The Influence of Cyberlanguage and Adolescent Slang on Contemporary Italian

In a world where technology has made written communication rapid, languages are being shaped more and more by the requirements of the new cyberspace medium. One of the most conspicuous of these is the proclivity towards efficiency and economy, as evident in the constant production of compressed forms (abbreviations of words and phrases, acronyms, etc.) in the written language of chat rooms and of other such virtual linguistic communities. Is this a new linguistic phenomenon responding to new technologies? Or, is it a contemporary manifestation of an inbuilt “principle of least effort” in communication systems? And is it spreading to the language generally? This course will look at this question as it concerns the Italian language today, assessing its implications in the light of the history of the language through the ages. It will also look at the convergence between youth slang and general tendencies within modern Italian.

Required texts: Alfonzetti, G. La relativa non-standard: Italiano popolare o italiano parlato? Palermo: Centro di Studi Filogici e Linguistici Siciliani, 2002.
Clivio, G. P. and Danesi, M. The Sounds, Forms, and Uses of Italian: An Introduction to Italian Linguistics. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000.