Linguistic and Literary Sciences

First semester – a.y. 2014-2015

22 October, 10 am, room 329 – via Necchi 9
Alexander Geyken - Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and the Humanities
Corpus based analysis of collocations: a short history of the past 25 years of corpus linguistics.

Abstract:
Electronic corpora have been used in lexicography and in the domain of language learning for more than two decades (cf. Sinclair (1991), Braun et al. (2006)). Traditionally, computer platforms exploiting these corpora were based on concordances that present a word in its different contexts. However, concordances hit their limits for very large corpora where the result sets are generally too large for manual evaluation. To answer questions like 'which attributive adjectives are used for the noun book' or 'is the adjective groundbreaking more typical for book than pioneering', would require one to look at several thousand concordance lines, a quite impracticable task to do by hand. Likewise, the exclusive use of concordance lines in an attempt to answer a question like 'which objects does a verb like hit typically take' would be unsuitable, since one would not only have to find all the different objects of hit but it would also be necessary to discard all the false positives. These types of questions involve counting of co-occurrences, and, if they are linguistically motivated, collocations. The cases above are examples for collocations of a certain syntactic type, i.e. adjective-noun and verb-object collocations. The importance of describing collocations has long been acknowledged both for language learning (e.g. Hausmann (1984)) as well as for lexicographic purposes (e.g. Harris (1968), Sinclair (1991)). Church & Hanks (1989) were the first to show that lexical statistics are useful to summarize concordance data by presenting a list of the statistically most salient collocates. More recently, databases have been built for large corpora that make use of this abstraction of concordance lines. A well-known example is the Sketch Engine (Kilgarriff (2004)) that produces so called word-sketches for languages as different as Czech, Italian or Chinese.

23 October, 10:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m., room 329 – via Necchi 9
Teaching an L2 in multilingual contexts

• 10h45 - 11h30: Aline Gohard-Radenkovic - Université de Fribourg
  Analyse critique des approches plurielles au service de l'éducation plurilingue du Conseil de l'Europe: à partir d'exemples contextualisés
• 11h30-11h45: discussion
• 11h45 - 12h30: Tiziana Protti - Université de Fribourg
  The role of Italian language and culture courses in the intergenerational transmission of "Italianness". The case of French-speaking Switzerland
• 12h30 - 13h15: Nicoletta Gazzana - Université de Fribourg
  Is there a specific didactic for the "origin" language? The case of Italian language and culture courses abroad
• 13h15-13h30: discussion

Abstract:
The day is part of a series of conferences on the theme of multilingualism, organized from 20 to 24 October between the universities of Bologna, Milano Cattolica and Genoa. The speakers, experts in foreign language teaching, will present three reports with the teaching of an L2 in a multilingual context as a common thread. Aline Gohard-Radenkovic will focus in particular on plural approaches (which have returned to the news after the online publication of "Carap, Cadre de référence des approches plurielles"), proposing a critical analysis in the light of concrete examples; Tiziana Protti and Nicoletta Gazzana will present the results of their doctoral research in the field of teaching and learning Italian as a second language with particular attention to the Swiss context.

7 November, 9 am-1 pm, aula Cripta – Largo Gemelli 1
Vanessa B. Beasley – Vanderbilt University
Rhetoric as a formative influence in the English-speaking world

Speakers: Guido Milanese, Arturo Cattaneo, Amanda Murphy – Università Cattolica

Abstract:
The symposium focuses on the role of rhetoric in the public sphere of English-speaking countries, with particular reference to politics. Prof. Beasley will talk about the function of rhetoric in the inaugural speeches of the Presidents of the United States of America. Prof. Milanese will follow the developments of classical rhetoric through the cultural and political evolution of modern Europe. Prof. Cattaneo will deal with the role of rhetoric in the formation of the public man in England, from the Renaissance to the twentieth century, and its 'imperial' function. Prof. Murphy will examine the use that modern communication makes of rhetoric, in its public as well as in its socio-economic aspects.

