Progetto: Resilient syntax in contact: assessing minority languages (RESYNC)

Acronimo: RESYNC

Codice progetto: P2022T8LJH

Responsabile scientifico (UL): prof.ssa Cecilia Poletto

Abstract:
EN - This proposal aims at contributing to the safeguard of minority languages (ML) by investigating the level of language endangerment from a new perspective: we provide an objective measure of the transmission (and therefore survival) of their morphosyntactic structure. While the vitality of MLs is often assessed with subjective measures gathered through sociolinguistic questionnaires, we will adopt an objective criterion by calculating the degree of resilience of various morphosyntactic constructions in the investigated MLs, in a context of huge pressure from the contact with more prestigious languages. The current demographic and social dynamics are characterised by increased mobility, ‘mixed’ marriages and the spread of standard languages that affect the traditional transmission process, both quantitatively and qualitatively: children receive less and less input in the ML, and this input is restricted to a decreasing number of domains.
Our objective is to determine the use of a set of grammatical features present in the ML but not in the contact languages as an objective marker of the 'structural vitality' (i.e. the degree of resilience of the grammar) of MLs. This can then inform a new language preservation policy. The minority languages under investigation are, for Romance, the Ladin varieties spoken in the province of Belluno and Western Friulian. They all have in common that they compete not only with standard Italian, but also with Venetan, a more prestigious dialectal variety with which they are in contact. In addition, we investigate the German varieties spoken in the three linguistic islands of Sappada, Sauris and Timau (Friuli). Here the communities are not only under the pressure of Italian, but also of Friulian, which is spoken in the surroundings and considered more prestigious. We will test four age groups, in order to get a 'dynamic' picture of the ongoing changes in real time. The phenomena chosen are a) the syntax of the subject, b) subordination and c) nominal agreement. We selected them because they are known to display variable and intricate properties that are different in all the languages mentioned above.
The crucial idea behind our proposal is that it is fundamental to understand not only if a regional language is alive, but also how alive it is. The qualitative aspect is fundamental in a minority setting, in which there are fewer and fewer speakers with a full competence.
The results of our work can help the stakeholders, first of all cultural institutes and ML classes, by indicating what phenomena are less resilient in the ML, and thus need to be focused on during the transmission process (including at school). For this purpose, we will also develop three teaching units about the three grammatical domains we investigate. In addition, we intend to promote language awareness using both traditional (e.g., meetings and conferences) and more innovative means (e.g., social media).

Gruppo di ricerca: prof.ssa Sanfelici Emanuela, dott.ssa Marcati Elena, dott. D'Antuono Nicola  

