Silvia CACCHIANI - personale UniMoRe

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Silvia CACCHIANI

Professore Associato
Dipartimento di Comunicazione ed Economia

Pubblicazioni

2022 - From proper name to epithet: motivation and change in the fashion industry [Articolo su rivista]
Cacchiani, Silvia
abstract

L’objectif de cet article est d’étudier les termes anglais et notamment les constructions nominales (Booij [2010]) ayant un nom propre comme modifieur, dans l’évolution historique de la mode et des mœurs. Partant de l’hypothèse que les noms propres et les noms appellatifs forment des catégories prototypiques aux frontières floues (Van Langendonck [2007] ; Van Langendonck & Van de Velde [2016]), nous proposons une enquête qualitative sur une sélection représentative de termes qui ont été recueillis manuellement dans des dictionnaires encyclopédiques, des dictionnaires visuels et des publications de référence sur l’histoire de la mode. Les données montrent que la métonymie conceptuelle est un déclencheur important du passage de la fonction d’identification et d’individuation des noms de lieux et de personnes prototypiques à des usages classificatoires et appellatifs en tant que noms communs, également dans les réductions aux « simplexes ». Et encore, si l’on considère la motivation et la liaison sémantique dans les structures composites examinées, il semble raisonnable de suggérer que, premièrement, des significations associatives peuvent être motivées en relation à une métonymie fondée sur les connaissances culturelles et encyclopédiques existantes. Cela permet des descriptions complexes, qui ne peuvent pas être subsumées par des adjectifs attributs individuels et qui font appel aux besoins symboliques du consommateur. Enfin, il s’avère que la possibilité pour certains concepts et produits iconiques de garder leur capacité à véhiculer des descriptions complexes, et pour les marques de luxe d’être perçues comme porteuses d’avantages intangibles, repose sur des connaissances culturelles et encyclopédiques préalables (connaissance de la marque, des produits de marque et des icônes de la mode). / The purpose of this paper is to investigate English terms and, more precisely, nominal constructs (Booij [2010]) with proper names as modifiers, in the changing history of fashion and customs. Starting on the assumption that proper names and common nouns form prototypical categories with fuzzy boundaries (Van Langendonck [2007]; Van Langendonck & Van de Velde [2016]), we provide a qualitative investigation of a representative selection of terms that were manually gathered from encyclopaedic dictionaries, visual dictionaries and landmark publications on the history of fashion. Data shows that conceptual metonymy plays a key role in the shift from the identifying and individualizing function of prototypical place and personal names to classifying and appellative uses as common nouns, also in reductions to simplexes. Additionally, considering motivation and the semantic relations in the composite structures under scrutiny, it seems reasonable to suggest that associative meanings can be motivated metonymically based on extant cultural-encyclopaedic knowledge. This allows for complex descriptions which cannot be subsumed by individual attributive adjectives and appeal to the consumer’s symbolic needs. Regarding the potential for luxury fashion constructs and iconic products to be perceived as conveying intangible benefits, much turns out to be a matter of extant cultural and encyclopaedic knowledge (knowledge of brand, brand products, and style icons).

2022 - Introduction. Lexicographie spécialisée et ressources terminologiques et terminographiques [Articolo su rivista]
Cacchiani, Silvia; Capra, Daniela; Preite, Chiara
abstract

Ce numéro spécial de Lingue & Linguaggi s’interroge sur certains aspects théoriques et pratiques concernant les termes appartenant aux domaines de l’économie et du droit et notamment sur leur inclusion dans des ressources monolingues ou bilingues consultées par des usagers experts et non experts, selon une pluralité d’approches théoriques et méthodologiques. À côté de l’aspect domanial économique ou juridique, les questions théoriques qui tissent un fil rouge entre les différents articles concernent les aspects suivants: la réflexion autour de la définition des termes; le support que les corpus peuvent fournir à une représentation du sens tenant compte des objectifs spécifiques des usagers ciblés par les ressources elles-mêmes; l’utilité de la terminologie en tant qu’instrument cognitif apte à la structuration et à la dénomination de nouvelles idées dans des domaines spécialisés; les avantages ou les désavantages apportés par la facilité et la rapidité d’accès aux nombreuses ressources sur la Toile de la part du public – expert, semi expert ou profane.

2022 - Lexicographie spécialisée et ressources terminologiques et terminographiques / Specialized Lexicography, terminology and reference tools / Lexicografía especializada y recursos terminológicos y terminográficos [Curatela]
Cacchiani, Silvia; Capra, Daniela; Preite, Chiara
abstract

2022 - Naming and appellative constructs in law, finance and banking [Articolo su rivista]
Cacchiani, Silvia
abstract

Bringing together Oxford handbooks, companions and quick references, the Oxford References platform (OR) provides ample and authoritative – hence, trustworthy (Origgi 2013) – coverage of a number of subjects, including Law, Finance and Banking. In this paper, we compare and contrast the functions (Jackendoff 2010, adapted) that fill out semantic relations in complex nominal and naming constructs (compounds and phrases) collected from the macro- and microstructures of Johnathan Law’s bestselling A Dictionary of Law (2018, 9 ed.; ODL) and A Dictionary of Finance and Banking (2018, 9 ed.; ODFB). The main emphasis lies into naming and appellative (van Langendonck 2007; van Langendonck, van de Velde 2016) constructs (Booij 2010) with names as modifiers. Qualitative data analysis shows that metonymy plays a key role in naming, not only in ODL, but also in ODFB. Yet, in ODFB metonymy is also found to account for a shift from the argument-modifier schema or the CAUSE and COMMEMORATIVE functions (‘be named after’; Schlücker 2016) to EPITHETS (Breban 2018) and TYPIFYING uses (Koptjevskaja-Tamm 2013), whenever associative meanings and complex descriptions enter into the picture. Also, metaphor appears to motivate appellative and naming constructs in finance and banking, though not in law.

