studi ?lologici e linguistici siciliani.
Ruf?no, G. (2001) Sicilia. Bari: Laterza.
Schirmunski, V. (1928) Die schwäbischen Mundarten. Transkaukasien und Südukraine. Teuthonista 5, part I: 38–60; part II: 157–171.
Sobrero, A. A. (2006) La crisi della geogra?a linguistica al tempo del mistilinguismo, dell’intercultura, della globalizzazione. In Th. Krefeld (ed.) Modellando lo spazio in prospettiva linguistica 11–18. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.
Sottile, R. (2002) Lessico dei pastori delle Madonie. Palermo: Centro di studi ?lologici e linguistici siciliani.
Terracini, B. (1960) Il concetto di lingua comune e il problema dell’unità di un punto linguistico minimo. Bollettino dell’Atlante Linguistico Italiano 5–6: 12–24.
Trovato, S. C. (2013) Lingue alloglotte e minoranze. In G. Ruf?no (ed.) Lingue e culture in Sicilia. Vol. 1 275–304 Palermo: Centro di studi ?lologici e linguistici siciliani.
Trudgill, P. (1974) The social differentiation of English in Norwich. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Trudgill, P. (1986) Dialects in contact. Oxford: Blackwell.
Published
2018-03-26
Issue
Section
Articles
How to Cite
D’Agostino, M., Paternostro, G., & Pinello, V. (2018). Community and space in Italian sociolinguistics. The experience of the Linguistic Atlas of Sicily (Atlante Linguistico della Sicilia – ALS). Sociolinguistic Studies, 11(2-3-4), 341-364. https://doi.org/10.1558/sols.32766
