italian-studies: Scholarly discussions in any field of Italian studies
Dear members,
I'm pleased to inform you that a new book in Italian linguistics is now
available:
Marinella Caruso, Italian language attrition in Australia. The verb
system, Franco Angeli, 2010, pp 224, € 27,00
This book examines the loss of morphology expressing temporality in
Australian Italian and discusses some of the unexplored potential that
data on language attrition have for language theory. Adopting a concept
of markedness based upon assumptions of linguistic or formal complexity,
it is argued that the loss of Italian tense-aspect morphology proceeds
from marked to unmarked.
This volume is structured in seven chapters. Chapter 1 introduces the
scope and the structure of the book. Chapter 2 offers the terminological
and conceptual framework to the study through a concise survey of the
literature on language attrition. Chapter 3 provides a survey of the
well-established body of research literature on the Italian language and
dialects in Australia. Chapter 4 presents the theoretical approach of
the study and formulates hypotheses based on markedness with regard to
attrition in the verb system of Italian. The fifth chapter describes the
methodology followed in the construction of a corpus suitable for the
examination of verbal morphology in Australian Italian and for the
testing of the hypotheses. Chapter 6 analyses the data and discusses the
findings. Conclusions are drawn in Chapter 7.
Markedness is shown to be a useful tool in describing Italian verbal
attrition, although it is not sufficient for explaining the complexity
of the phenomena observed. A consideration of the linguistic background
of the speakers (i.e. their Italian-dialect bilingualism) and the
specific characteristics of the languages/dialects spoken by them must
be part of an explanatory approach to Italian verbal attrition.
For more information please visit:
http://www.francoangeli.it/Ricerca/Scheda_Libro.asp?ID=18164&Tipo=Libro&titolo=Italian+language+attrition+in+Australia.+The+verb+system
Dr Marinella Caruso
Assistant Professor (Cassamarca Lecturer)
European Languages & Studies
The University of Western Australia
M203, 35 Stirling Highway
Crawley WA 6009 AUSTRALIA
Ph.(+61 8) 6488-2160 Fax.(+61 8) 6488-1182
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