2022 - Nominal constructs in fashion and costume: Names and Nouns as modifiers [Capitolo/Saggio]
Cacchiani, Silvia
abstract

The purpose of this paper was to investigate English terms and, more particularly, nominal constructs (Booij 2010) with Noun or Name as modifiers, in the changing history of fashion and costume. Starting on the assumption that proper Names and appellative Nouns form prototypical categories with fuzzy boundaries (van Langendonck 2007; Van Langendonck and van de Velde 2016), we have provided a qualitative investigation of a representative selection of terms that were manually gathered from encyclopaedic dictionaries, visual dictionaries, and landmark publications on the history of fashion. Interestingly, the analysis has shown that conceptual metonymy is an important determinant of the shift from the identifying and individualizing function of prototypical places and personal names to classifying uses as appellative nouns, also in reductions to simplexes (e.g. Ascot tie/Ascot/ascot tie). Additionally, considering the linking rule R in the composite structures under scrutiny, it seems reasonable to suggest that, firstly, the COMMEMORATIVE function (cf., e.g., Schlücker 2016) underlies CLASSIFY (Jackendoff 2010) in specifications of the Name-Noun schema, and, secondly, the shift to EPITHET (Breban 2017) and the TYPIFY function (Koptjevskaja-Tamm 2013) can be motivated metonymically whenever associative/emotive meanings and complex descriptions enter into the picture, as in Kelly bag / Hermès Kelly / Kelly bag/Kelly. This allows for complex descriptions, which cannot boil down to individual attributive adjectives. Another question concerned the potential for certain constructs and iconic products to retain their ability to convey complex descriptions, which turns out to be a matter of extant cultural and encyclopaedic knowledge (knowledge of brand, brand products, and style icons).

2022 - What is copyright? Communicating specialised knowledge on CBBC [Articolo su rivista]
Cacchiani, Silvia
abstract

The paper provides a qualitative investigation into the many ways in which exposition mediates exclusive knowledge about copyright to children in Key Stage 3 on the Bitesize and Newsround pages of the British Children’s BBC online platform (CBBC). The analysis moves from objective exposition in the COPYRIGHT article of OUP’s A Dictionary of Law, primarily intended for inclusion and knowledge transfer to late youth and adults, zooms in on the Bitesize sister directories on Copyright and intellectual property as a second step, and then concludes with discussion of a Newsround story about EU copyright law. The data suggests that the Bitesize pages are primarily expository texts. They make recourse to definitions and key facts about copyright, intellectual property and creative commons licences. The layout is neat and clean, static images play a minor role, and written texts address excellent readers using specialist terminology. This appears to addres the need to be brief, precise and concise in online revision materials designed for primarily pedagogic purposes. Instead, while still comprising expository passages for explanatory purposes, the Newsround page is designed to engage with the user and play on their curiosities. It focuses on what users are assumed to find meaningful, interesting and useful. Therefore, stimuli intended to encourage, realize and fulfil the communicative intention are present throughout, in the form of verbal interlocutive devices (Q/A patterns, first- and second-person style, exclamation marks, colloquialisms), and of images that arouse interest and curiosity. These might come as clever language play within memes, as ostensive stimuli that point to proximity and invite association with user-centred objects and familiar VIPs, and as ostensive stimuli that invite identification with the represented participant(s) and actions.

2021 - BOOK OF ABSTRACTS: CLAVIER 2021 CONFERENCE Exploring Words in the Digital Transformation Tools and Approaches for the study of Lexis and Phraseology in Evolving Discourse Domains [Altro]
Bondi, Marina; Cacchiani, Silvia; Franceschi, Daniele
abstract

BOOK OF ABSTRACTS, edited. The role of the lexicon has been analyzed from the perspective of different theories of language in the 20th and 21st centuries, ranging from structuralist and generative approaches to more recent cognitively oriented studies of word semantics in context. One of the most passionately debated issues in the linguistic literature continues to be whether words have a decontextualized and stable meaning core or a number of more or less nuclear senses that emerge on the basis of the company they keep with other words. The Firthian tradition has provided a foundation for the newly emerging tradition of corpus-driven empirical lexicology, showing that linguists’ appeal to their intuitions for the definition of word meanings is simply not enough and that the observation of actual usage is necessary. Therefore, our objective is to give real evidence of how we use words, phrases and constructions, both in writing and in speech, in various discourse domains and as a result of the digital transformation. The digital transformation has certainly had an impact on methodological and theoretical approaches to the study of lexis and phraseology. Corpus tools have greatly contributed to the development of lexicography, lexicology and lexico-semantics in particular, with attention to extended units of meaning, lexico-grammatical approaches and focus on patterns and constructions, to name just a few. The impact of the digital transformation has also been profound on communication itself. The study of digital discourse has often highlighted elements of innovation and creativity in language use, as well as in the language repertoires of participants (often crossing the borders of languages), thus adding new perspectives to studies on diversity in discourse and variation in language. The extended participation framework of web discourse has opened the way for new communicative situations and wider impact of the ideological dimension of words, for example in the social media. Digital discourse studies have also most clearly highlighted the need to look at the multimodal and multimedia nature of communication on the Web and at the new developments of AI in online interaction. The Conference aims to gather research experiences and findings on these topics from scholars working on different natural languages and addressing different fields of general language and specialized discourse. The talks will address the intense change taking place in the evolving digital media, with new forms of participation and contribution, or will pay attention to the tools offered by the digital transformation for the study of lexis and phraseology both past and present.

2021 - Knowledge communication and knowledge dissemination in a digital world [Articolo su rivista]
Bondi, M.; Cacchiani, S.
abstract

This introductory article to the special issue provides a brief theoretical introduction to pragmatic research on the communication and dissemination of domain-specific knowledge across new media, discussing some of the central problems, such as the impact of digital technologies on understanding and learning, the changes in the participation framework, their impact on the construction of credibility and identity. We also call attention to the need for multimodal and hypermodal analysis of the processes of recontextualisation in selected genres. In this context, the papers in the special issue converge in presenting a nuanced view of a broad range of phenomena. Our goal is to encourage research on digital discourse to keep up with the present technological developments and the increasing complexity emerging from the ensuing interaction of knowledge transmission and knowledge circulation practices.

