Open Access Mini Review

Italian Studies and Graffiti, A Complex Relationship

Nicola Guerra*

Adjunct Professor School of Languages and Translation Studies, University of Turku ,Finland.

Corresponding Author

Received Date: November 11, 2020;  Published Date: December 15, 2020

Abstract

Despite its massive presence in our cities, the accusations of vandalism have caused scholars of Italian language and culture to shy away from the analysis of graffiti. Another factor might also have been a certain traditional elite perspective, to the detriment of ordinariness and of the everyday. In today’s society of widespread control of both physical and virtual spaces through capillary video surveillance and online monitoring which sees the usable spaces for dissent reduced graffiti art still represents an opportunity for free communication. Documenting and studying graffiti means participating in a work of democratization of linguistics, lightening it from the redundant burden of the classics, by the rigid reference to standard Italian compared to popular Italian (intended as a variety of speakers from the lower social classes characterized by poor social prestige), and by a certain purism that translates into fear of those evolutionary dynamics of the language that find representation in graffiti, not by chance creator and diffuser of numerous neologisms and linguistic contact.

Keywords: Graffiti; Italian studies; Street art; Italian linguistics.

Citation
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