20 November, 3 pm, room 329 – via Necchi 9
Wolfgang Behr – University of Zurich
Vagueness in Chinese: some clichés and clarifications

Abstract:
Throughout the history of European linguistic alterity constructions, probably no other language has been labeled "vague", "imprecise", "ambiguous" or "underspecified" as much as Chinese since the beginning of its description in missionary accounts in the 16th century. While it can be readily shown that many of such observations are mere clichés, stemming from the failure to distinguish between writing and language or from the subliminal projection of typological expectations informed by the model of Indo-European languages, some serious linguistic questions remain: what is the place of vagueness – deliberate or unintentional – in the historical development of Chinese? How is ambiguity in different linguistic domains influenced by categorial elaboration and its loss? Is grammaticality a graded rather than a binary phenomenon, and if so, is the is the underlying scale calibrated differently in Chinese than in other typologically similar languages? What is the relationship between vagueness, ambiguity and grammaticality (universally and in Chinese)? Setting aside the implications of such questions for the periodically resurging discourse on linguistic relativity, the talk will draw upon on a number of examples from pre-imperial, medieval and contemporary Chinese in order to delineate the role of vagueness in Chinese more precisely, especially by looking at areas where it is correlated with covert obligatory marking and definiteness.

Second semester – a.y. 2014-2015

a) WORKSHOPS RESERVED FOR PHD STUDENTS OF THE SCHOOL

15 January, 2.30 p.m., room 329 – via Necchi 9
Pier Franca Forchini - Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore
What Can a Corpus Tell us About Language.

Abstract:
Conceptually, the talk will be divided into two main parts. The first part, which will serve as a theoretical introduction to Corpus Linguistics and Corpora, will offer an overview of corpus methodology and will illustrate the modern corpus building criteria and types. The  second part will provide observations of what linguists, both students and experts, can do with corpora by giving practical examples and tools for quantitative and qualitative data analyses.

27 January, 2.30 p.m., room 329 – via Necchi 9
Tim Quinn - University of Milan
An Approach to Writing Academic English in Research on Language, Linguistics and Literature.

Abstract:
Focusing on the areas of language, linguistics and literature, this student-centred, interactive workshop will explore different approaches to both research methodology and writing techniques. Using students' own experiences and perspectives, a series of classroom activities will aid in identifying and resolving specific problems involved in the writing process. Although materials and exercises will be reactive rather than programmed, general topics covered will include research organisation, drafting and editing techniques..

5 February, 2.30 p.m., room 329 - Via Necchi 9
Pier Franca Forchini – Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore
Effective Presentations in English

Abstract:
The talk will be divided into two main parts. The first part, which will serve as an introduction to the English language, will focus on the role that English has acquired worldwide and on the world wide spectrum of varieties it entails. To start off, a brief overview of the concept of variation and of the English varieties present around the world will be offered, particular emphasis will be given to the two main standards of English: the British and the American one. The idea behind the first part is that, in order to acquire proficiency in communicating in a foreign language and to be persuasive, one needs to be aware of the nature and characteristics of that specific language. The second part will zoom in on a specific mode of communication in English, namely, oral presentations. In particular, given the need to be effective and convincing while communicating, detailed suggestions on how to outline a presentation and connect with the audience will be offered. Special consideration will be given to how to present research findings.

b) SEMINARS ON TOPICS OF LITERATURE AND LINGUISTICS - OPEN

3 February, 3 pm, room 329 – via Necchi 9
Artur Galkowski – University of Lodz
Onomatics and communication: from producer to consumer

Abstract:
Onomastics is an area that can be considered in generic terms of a (interdisciplinary) science of language, but also in social terms, as a form of communication: in interactions, in the creation of various types of texts and speeches, in the establishment of relationships between the object of a proper name, the creator of the name and the recipient of the micro-message enclosed and transmitted by the functional meaning of a proper unity. These specific relationships are manifested above all in the world of new proper names that are particularly active in the productive and commercial spheres. The names that designate a company, a product, a service or another effect of economic action are subjected to a training and communication process of high performance capacity. The manufacturer realizes this, considering often, and not wrongly, the name (crematonym) as an important part of the brand, indeed of the entire object determined by it. The success of the brand can depend on a successful and original word idea; The commercial name becomes the container of the values that the brand collects. The lesson will aim to expose the communicative values of commercial proper names, situating their analysis on various levels of linguistic, but also sociotechnical, psychological and cultural reflection.

 5 March, 3 pm, room 329 – via Necchi 9
John Osborne - Université Savoie Mont Blanc
Narrating Events and Fluency in Spoken Learner Corpora.