2021 - Knowledge Dissemination and Knowledge Communication in a Digital World [Curatela]
Bondi, Marina; Cacchiani, Silvia
abstract

The issue concentrates on communicating and disseminating specialized knowledge in (hyper-)multimodal ICT environments. Insights into joint compositions of visually instantiated and intentionally co-present texts and images develop on the sidelines of corpus-informed linguistic research on the one hand, and of research in social epistemology on the other.

2021 - PRIN 2021: Communicating transparency: New trends in English-language corporate and institutional disclosure practices in intercultural settings [Altro]
Crawford Camiciotti Belinda Blanche, (PI); Cacchiani, Silvia
abstract

2020 - Children's dictionaries as a form of edutainment? User-orientation, engagement and proximity for learning [Articolo su rivista]
Cacchiani, Silvia
abstract

This paper addresses the construction of ideational, interpersonal and textual meanings (Halliday 1985) in children’s dictionaries that are primarily a form of edutainment (Buckingham and Scanlon 2002). Working against the background of research into multimodal lexicography (Lew 2010; Chan 2011; Liu 2015, 2017) in the electronic dictionary age (De Schryver 2003; Tarp 2008; Granger 2012), I shall concentrate on the interplay of content, form and composition space in the Oxford Children’s Dictionary (2015) and the Oxford Children’s Illustrated Dictionary (2018) vis-à-vis other paper dictionaries within the family. As will be seen, joint compositions of intentionally co-present text and images interact in diverse ways and to different extents in the interest of user-orientation on the content level, guidance, and user-engagement and proximity on the textual and interpersonal levels.

2020 - Copyright & copyleft: knowledge mediation at the interface of law and computer technology [Articolo su rivista]
Cacchiani, Silvia
abstract

This paper provides a qualitative investigation into the many ways in which exposition mediates exclusive knowledge about copyright and copyleft to lay-people and (semi-)experts with different profiles, needs and goals, in different user situations. The analysis moves from objective exposition in the copyright article of the Oxford Dictionary of Law, primarily intended for inclusion and knowledge transfer, to institutional and non-institutional webpages at the front end of Google search listings (pages from GOV.uk, Techopedia, MakeUseOf, the GNU Project). While highly ranking online pages are generally held to be objective, credible and authoritative sources of knowledge, non-professional online dictionary articles may depart from lexicographic practice and provide thin if incorrect content (e.g. the Techopedia dictionary article). Moreover, the goals of self-promotion and persuasion may frame expository content, which may communicate the ideology shared by author and principal organization, and therefore take on a significant argumentative dimension (e.g. the GNU’s page What is Copyleft). Another point concerns the ability to reach out to the lay-person in new genres and media: the analysis suggests that popularization strategies and usability principles interact in diverse ways and to different extents in (multitype) expository texts written for online communication, on pages which benefit from dilution of information and recourse to expandable content down or outside the sitemap

2020 - ICLC9 - 9th International Contrastive Linguistics Conference (14-15 May 2020, rescheduled to May 2021 in compliance with COVID19 mitigation measures); member of the international scientific committee (see: Abstract or breve descrizione) [Altro]
Cacchiani, Silvia
abstract

We invite contributions comparing two or more languages or (synchronic/diachronic) varieties of the same language from a functional-cognitive perspective and addressing topics from one or more of the following areas: phonetics and phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics. Both theoretical and empirical research is welcome. We also welcome workshop proposals (with a maximum of five speakers per workshop). SENIOR CONSULTANT COMMITTEE: Annalisa Baicchi (Università di Genova); Marco Bagli (Università di Genova); Cristiano Broccias (Università di Genova); Giannoula Giannoulopoulou (Εθνικό και Καποδιστριακό Πανεπιστήμιο Αθηνών / National and Kapodistrian University of Athens); Francisco Gonzálvez-García (Universidad de Almería); Matthias Hüning (Freie Universität Berlin); Luis Iglesias Rábade (Universidad de Santiago de Compostela); María de los Ángeles Gómez González (Universidad de Santiago de Compostela); Torsten Leuschner (Universiteit Gent); Beata Trawinski (Universität Mannheim); SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE: Gabriele Azzaro (Università di Bologna); Marina Bondi (Università di Modena and Reggio Emilia); Silvia Cacchiani (Università di Modena and Reggio Emilia); Alan Cienki (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam); Elisabeth Degand (Université Catholique de Louvain); Paolo Della Putta (Università di Torino); Valery Demyankov (Russian Academy of Sciences); Marina Dossena (Università di Bergamo); Roberta Facchinetti (Università di Verona); Sara Gesuato (Università di Padova); Gaëtanelle Gilquin (Université Catholique de Louvain); Giovanni Iamartino (Università di Milano); Andreas Jucker (University of Zurich); Natalia Levshina (Leipzig University); Diana Lewis (Université Lyon 2); Carmen Mellado Blanco (Universidad de Santiago de Compostela); Fabio Mollica (Università di Milano); Fiammetta Papi (Università di Siena); Carita Paradis (Lund University); Laura Pinnavaia (Università di Milano); Virgina Pulcini (Università di Torino); Francisco Ruiz de Mendoza (Universidad de La Rioja)

2020 - (Pseudo-)Anglicisms and Nominal Compounds in Italian [Capitolo/Saggio]
Cacchiani, Silvia
abstract

