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Literary Criticism Italian

Mother Tongues and Other Reflections on the Italian Language

by (author) Giulio Lepschy

Publisher
University of Toronto Press, Scholarly Publishing Division
Initial publish date
Jan 2003
Category
Italian, Italy, General
  • Hardback

    ISBN
    9780802037299
    Publish Date
    Dec 2002
    List Price
    $39.95
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9781442677401
    Publish Date
    Jan 2003
    List Price
    $48.00

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Description

Italian is unique among modern European languages, for although it has a history going back eight centuries, it has only consolidated as a spoken national language during the twentieth century. Previously, it was a written, literary language, and people spoke regional dialects that were strikingly different from each other. This has intriguing implications for understanding notions such as mother tongue, native speaker, and literary language, and Giulio Lepschy discusses these and other issues in this collection of six scholarly essays on the Italian language.

Lepschy also explores a little understood aspect of Italian prosody (the system of secondary stresses), and analyzes a Venetian play of the Renaissance, La Veniexiana, in which a 'gendered' reading helps to clarify some grammatically controversial passages. These aspects of the play had been examined by Carlo Dionisotti, the eminent Italianist whose life and works are the subject of the final essay. Lepschy's approach combines the insights of modern linguistic theory and the findings of fresh and original philological investigations. His essays will be essential to anyone interested in the Italian language.

About the author

Giulio Lepschy is Emeritus Professor, University of Reading, and Honorary Professor, Department of Italian, at University College London.

Giulio Lepschy's profile page