Reformulation in Early 20th Century Substandard Italian
This study investigates reformulation in a substandard variety of Italian, <i>italiano popolare</i>, from the early 20th Century, focusing on a collection of letters and postcards from semi-literate Sicilian peasants during World War I. The analysis identifies three reformulation markers...
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| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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MDPI AG
2025-07-01
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| Series: | Languages |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://www.mdpi.com/2226-471X/10/7/165 |
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| Summary: | This study investigates reformulation in a substandard variety of Italian, <i>italiano popolare</i>, from the early 20th Century, focusing on a collection of letters and postcards from semi-literate Sicilian peasants during World War I. The analysis identifies three reformulation markers: <span style="font-variant: small-caps;">cioè</span>, <span style="font-variant: small-caps;">anzi</span>, and <span style="font-variant: small-caps;">vuol dire</span>. These markers are affected by hypercorrection, interference, and structural simplification, reflecting the sociolinguistic dynamics of <i>italiano popolare</i>. Additionally, the study of these markers sheds light on the relationships between reformulation and related discourse functions, namely paraphrase, correction, addition, and motivation. By positioning occurrences of reformulation along a continuum between the spoken and written mode, the findings suggest that this discourse function is employed more as a rhetorical strategy that characterizes planned written texts, rather than as a feature of disfluency that is typical of unplanned speech. Ultimately, examining reformulation in <i>italiano popolare</i> provides valuable insights into the relationship between sociolinguistic variation and language change in the beginning of the 20th Century, a key phase in the spread of Italian as a national language. |
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| ISSN: | 2226-471X |