Over the last decades, a growing number of foreign neologisms, also Anglicisms and false Anglicisms, have been recorded in Italian institutional dictionaries and scholarly works, let alone popularizing publications and online features such as word lover’s A-Z lists of new words in authoritative websites of major dictionary publishers. Examples here are Adamo and Della Valle’s (2003b) Neologismi quotidiani [New Everyday Words] and De Mauro’s (ed.) (2003, 2008) supplements to the Grande Dizionario Italiano dell’Uso, published as Nuove Parole Italiane dell’Uso I and Nuove Parole Italiane dell’Uso II [New Italian words]); Furiassi (2010), especially devoted to False Anglicisms in Italian; De Mauro’s (2006) Dizionarietto di Parole del Futuro [A small dictionary of future words] and the the Neologismi pages of Treccani.it ‒ Lingua Italiana Magazine (NT), a free online feature maintained by the Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana Treccani. Turning from lexis to word-formation, recent investigations into Italian word-formation also argue for the growing influence of English compounding onto Italian (e.g. Adamo and Della Valle 2003a; Dardano, Frenguelli, and Puoti 2005). Different combinations of foreign and native words are possible, as as well as shifts from left- to right-headedness: En + En: baby killer ‘young killer’ (right-headed); En + It: baby pensione ‘pension taken before the minimum pension age’ (right-headed); It + En: afa record ‘extreme heat and humidity’(left headed); It + It: D’alema-pensiero ‘D’alema’s political vision’ (right-headed). Overall, rather than acquiring entirely new constructions, Italian appears to make recourse to marginal formative patterns like right-headed compounds following the support effect of foreign patterns (Iacobini 2015). For instance, Lombardi Vallauri (2006) specifies that N-N (and N-Name) compounds with a naming/classificatory function (e.g. effetto serra ‘greenhouse effect’ but also effetto-Berlusconi ‘effect named after the consequences of Berlusconi’s behaviour’), are not new to Italian but productivity might have been boosted by English models. In this context, this paper discusses compounding in the latest reference works and essays on neologisms (e.g. Adamo and Della Valle 2003b; Palmisano 2004; Bencini and Manetti 2006; De Mauro (ed.) 2007, 2008; Furiassi 2010). We then move on to new words that can stand a good chance to be established in the dictionary (Migliorini 1968: termini d’uso incipiente), words of the year and occasionalisms (e.g. Treccani. Neologismi: http://www.treccani.it/magazine/lingua_italiana/neologismi/searchNeologismi.jsp; Parole Nuove. Accademia della Crusca: http://www.accademiadellacrusca.it/it/lingua-italiana/parole-nuove; Adamo and Della Valle’s 2010 ff). Bringing together insights from recent work on compounds from English patterns (Vogel 1990; Adamo and Della Valle 2003a; Dardano, Frenguelli, Puoti 2005; Grasso 2007; Iacobini 2005) shall enable us to classify data along parameters such as headedness, semantic relation R, and phonotactics of the calque, mixed compound, or false Anglicism.

2020 - Specialized Communication in English: Analysis and Translation [Monografia/Trattato scientifico]
Bondi, Marina; Cacchiani, Silvia; Malavasi, Donatella; Sezzi, Annalisa
abstract

The volume takes on the challenges posed by teaching specialized communication and specialized translation to University students in Italy. In particular it originates from the course of English specialised communication and translation held within the master’s degree programme in Languages for Communication in International Enterprises and Organization (LACOM), at the Department of Studies on Language and Culture of the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy. The course has been jointly taught by the four authors over the years. The reason behind this clarification is twofold: on the one hand, the contents and the structure of the chapters try to meet students’ actual needs; on the other hand, the teaching experience was the driving force behind the attempt to face the enduring conundrum between theory and practice. In this regard, the volume does not have the ambition to fill this gap, but the network of recurring heuristic tools, concepts, and strategies throughout the chapters, associated with examples and practical resources, disclose the strict connection between these two sides of the same coin. Innumerable other coursebooks attempt to do so, one might say. Yet, the peculiarity of this volume resides in the fact that it outlines a range of approaches to specialized discourse and translation, while focusing on the translation of two specific genres - CSR reports and contracts - whose similarities and divergencies open up readers’ horizons over the complexity of specialized translation in general. Furthermore, the two working languages are Italian and English, and both the translation into one’s own mother tongue and into a foreign language are taken into account. This is again one foot in reality, as specialized translators or enterprises’ employees are often required to translate into English even if they are not native speakers.

2019 - Communicating specialized knowledge: Introduction and overview [Capitolo/Saggio]
Bondi, Marina; Cacchiani, Silvia; Cavalieri, Silvia
abstract

“Communicating Specialized Knowledge: Old Genres and New Media” was born out of the idea that domain-specific knowledge has two major dimensions to it: on the one hand, peer-to-peer communication that is primarily intended to further research within the disciplines; on the other, asymmetric communication of selected, ‘filtered’ knowledge to lay people. Importantly, communicating specialized knowledge involves the construction, presentation and communication of knowledge (Kastberg 2010; Ditlevsen 2011) in texts that effectively adjust to the knowledge background, knowledge- and personality-related needs of the intended addressees within the relevant communicative setting. In this context, research in Languages for Specific Purposes (LSP) has made important contributions to the study of ‘internal’, peer-to-peer communication in traditional genres and now remediated and emergent online genres. Working at the interface of theoretical and applied linguistics, specialized lexicography or terminology, and primarily taking genre-oriented and corpus-analytical approaches, LSP scholars have identified a number of recurrent features as broadly characterizing specialized communication in several domains of expertise. To name but a few: terminology, lexical density, extensive recourse to nominalization and modification within the noun phrase, frequent use of the passive voice and syntactically complex clauses, genre- and domain-specific metadiscourse and hedging. The very same features, however, might hinder ‘domain-external’ communication and the ability of experts and professionals to reach out to lay people. This remains a problem that commands scholarly attention in the context of the cultural growth and socio-economic development of contemporary society at large. Taking inspiration from seminal work like Linell (1998) and Calsamiglia and van Dijk (2004), therefore, the focus of LSP studies has recently broadened to cover the merits and demerits of knowledge dissemination and popularization strategies in domain-specific discourses (cf., e.g., Henriksen, Frøyland 2000; Gotti 2014; Garzone, Heaney, Riboni, eds. 2016; Bondi, Sezzi 2017; Salvi, Turnbull, eds. 2017; Engberg et al., eds. 2018). There are several reasons why experts should deliberately carry relevant parts of their specialized knowledge outside of their expert discourse communities and make them accessible to non-experts (adapted from Henriksen, Frøyland 2000; Allan 2002). Access to knowledge is a public good for all (UNESCO 2005). First, citizens interact with domain-specific texts on a daily basis (e.g., bank statements, tax reports and patient information leaflets). Additionally, domain literacy can earn citizens a better job while benefiting the nation as a whole. For instance, promoting financial literacy may help curb blind investments and prevent damage to individual households and the nation. In that sense, effective knowledge dissemination works towards empowerment of lay people, social inclusion and equality in the participation domain. As exposure to information in the digital world continues to grow, questions concerning the discursive strategies and the pragmatics of knowledge dissemination will continue to arise. For instance: • against the backdrop of landmark publications such as Scollon and Scollon (1995), Linell (1998), Calsamiglia and van Dijk (2004) or Gotti (2014), questions about recourse to linguistic knowledge dissemination strategies (cf., e.g. Bondi, Cacchiani, Mazzi, eds. 2015); • based on classics such as Barthes (1977 [1964]), Kress and van Leuween (2010) or Bateman (2014), issues concerning text/image pairs, multimodality and hyperstructural features in hyper-multimodal environments (cf., e.g., Lemke 2003; Engberg, Meier 2015), also in relation to web-page usability (e.g., Nielsen 1999; Farrell 2014; work by their associates at NN/g); • questions about roles and relationships, social maneuv