Abstract:
Collecting a corpus of oral productions by foreign language learners requires time to record, transcribe and annotate the data, but once compiled, such corpora are a rich source of information about  learner speech and language learning, since they preserve the features of language produced in real time. Among the many characteristics that can be studied through learner corpora, this presentation will look specifically at the following questions: 1) What kinds of lexical, grammatical and phraseological choices do learners and native speakers of a language make when carrying out identical oral production tasks, particularly in expressing spatial and temporal relationships?; 2) To what extent are these choices and patterns of preferred usage related to oral fluency and perceived proficiency in learners of a foreign language?
The discussion of these two questions will be illustrated by examples taken from a parallel corpus of spoken English, French and Italian, by both native speakers and learners of these three languages, compiled at the University of Savoie.

10 March, 3 pm, room 329 – via Necchi 9
Maria Teresa Zanola - Università Cattolica del SacroCuore
Technology and progress in eighteenth-century French: history of language, history of culture.

Abstract:
Advances in the natural sciences and the dominance of clock mechanics technology form the basis of the construction of automatic machines in the French eighteenth century. What are the consequences for the development of reflection on the notion of 'progress' and 'technology' in this century? The contribution will analyze the cultural context of the phenomenon through the figure of Vaucanson and his "automates", to move on to consider the new production of technical literature that is widely distributed. The corpus of reference thus described in the history of culture allows the deepening of the linguistic history of "progress" and "technique" in the period considered.

19 March, 3 pm, room 329 – via Necchi 9
Paola Spinozzi - University of Ferrara
Apocalypse and Palingenesis in British Literature from the End of the Nineteenth Century to the Contemporary Age.

Abstract:
Appraisals of and speculations about humanity, the human environment, and its sustainability have been at the core of utopia as a literary genre since its origin in 1516. From the second half of the eighteenth century the focus of utopian writers began to shift from another place to another time. By envisioning a time, rather than a place, uchronias function as a powerful mode of foretelling sustainable or unsustainable futures for humankind. The transformation of classical utopia into uchronia indicates a wider philosophical enquiry: the temporal dimension becomes central, expressing the writer's concern about history and human development in a teleological perspective. Industrialization in nineteenth-century Great Britain marked a pivotal period in the history of civilization. It was precisely the sight of a disfigured environment and of human beings tainted by capitalism that prompted utopian thinkers to conjure up the apocalypse and to envision palingenesis in the shape of alternative and sustainable societies for future generations. The uchronian imagery gathered momentum through the spreading of prophecies about how, and if, humankind would be able to live after the end of the industrial age. Three models of post-apocalyptic future environments can be identified: I. the hyper-technological society; II. the neo-medieval society based on the revival of the pre-industrial age and on the integration between the urban space and the country; III. the wasteland resulting from the destruction of both the natural and cultural landscape. In the contemporary progeny of uchronia, known as steampunk fiction, the issue of reconstruction is emphasised through the DIY (Do It Yourself) lifestyle of the tinkerer and producer of artefacts. Such premise is predicated on an ideology that affects society at multiple levels. The practice of reusing/recycling is a form of ecological intervention showing that individuals can take responsibility towards the environment. However, if restricted to the private sphere and lacking feasible collective goals, the steampunk frame of mind generates escapism and aestheticizing postures.
The corpus includes Three Hundred Years Hence. A Voice from Posterity (1881) by William Delisle Hay; After London; Or, Wild England (1885) by Richard Jefferies; The City and the Stars (1956) by Arthur C. Clarke; The Elemental Apocalypse Quartet (The Wind from Nowhere, 1961; The Drowned World, 1962; The Burning World, 1964, The Crystal World, 1966) by J. G. Ballard; Ice (1967) by Anna Kavan; Queen Victoria's Bomb (1967) by Ronald W. Clarke; The Warlord of the Air by Michael Moorcock (1971); Children of the Dust (1985) by Louise Lawrence; The Difference Engine (1991) by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling; The Hungry Cities Chronicle (Mortal Engines, 2001, Predator's Gold, 2003, Infernal Devices, 2005, A Darkling Plain, 2006) by Philip Reeve; the anime Steamboy (2004) by Katsuhiro Ōtomo.

NOTICE! THE SEMINAR IS BROUGHT FORWARD TO 10 MARCH
24 March, 3 pm, room 329 – via Necchi 9
Maria Teresa Zanola - Università Cattolica del SacroCuore
Technology and progress in eighteenth-century French: history of language, history of culture.

Abstract:
Advances in the natural sciences and the dominance of clock mechanics technology form the basis of the construction of automatic machines in the French eighteenth century. What are the consequences for the development of reflection on the notion of 'progress' and 'technology' in this century? The contribution will analyze the cultural context of the phenomenon through the figure of Vaucanson and his "automates", to move on to consider the new production of technical literature that is widely distributed. The corpus of reference thus described in the history of culture allows the deepening of the linguistic history of "progress" and "technique" in the period considered.

