1999 - Cadmo
The phenomenal growth of English linguistic loans in the Italian language, especially since the end of the second world war, leads to multiple considerations. This study analyzes many "borrowed" words according to the criteria of semantics, phonetics, morphology and gender, and emphasizes how certain terms show a transparent linear continuity when crossing the linguistic barrier while others undergo adaptations of various kinds. Thus a clearer picture of the more instrumental syntactic and phonetic rules of the two languages emerges. Little by little the adoption of lexical items has generated an invasion of Anglo-Saxon culture which has drawn many Italians to Anglo-American customs regarding tastes in food, music, technology, dress and behaviour. Plausible explanations are given for the various processes of assimilation and possible future developments. The entire work has been guided by an awareness that the way in which loan-words are used determines the constant change in language. Gloria Italiano was born and educated in the United States. She attended the Universities of Wisconsin, Madison and Georgetown, Washington D.C. She teaches English linguistics at the Faculty of Economics of the University of Florence and has also taught simultaneous and consecutive translation techniques at the Scuola interpreti in Florence. She has published various studies in the fields of translation theory, compared and applied linguistics, and psycholinguistics. She is presently carrying out comprehensive research into the influx of Italian into the English language.
140 p.