2019 - Communicating Specialized Knowledge. Old Genres and New Media [Curatela]
Bondi, Marina; Cacchiani, Silvia; Cavalieri, Silvia
abstract

Communicating Specialized Knowledge: Old Genres and New Media was born out of the idea that domain-specific knowledge has two major dimensions to it: on the one hand, peer-to-peer communication that is primarily intended to further research within the disciplines; on the other, domain-external, asymmetric communication of ‘filtered’ knowledge to different types of lay-audiences. Collectively, the chapters in the volume take the reader on a journey through knowledge communication and knowledge (re)presentation strategies that are able to successfully disseminate and communicate. The field domains under scrutiny are medicine and health, corporate communication, cultural heritage and tourism. A number of issues are addressed at the interface of corpus linguistics, genre studies and multimodal analysis. It is hoped that the variety of questions posed and methods used to explore corpus data in context will contribute to further debate among scholars in applied linguistics, sociolinguistics, multimodality, media studies and computer-mediated communication, EAP and ESP.

2019 - Proper names in English Noun-Name constructs [Relazione in Atti di Convegno]
Cacchiani, Silvia
abstract

Working on the assumption that proper names and appellative nouns form prototypical categories with fuzzy boundaries (Van Langendonck 2007; Van Langendonck and Van De Velde 2016), this paper addresses the question how proper names, which identify referents, become elements with other functions in complex English Name-Noun constructs. Qualitative data analysis shows that appellativization via metaphor or metonymy is an important determinant of the shift from name to noun. Additionally, considering the linking rule R in the composite structure, it seems reasonable to suggest that, firstly, the COMMEMORATIVE function (cf., e.g., Schlücker 2016) underlies CLASSIFY (cf. Jackendoff 2010) in non-descriptive specifications like diesel engine or HeLa cells, and, secondly, the shift to EPITHET (Breban 2017) can be motivated metonymically whenever associative meanings and complex descriptions enter into the picture (e.g., Kelly bag).

2019 - Représenter et communiquer les connaissances spécialisées sur Copyright dans des références juridiques de consultation rapide et sur des plateformes en ligne institutionnelles [Articolo su rivista]
Cacchiani, Silvia
abstract

Cette étude porte sur la représentation et la communication des connaissances sur le concept de << copyright >> dans A Dictionary of Law, un genre lexicographique tradiionnel destiné à une consultation rapide, ayant désormais une version en ligne, et sur les sous-répertoires <> de la plateforme Gov.uk, qui se caractérise par une mise en page hypermultimodale. La comparaison des contenus, des descriptions du sense et des dispositifs dialogiques employés dans ces genres et modes extr'e'mement divers met en exergue des caractéristiques essentielles et des divergences importantes en matière des caractéristiques essentielles et des diverges importantes en matières de visée de vulgarisation. Celles-ci sont clairement liées à une réflexion approfondie sur les besoins spécifiques, les questions potentielles, les r'o'les ainsi que les objectifs des utilisateurs des dictionnaires et de la platforme.

2019 - Verbal irony and other figurative tropes on Tyler Cowen's Marginal Revolution Blog [Capitolo/Saggio]
Cacchiani, Silvia
abstract

This paper looks into social maneuvering, positioning and personality-related needs of web users in economics blogs. Considering that domain expertise, credibility and knowledge communication skills may affect the strategies through which users control and communicate specialised knwoledge, express opinions and align themselves or disagree with discussants within a given online community, our question is one about negotiating roles and relationships across posts and comments. To this purpose, we carry out qualitative data analysis into the Marginal Revolution blog (year 2012, 2016), hosted by the economist Tyler Cowen. The focus is on verbal irony and other figurative tropes, whose sociopragmatics affects enable bloggers to adjust to the personality-related needs of their interlocutors, signal or engineer their position, and ultimatey negotiate, construct and control expert knwoledge.