16 April, 3 pm, room 329 - Via Necchi 9
Sara Greco – Università della Svizzera Italiana
Argumentation and self-talk

Abstract:
The term argumentation normally refers to a practice of social communicative interaction, through which two or more interlocutors engage in critically examining the arguments in support of their theses in order to reach a well-founded decision through a critical discussion. In some cases, however, the argumentative discussion may involve only one person, who is, for example, considering different alternatives in individual decision-making. In these cases, a form of inner argumentation is reached, which is of particular importance for understanding decision-making processes in different communicative practices. Although the study of inner argumentation is still in its infancy, also due to objective difficulties in accessing data, there are interesting ideas that derive both from the study of communication and from literary analysis. Understanding how a person accounts for his or her decisions by arguing has important implications for understanding the dimension of reasonableness, understood as a fundamental value of argumentation. The tension towards reasonableness cannot be limited, obviously, to public discussion but must be broadened to include individual choices. This paper emphasizes how to define and analyze argumentation in self-talk. The corpus used as the main empirical basis for the analysis is composed of interviews with migrant women with children, whose decision-making process is reconstructed.

NOTICE! THE SEMINAR IS CANCELLED DUE TO THE UNAVAILABILITY OF THE SPEAKER
21 April, 3 pm, room 329 – via Necchi 9
Fabrizio Macagno - Universidade Nova de Lisboa
When insults are strategies.

Abstract:
The personal attack, also called the ad hominem argument, is commonly considered a fallacy, that is, a deceptive tactic, a discursive move that is only apparently a good argument. To confine oneself to condemning personal attacks as incongruous or invalid, however, is to overlook the fact that these are indeed persuasive and appear to be good arguments. The question that election debates suggest is why ad hominem are so effective. An answer can be found by analyzing their typology, the various structures that they take as arguments, the dialogic effects they entail, that is, the possibilities of response that they allow and prevent, and the emotions that are triggered. In this perspective, personal attacks become complex and often risky strategies, which often restructure the entire communication process and the knowledge shared by the interlocutors.

23 April, 3 pm, room 329 - Via Necchi 9
Daniel Lévêque – Université Catholique de l'Ouest-Angers
El abolengo lingüístico de Centroamérica y la elaboración de un Diccionario de Centroamericanismos: explotación de un material literario regional y conclusiones.

Abstract:
Después de comentar los grandes rasgos de la literatura centroamericana (especialmente la novela social de los años 1940 a 1970) donde se pueden observar las manifestaciones lingüísticas de un fenómeno de transculturación narrativa, mostraremos cómo el rastreo "filtrante" de unas cien referencias literarias de los seis países del Istmo centroamericano, nos ha permitido elaborar, según el doble criterio de "americanismo lingüístico" y de "frecuencia de empleo", un Diccionario español-francés de Centroamericanismos de más de 1300 artículos, 1500 acepciones y 2222 citas. Explotaremos luego este fondo lexicográfico para esbozar una tipificación dialectológica del discurso literario centroamericano sacando conclusiones de la observación de los seis enfoques lingüísticos siguientes: diatópico, diacrónico, semántico, tipológico, sociolingüístico y, para acabar, discursivo; El cruce de los datos referentes a cada uno de dichos puntos de vista rematará esta investigación dialectológica con el propósito de caracterizar científicamente (con datos estadísticos), de manera global y multidimensional a la vez, los mencionados usos léxicos en tanto que éstos representan el mayor rasgo lingüístico indigenizante de la literatura regional, todo lo cual ejemplificaremos finalmente con casos prácticos sacados de algunas obras seleccionadas.

28 April, 3 pm, room 329 - Via Necchi 9
Stefano Arduini, University of Urbino
Cognitive Linguistics and Translation

Abstract:
Around the seventies, two new research paradigms concerning texts and their paths appeared on the international cultural scene. In Europe, the work of James Holmes, André Lefevere, Susan Bassett and other researchers has created new ways of understanding translation. It is thanks to these authors that a new concept of Translation Studies was introduced. In the same years in the United States, some postgenerativist linguists found it necessary to introduce a new cognitive point of view on language. Cognitive Linguistics has changed the idea that linguistic structures are independent modules of our mind and has proposed a new research  paradigm that considers language in relation to meaning and does not separate it from other aspects of cognition. This lecture seeks to combine the two paradigms with regard to metaphor translation.

