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Programme: accepted abstracts

Abstract ID: 779

Part of Session 132: Re-writing and Engaging with Urban Spaces via Linguistic Landscape (Other abstracts in this session)

Re-writing the city through LL: immigrants languages in Esquilino

Authors: Barni, Monica
Submitted by: Barni, Monica (University for Foreigners of Siena, Italy)

The focus of the presentation is the city of Rome, Italy, and, in particular, its most multiethnic neighborhood, the Esquilino. It is the area in the city with the greatest number of foreigners and with the highest percentage of foreigners relative to the total number of residents. Although some ethnicities are prevalent, the quarter can not be described as a diaspora quarter, as a China Town or a Mograbin casbah, but it is more a place of encounters, residence and business of people with different languages and cultures. It is a quarter almost in the centre of Rome, next to the main railways station, rich in services and commercial activities (one of the biggest markets of the city is in the center of the Esquilino).  The quarter was built at the end of the 1800 when Rome became the capitol of Italy to be the residence for the new Italian State bureaucrats and employees. The commercial activities were once run by locals, but in the last twenty years  they have been replaced by immigrants.

The presence of immigrant has deeply changed the demographic composition of the quarter, its commercial asset, its quality of life and its linguistic landscape. The use of the languages of origin of immigrants is evident in urban space. In other contributions we have dealt in detail with the survey of languages in the neighbourhood (Bagna, Barni, 2006) using statistical and demographic analysis and linguistic landscaping;

In the present contribution we wish to analyse how LL reflects the demographic and social transformation of the quarter, the ways in which languages imprint their presence via diverse forms and how the original local population reacts to these changes in their attitude towards languages and in their language uses.

As we will see, in the Esquilino, the attitude towards diversity by local people is contradictory. As we have showed (Barni, Vedovelli, in print), LL is perceived as an arena where the fight against linguistic and cultural diversity takes place, but it can also be assumed as a place where to show cultural beliefs about the presence and the value of different languages via the use of Italian and other languages, codes, scripts, mixed to create new and evocative meanings.