2018 - Fostering morphological awareness in the teacher trainee class: some reflections on -ous and rival adjectival suffixes [Capitolo/Saggio]
Cacchiani, Silvia
abstract

Italian graduates join a two-year teacher training programme to be awarded qualified teacher status in secondary school. At this stage, developing teacher’s language awareness (Wright & Bolitho 1997; Andrews 2003) and metalinguistic knowledge is as imperative for effective teaching as enhancing language proficiency and pedagogical skills (Derwing, & Munrow 2005; Llurda (Ed.) 2005). As important as it is to develop morphological awareness though, it is not easy for non-native teacher trainees to verbalize and exploit explicit knowledge of L2 morphology. English suffixes that derive adjectives from nouns show extensive overlap in meaning and selectional preferences (e.g. Bauer, Lieber, & Plag 2013; Dixon 2014), which results into a plurality of (morphological) translation equivalents (Lowie 2001) in Italian. Setting up parameters of variations is expected to help teacher trainees turn second-order rules and preferences spelt out in the relevant literature into acceptable first-order rules (or rules of thumb) required by a teacher and appropriate to the learner context. We thus try and devise a set of parameters for comparison and analysis of English adjective-forming denominal and deverbal suffixes of possession (Hamawand 2011; see also Grossmann & Rainer 2004; Bauer, Lieber & Plag 2013: translational suffixes): -(er)ous, -(t)ious, -(s)y/-(s)ey, -ful, -some and related suffixes (-able, -ive, -ing). More particularly, we explore examples taken from children’s literature that exploits language play (Cook 2001) and creative errors (Rodari 1973) – specifically, Roald Dahl’s The BFG and its Italian translation, Il GGG. This shall enable us to provide some initial suggestions for building tasks and activities that can foster and encourage teacher language awareness (Andrews 2005; Ellis 2009). The motivation for focusing on creative errors is to be found in the contribution that in-class discussion of relevant grammaticality judgements can offer to verbalizing first-order rules and encouraging teacher (trainee)’s morphological awareness.

2018 - If-conditionals in economics RAs. From keywords to language teaching/learning in the L2 writing-for-publication class? [Articolo su rivista]
Cacchiani, Silvia
abstract

Using the tools of corpus linguistics, this study identifies the basic means of knowledge construction in research articles in economics. The results suggest that discourse-signals realize conditional prediction and empirical hypothesis within the macro-speech acts of hypothesis, analysis/interpretation/generalization and prediction, with if being the most key of all connectors and cohesive devices. If-conditionals are described based on categories such as factual and theoretical conditionals, casespecifying and rhetorical conditionals. Given the vast array of forms and functions, the complexity of conditionals can be considered relatively high from the point of view of explicit knowledge. Turning to implications and applications of the research for an elective L2 writing-for-publication program intended for Ph.D. students and researchers in economics, however, it is clear that scholars in economics can use their domain expertise and L1 genre awareness in the L2 classroom. In this context, some recommendations are given for developing consciousness-raising tasks, activities and materials about if-conditionals. Materials are intended to promote semantic processing, noticing and/or reflecting based on nontechnical vocabulary and working explanations that are comprehensible to the learner and adequate to his/her background knowledge, needs and goals. They comprise grammaticality judgments, inclass comparison of well-formed examples for rule identification, explicit corrective (peer) feedback and discussion of multiple-choice items and gap-fills.

2018 - Popularization and Knowledge Mediation in the Law. Popularisierung und Wissensvermittlung im Recht [Curatela]
Engberg, Jan; Luttermann, Karin; Cacchiani, Silvia; Preite, Chiara
abstract

This volume widens the scope of Legal Linguistics from the traditional focus on performative texts like statutes to the popularization of legal knowledge for different purposes. The chapters, written in English, German or French, discuss the theoretical basis and methods and investigate popularization efforts by national institutions, law firms and community websites. The objects of study cover a variety of modes and media from different national contexts reaching from print folders over online written texts to YouTube videos and movies.

2018 - Revisiting Shakespeare's Language [Curatela]
Baicchi, Annalisa; Facchinetti, Roberta; Cacchiani, Silvia; Bertacca, Antonio
abstract

The complexity if Shakespeare's language has been an object of study for many scholars over the centuries, and is currently witnessing increased engagement fromlinguists with different scientific persuasions, who integrate knowledge and new research methods, and open up novel specialized subfields in Shakespearean linguistics. Taking inspiration from the recent trends in reserach, this special issue charts innovative research questions, perspectives and tools that are being empoyed to investigate Shakespeare's language across a wide range of his works - tragedies, comedies and sonnets. In doing so, it offers a prismatic picture of the Bard's wit. More specificaly, the collection of articles probes into teh advantages and strengths of adopting a linguistic approach to revisit Shakespeare's creativity and sets new avenues for future research, by capturing a righ diversity of perspectives and variously combining current developments in both linguistic theories and research methodologies: fromspeech act theory and cognitive poetics, fromtranslation studies to corpus linguistics, corpus-assisted research and computational analysis. Introduction: Annalisa Baicchi, Roberta Facchinetti, Silvia Cacchiani and Antonio Bertacca: Shakespeare’s language revisited in the 21st century: An introduction. Articles: Jonathan Culpeper, Alison Findlay, Beth Cortese and Mike Thelwall: Measuring emotional temperatures in Shakespeare’s drama. Roberta Mullini: Talking in asides in Shakespeare’s plays. Ulrich Busse: Lear’s questions revisited. Marina Bondi and Annalisa Sezzi‘: Come what come may, Time, and the Houre, runs through the roughest Day’: Temporal phraseology and the conceptual space of futurity in Macbeth. Francisco Gonzálvez-García: Taming iconicity in the Spanish and Italian translations of Shakespeare’s Sonnets: Some observations from a (Contrastive) (Cognitive) Construction Grammar perspective. Svitlana Shurma and Wei-lun Lu: The cognitive potential of antithesis: ‘To be, or not to be’ in Hamlet’s signature soliloquy.

