Abstracts Language, Literature, and Linguistic

The perception of the English language in the Italian linguistic landscape

by LUCIA ARGENZIANO

reserved The English language is known all around the world, being the most widely spoken language in our globe. In the last decades, however, it has become increasingly omnipresent in our lives, in many countries whose first language is not English. The inclusion of a foreign language in a country like Italy has been the topic of many debates: the presence of foreign words that have a translation or that could be rendered in Italian is frowned upon by people who are attached to their culture, and language is an important part of it; as I will show in the first chapter, a deputy of the Italian Parliament actually introduced a bill to penalise and fine the use of said terms. This dissertation aims to analyse some of the consequences of the spread of the English language around the world. In the first chapter, I will explore the reasons why English is so widespread globally, how it is used as a Lingua Franca, and how Italians perceive the language, while in the second chapter, I will look into the topic of the Linguistic Landscape, first in general, and then specifically in the Italian context. Finally, in the third chapter, I will present a debate I recently came across, involving an Instagram creator and her followers.