30 April, 3 pm, room 329 - Via Necchi 9
Johan Drumbl, University of Bozen-Bolzano
Functional categories for language learning

Abstract:
Some uses of the German modal verb 'müssen' will be analyzed, considering the verb as if it were a monolexical entry like the Italian 'dovere' and completely neglecting the existence of the German verb 'sollen', which is also translated as 'duty'. From the analysis emerges the anankastic function of 'duty' highlighted by Amedeo and Maria Elisabeth Conte. The analysis on the 'monolexical' level allows to define the semantic categories avoiding the erroneous interpretations that arise in relation to the distribution of 'müssen' and 'sollen' with respect to the Italian 'dovere'. This specific case will be discussed against the background of two recent theories that resort to categories formulated starting from the analysis of empirical data: the book Lexical analysis. Patrick Hanks' Norms and Exploitations, which proposes a model "concerned primarily with patterns, probabilities and predictions, and hence focuses on statistically-significant phraseological and collocational patterns", and the 'Common-sense-Kompetenz' (Helmuth Feilke), an example of a theory matured in the field of usage-based linguistics in close relationship with German sociological theories.

5 May, 2:30 pm, room 329 - Via Necchi 9
Enrico Reggiani, Catholic University of the Sacred Heart
Shakespeare 'economist': 'money' and 'moneyes' in The Merchant of Venice

Abstract:
From the opening lines of Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice, in Venice, Antonio and Shylock embody and elaborate two very different econoliterary strategies, textualized thanks to the different use of the term "money". Antonio, the Venetian merchant, uses the form uncountable, with the inescapable implication that mercantile exchange is more important than monetary exchange and financial speculation; Shylock, the Jewish lender, uses the countable form instead, as evidenced by the plural moneyes, which, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, "was formerly attributed to Jewish speakers". This linguistic-cultural aspect of the econoliterary strategy that Shakespeare attributes to the two characters in question constitutes one of the most radically dissonant characteristics of the Merchant of Venice and is so much so that, precisely because of this characteristic, this play of his  seems to run the risk of facing a sort of "theatrical bankruptcy", with at least two potentially fatal consequences: fracture of its textual unity and shattering of the common ground (anthropological, chronotopic, socio-political, institutional, economic, etc.) that allows the characters to interact between Venice and Belmonte.

12 May, 3 pm, room 329 - Via Necchi 9
Olka Inkova, University of Geneva
Correlation: theories and applications

Abstract:
It aims to take stock of the notion of correlation, which in recent decades has become topical again in studies on the structure of the complex sentence, often to remedy the insufficiency of the dichotomy coordination vs subordination. We will see what definitions have been given to this notion, from the grammars of classical languages to the generativist approach, passing through proposals based on French data. In fact, this notion can receive a syntactic-semantic definition (a type of subordination based on the anaphoric relationship between the signals of the syntactic relation: Qualis pater, talis filius), a purely syntactic definition (the presence in every part of the complex sentence of a signal of the syntactic relation: If he comes, then I do not come; Either he sleeps, or he watches television) or the pragmatic-enunciative definition of "contextual complementarity" (Tu m'écris un mot et je viens tout de suite). To conclude, we dwell on the manifestations of correlation in the Russian language to test existing approaches.

13 May, 11.30 a.m., room 329 - Via Necchi 9
Emilio Manzotti, University of Geneva
Generalizing. On a textual composition process

Abstract:
"Moreover, generalizing," wrote Leopardi on 16 Sept. 1823 in the Zibaldone – «it is to be observed that the first conception of a very vivid desire of something difficult to obtain [...] is always accompanied by fright." The generalizing gerund is linked here to a passage from the previous paragraph, in which, on the basis of Petrarchan verses ("How many times I said | Allor pien di spavento, etc."), it is "the impression [of fright, in fact] that beauty makes". Here is clearly exemplified what can be called a 'movement' of generalization: the passage (in contact or at a distance) in the linearity of the text from a 'base' of one or more propositions in some sense particular to a more general proposition than the previous ones. It is precisely the modalities of this textual procedure that I would like to discuss, first distinguishing different meanings of the term 'generalization' (property of an almost universally quantified proposition, propositional 'attitude', etc.); then identifying different types of abstraction in the passage from the basis to the general proposition; then analyzing the semantic specificity of the different generalization signals available in Italian (in general, generally, in general, plus a general, etc.); and finally by identifying and rapidly characterizing other textual procedures close to generalization.