2018 - Shakespeare's language revisited in the 21st century: An introduction [Articolo su rivista]
Baicchi, Annalisa; Facchinetti, Roberta; Cacchiani, Silvia; Bertacca, Antonio
abstract

2018 - Studying Popularization in Legal Communication: Introduction and Overview [Capitolo/Saggio]
Engberg, Jan; Luttermann, Karin; Cacchiani, Silvia; Preite, Chiara
abstract

2018 - The voice of the law on Gov.uk and Justice.gouv.fr: Good value to citizens and institutions? [Capitolo/Saggio]
Cacchiani, Silvia
abstract

Institutions such as the UK Ministry of Justice or the French Ministère de la Justice have the social responsibility to inform citizens about the sys¬tem of norms, regulations, established practices and services, so as to help foster prosocial behaviour, ensure safety and order, and shape responsible citizenship (Engberg, Luttermann 2014). The other way round, lay citizens have the social responsibility to behave responsibly. And are therefore responsible for being informed of regulations, services and pro¬cedures, and for abiding by the regulations and practices set by governing bodies. In the age of digital communication, the “voice of the law” may take the form of subdirectories maintained at the Governmentʼs platform (http://www.gov.uk) or at the Ministry of Justiceʼs institutional website (http://www.justice.gouv.fr). Their primary goal is to assist citizens with “making sense of justice”, the law and one’s rights (http://open.justice.gov.uk/). That is, they are seats for asymmetric mediation of knowledge (Section 1) in the legal field, intended to deliver good value both to lay end-users and to the institution: when citizens receive quick and easy help and support with the knowledge and documentation that they need to behave prosocially and responsibly, the principal organization behind the website gains in credibility (Nielsen 1995; NN/G). With Marková, Linell, Gillespie (2008), this can be seen as context-dependent trust, which reinforces the citizens’ taken-for-granted trust in the institution (Section 2). With research on web usability (Nielsen 1995; NN/G), we understand effective webpage layout (web user interfaces) in mature information formats (Farrell 2014) as powerful means for knowledge construction and representation, as well as for engagement and interaction with end users. As hypermodal texts (Lemke 2003:301), websites conflate multimodality and hypertextuality. This means that integrating selected notions from multimodal analysis (Martinec, Salway 2005; Bateman 2014) and research on web design and web user interfaces (NN/G), can help address issues of knowledge representation, construction and communication in asymmetric interactions between website and end-user. In this context, we explore the visual representation of mediated knowledge – both informative and interactional concerns – in the Your rights and the law page maintained by the UK Ministry of Justice (http://www.gov.uk/browse/justice/rights), selected articles in subdirectories, and, importantly, their parent directory at http://www.gov.uk (Section 4.1). They will be compared and contrasted with the Droits & Démarches pages of the French Ministère de la Justice (http://www.vos-droits.justice.gouv.fr), the webpages of the French Government and of the French Ministry of Justice (Section 4.2). As a complementary step, we will take a different route and briefly turn to features of interdiscursive and interlocutive dialogism in the written text, stripped of the relevant layout (Section 4.3). Tough the analysis is strictly qualitative, it will still make it possible to compare and contrast diverse dynamics of knowledge representation, construction and communication across webpages that mediate institutional knowledge in situated contexts. As will be seen, we will characterize institutional websites as social transmitters of the ‘voice of the law’. In practice, if these hypermodal visual (re)presentations of mediated legal knowledge are indeed usable services, then they deliver good value to the end-user and to the institution: serving as early response systems to urgent problems of specific citizens would generate context-dependent reflective trust in the institution. To probe this assumption, we carried out a descriptive investigation into the Gov.uk platform down to the Your rights and the law pages. As a way of comparison, we also turned to the homepage of the French Government, the homepage of

2018 - VI Workshop MLT, Lessicografia specializzata e risorse terminologiche e terminografiche / Specialized Lexicography, terminology and reference tools / Lexicographie spécialisée et ressources terminologiques et terminographiques / Lexicografía especializada y recursos terminológicos y terminográficos [Altro]
Cacchiani, Silvia; Preite, Chiara; Capra, Daniela
abstract

Il web 2.0 ha influenzato considerevolmente la lessicografia specializzata. Dizionari e altre risorse cartacee sono destinati a migrare verso una varietà di formati elettronici (cf. es. Kosem et al. 2013; Rundell 2011) costruita attorno a profili e scopi di utenti specifici (cfr. ad esempio De Schryver 2003; Fuertes-Olivera 2010 e ss.) con formati di presentazione dinamici e modulari. Il dizionario del terzo millennio persegue scopi quali affidabilità, fruizione gratuita, consultazione rapida e semplice. Idealmente, tale risorsa online conterrà il maggior numero di termini, informazioni codificabili per ciascun termine, informazioni enciclopediche su contesti d’uso, sinossi sul tema e script di riferimento, come anche informazioni su frame sintattici, accesso a grammatiche ed eserciziari, e discussione peer-to-peer in blog e forum moderati o meno. All’interno delle attività già in corso del gruppo Modena Lexi-Term, scopo di questa giornata di studi è interrogarsi su aspetti teorici e applicati relativi a termini in uso nel linguaggio specialistico (politico, giuridico, economico-aziendale, ecc) e in particolare discutere attorno a unità semplici, composte e espressioni multi-parola in francese, inglese, italiano e spagnolo, dal contesto d’uso all’inclusione in risorse lessicografiche specializzate e terminologiche. La riflessione su contesto d’uso e dinamiche terminologiche permetterà di identificare indicazioni utili per la costruzione di risorse lessicografiche specialistiche monolingue e di discutere la motivazione della creazione di parole e le dinamiche dei termini in lingue-culture disciplinari e (inter)nazionali a contatto. Il tema del progetto può essere affrontato in prospettiva teorico-descrittiva e in chiave metodologico-didattica, basandosi sulla costituzione e l'analisi di corpora rappresentativi degli ambiti di discorso sopracitati e di diversi generi.

