Agli albori dello studio dell’italiano parlato: note storiche e critiche a proposito della recente edizione italiana dell’Italienische Umgangssprache di Leo Spitzer

Abstract

Spitzer’s Italienische Umgangssprache (1918) constitutes one on the first essays dedicated to the study of spoken Italian and, mostly, to its dialogic dimension. The recent publication of the Italian edition (La lingua italiana del dialogo, 2007) of Spitzer’s work induces to reflect on the theoretical roots of his research, as well as on the linguistic items he focused on. Many aspects that Spitzer considers as constitutive of spoken Italian have a more accurate systematisation in recent pragmatic studies: the same articulation of his work – based on the relations existing among the three constitutive components of dialogue (speaker, hearer and situation) – reveals the originality of Spitzer’s path. The fact that his interest privileged psychological rather than grammatical features induces to study in depth the specificity and the analogies of the essay with the linguistic trends of early XX century. In the same way, the lateness of Italian translation makes wonder why the Spitzer’s work – apart from Benvenuto Terracini’s comments – has been scarcely welcome by Italian scholars.