Evolving linguistic identities among the Italian-American youth: Perceptions from linguistic autobiographies

Abstract

Observations and discussions concerning the form and use of Italian and dialects in geographical and social space have a long tradition, beginning with Dante’s De vulgari eloquentia and culminating in seemingly endless debates of the Questione della lingua up to the modern age. Numerous writers have expressed opinions concerning stylistic choices of language and dialects in their works. While these debates were aimed frequently at the question of what constitutes Italy’s standard language and how dialects and alloglot minority languages ought to be treated, fewer texts address individual perceptions of language practice and individual language histories. This gap began to be filled with Nencioni’s (1983) trailblazing linguistic autodiachrony, and by the narratives of other scholars of linguistics, such as Renzi (2002) and Francescato (1982). In addition, linguistic autobiographies written by students at Italian universities generally point to the continued vitality of Italian dialects in Italian society. This article focuses on linguistic autobiographies written by Italian-American students. Based on a small corpus of short linguistic biographies written in Italian linguistics courses, it aims at studying perceptions of evolving linguistic identities among Italian-American youth, with an emphasis on the second generation. The texts address changing linguistic behavior and attitudes, from childhood through adulthood, pondering exposure to Italian dialects, standard Italian, English and other languages. Despite differences among dynamically evolving individual identities, second-generation Italian-American youth tends to value non-standard varieties, particularly through the memory of their childhood dialects. They also appear to value multilingualism in the urban environment. Writing short linguistic autobiographies was considered a challenge by their authors and, despite their approximations, deliberate omissions and memory lapses, valued as a step toward greater language awareness.