Forme e funzioni delle virgolette negli atti di parte

Abstract

During the collection and anonymisation of the party proceedings that are part of the PRIN project “Atti Chiari” database, an exploratory and qualitative analysis of the texts revealed a widespread and transversal use of the quotation marks (“ ”), in association – or as an alternative – to the use of italics. It has been possible to verify that, in addition to the typical uses of the standard language, the introduction of inverted commas and italics in the party proceedings responds to the lawyers’ need to include in the text basic vocabulary that in the standard language would not need any modalisation strategy. This seems to show the authors’ reserve in introducing very common words in the texts as if they were not entirely appropriate; however, if italics and inverted commas are used to justify a communicative choice that has clearly not yet become standard, they are also evidence of a significant opening towards the drafting of clearer documents.