Progetto: Women’s Intellectual Invisibility from the Renaissance to Present Day

Acronimo: LeI

Codice progetto: P2022YLZN3

Responsabile scientifico (PI): prof.ssa Elisabetta Selmi

Abstract:
EN - Traditional narratives of the intellectual history usually tell a partial story, ignoring women’s contributions to literature, philosophy, science, and theology. Although in recent years increasing attention has been paid on women’s active role on the cultural scene of their time, there is still a lot of work to be done.
Why are women invisible in the intellectual history? This is not a new question, nor has it been left unaddressed; however, Le Invisibili (LEI) project aims at providing a new way of responding to it that will change our understanding of the history of human thought. This project will a) explore the phenomenon of women’s invisibility in many fields of European culture, including philosophy, theology, literature, and science, from the Renaissance to Present Day, b) contribute to the construction of a more inclusive narrative of the intellectual history, which is not alternative to the traditional account, but an enlargement of it, both in terms of methodology and in terms of figures considered as intellectuals, and c) analyse women’s underrepresentation in contemporary STEM fields.
LEI proposes a threefold analysis of the roots of women’s intellectual invisibility, considering i) the issue of canon, i.e., women’s underrepresentation in the traditional narratives of western intellectual history (historiographical invisibility), ii) the issue of exclusion, namely, social, cultural, and religious censorship of women’s intellectual activity (historical invisibility), iii) the issue of female intellectual identity, i.e., women’s self-representation and self-censorship as a strategy to take the floor (instrumental
invisibility).
The project will adopt an innovative method that involves three main research directions–hereafter CTM method (Context, Text, and Meaning):
1. Investigating cultural contexts, namely, offering an accurate analysis of historical, social, and intellectual background, debates, and controversies, which women took part in.
2. Recovering an extensive literary heritage, which has been largely ignored, or, in some cases, is still unpublished. This will allow the research team to explore a plurality of primary sources, including philosophical and scientific treatises, dramatic works, literary texts, periodicals, salon poetry, but also other writings, which are not usually regarded as canonical, like marginalia, unpublished
papers, and private correspondences.
3. Rethinking the meaning of the term ‘intellectual’, so as to challenge the deep-rooted prejudice against female intellectual skills. A broader idea about the identity of women as writers, philosophers, scientists, theologians, and artists may be promoted, taking the impact of social conditions on women’s writings and their poor reception into account. This will consent the research team to reshape the general category of ‘intellectual’ towards a larger definition of the term including women.

Gruppo di ricerca:  prof. Metlica Alessandro, dott. Zucchi Enrico, dott.ssa Pilan Francesca

Progetto: Panoplia Panopliarum - The long twelfth century: the Byzantine age of anti-heretical compilations

Codice progetto: P2022FCX7J

Responsabile scientifico (UL): prof. Niccolò Zorzi

Abstract:
EN -The research project explores the geopolitical positioning of the Church and of the Byzantine Empire in response to the military and cultural encirclement that Byzantium experienced during the "long 12th century" through the study of the three large compilations against all the heresies composed in the Comnenian era: the Dogmatic Panoply by Euthymius Zigabenus, the Sacred Arsenal by Andronicus Camaterus and the Dogmatic Panoply (or Treasury of Orthodoxy) by Nicetas Choniates.
The detailed study and comparative analysis of the contents, as well as the revision and a new description of the manuscript tradition, of these enormous compilations, all only partially studied and published, or only printed, will allow to identify the elements of continuity and the elements of change witnessed by the three anti-heretical panoplies.
Given the massive extent of the texts, which up until now in fact have not been completely studied or edited by a single scholar employing traditional methods of research, this project does not intend to produce proper critical editions, but a clear and detailed synoptical outline of the contents. In addition, some pilot projects will be conducted in order to test the applicability of the most innovative digital tools for textual criticisms (such as Handwritten Text Recognition techniques - HTR) to such a large amount of text.
Once completed the detailed study of the contents, the project will analyse the Byzantine methodology to construct an anthological compilation: the author’s selections of quotations, the handling of the original texts (additions, subtractions, manipulations), and the similarities between the three panoplies.
This analysis will draw a reliable picture not only of the famous Byzantine ability to reuse and rework previous literature but also of the other well-known Byzantine attitude, that of reacting to contemporary threats using a traditional weapon: accusing a modern enemy of old heresies. The main research question of this project, in fact, is to understand through the “distorting mirror” of the
anti-heretical compilations how far the Byzantine Empire and Church were aware of the cultural revolution that was beginning in the West with the “twelfth-century renaissance” and to what extent these old weapons reflect contemporary discussions, attempts at reconciliations, internal political crises.
Finally, this project does not propose only historical and philological analyses, but entails actions devoted to value, protect, improve sustainability of and promote access to an extremely fragile and precious part of the Italian cultural heritage: Italian collections of Greek manuscripts. A series of actions, in fact, are planned to support the digitalisation, detailed descriptions and occasions of public engagement in order to protect these delicate treasures and raise public awareness of their invaluable importance for our culture.

Gruppo di ricerca:  prof. Bossina Luciano, prof.ssa Losacco Margherita, dott.ssa Mazzon Ottavia