2018 - Webpage usability and utility content: Citizens' rights and the law on Gov.uk [Articolo su rivista]
Cacchiani, Silvia
abstract

The goal of this descriptive study is to investigate the visual and written representation of legal knowledge in selected articles and directories of the Gov.uk platform, which transmits and mediates legal knowledge from the UK Government and Ministry of Justice as institutional principals to individual citizens. The data suggests that the Your rights and the law pages at Gov.uk are able to deliver good value to the end-user (i.e. knowledge) and to the institution (in terms of credibility and trust generation). Written mediation of legal knowledge through the Your rights and the law pages at Gov.uk, we have seen, comes with recourse to interdiscursive and interlocutive dialogic devices. Oftentimes, expository reformulations resemble lexicographic definitions in dictionary articles: they may come in diverse combinations and vary according to the direction of the definition, type (analytical or by function), present or absent relational expressions, etc. This involves reconceptualization of terms from source discourses and approximations to specialized meanings. From a usability point of view, the Your rights and the law pages appear to qualify as mature information formats and a powerful means for knowledge construction and representation, as well as engagement and interaction with end-users (GDS-a, GDS-b). They satisfy the standard criteria for usable user interfaces – layout consistency, meaningful headings, itemized keywords and hierarchical organization of expandable content, clear signposting and multiple access routes, etc. Accordingly, information is diluted across pages, and content often graphically schematized into bulleted lists that separate and fix subordinate components on the page. This demonstrates a major concern with the graphic/visual organization of expandable utility content, which is a major prerequisite for encouraging users to turn to the Gov.uk platform rather than other sources for basic self-help, services and documentation.

2017 - Cognitive motivation in English intensifying adjectives [Articolo su rivista]
Cacchiani, Silvia
abstract

This paper addresses the cognitive determinants of intensification in English complex intensifying adjectives, also taking an eye to prefixation and adjective reduplication. Based on qualitative data analysis, we shall see that configurational structures such as DEGREE, SCALE and BOUNDEDNESS play a key role, and that the development into intensifiers involves a move from objective meanings towards subjectivity. Importantly, intensification rests on a shift from content domains to the configurational domain of degree via conceptual metaphor and conceptual metonymy, which can also operate on perceptually salient maximum reference points. Working on the assumption of parallel conceptualizations for intensifying phrases and word-formations, the chapter argues for three broad mechanisms of intensification in line with research on patterns of intensification in phrasal constructs: a degree type (all-new), a semanticfeature- copying type (snow-white, freezing cold), and a type where intensification relies on the integration of scales which associate with lexical meanings typically located in different knowledge domains (red hot and roaring drunk). Cet article s’occupe des déterminants cognitifs de l’intensification, notamment dans le cas des adjectifs complexes d’intensification en anglais, avec un regard particulier sur la préfixation et la réduplication d’adjectifs. Sur la base d’une analyse qualitative, nous allons montrer, d’une part, que des structures configurationnelles telles que le DEGRÉ, la SCALARITÉ et la DÉLIMITATION des pôles scalaires jouent un rôle clé dans l’intensification, et d’autre part, que la transformation des adjectifs en intensifieurs entraine le passage de l’objectivité à la subjectivité. L’intensification repose donc sur un glissement allant du domaine du contenu vers le domaine configurationnel du degré, à travers une métaphore conceptuelle ou une métonymie conceptuelle, qui peuvent opérer également sur les points de référence maximaux de réception qui soient saillant du point de vue de la perception. Faisant l’hypothèse d’une identité entre la conceptualisation des phrases intensificatrices et la formation des mots, nous proposons l’identification de trois typologies en accord avec les recherches sur les modèles de l’intensification dans la construction de phrases. Ainsi, nous distinguons une catégorie fondée sur le degré (all-new), une catégorie fondée sur la répétition de traits sémantiques (snow-white, freezing cold), et une catégorie dans laquelle l’intensification réside dans l’intégration de la scalarité et du sens lexical, qui sont généralement placés dans de domaines différents (red hot et roaring drunk).

2017 - From analogues to new words and constructs through paronymy, local analogy and schematas [Capitolo/Saggio]
Cacchiani, Silvia
abstract

The paper explores analogy and schemes in new complex words primarily used as clever attention seeking devices, for language play, ludic and humorous effects (Cook 2000), naming purposes and, importantly, hypostatization (Lipka, 2000; Hohenhaus, 2007). Particularly, we shall carry out qualitative analysis of multimorphemic words (nouns and names) that exemplify rule-based, grammatical compounding, extragrammatical compounding (blending) and (pseudo-)derivation (also non-words). Examples are mainly gathered from http://www.WordSpy.com (2011-2014), humorous TV series (e.g. The Muppet Show, Series 1-3) and (nonsensical) children literature (e.g. Roald Dahl, 1982/2013, The BFG, or Roger McGough’s collections of nonsense children poetry) to discuss analogy-based and schema-based word-formation processes within Booij’s (2010) Constructional Morphology framework. Although positing a continuum from local analogy to schematization (instantiation, expansion, elaboration of schemes) in new word formations is problematic because it leads to defining categories with fuzzy borders and a grey area whose size and features are not clearly defined, local analogy and schematization will enable us to take a look at features of new words at the phonological, morphotactic and semantic level, in line with Booij’s (2010) conceptualization of words as constructs that unify phonological, syntactic and semantic structures. Broadly working within Natural Morphology (Dressler 1987), morphotactic and morphosematic transparency/opaqueness will provide criteria for exploring the degree of similarity to the source word(s) of new formations. This shall enable us to put forth three non-discrete categories and underlying word formation techniques: paronyms and paronymy, analogical composite structures and morphotactic analogy and, third, schemes and schematization.

2017 - From Summaries of Product Characteristics to Patient Information Leaflets: Where subjectivation and patient orientation meet knowledge dissemination [Relazione in Atti di Convegno]
Cacchiani, Silvia
abstract

European legislation requires that Patient Information Leaflets (PILs) come with medicines approved for use and purchase in the EU. Despite efforts to improve their quality, however, PILs are still criticized by patients as too complex, not user-friendly and often useless. The dysfunctional nature and hybridity of PILs follows, among others, from their initial development from Summaries of Product Characteristics (SPCs) and from the parallel drafting of the two genres. Casting basic notions from research in health communication in linguistic terms, this paper addresses some aspects of patient centeredness and (if marginally) trust generation using notions from genre analysis and LSP research, contrastive textology and work on knowledge dissemination. Specifically, it analyses and contrasts generic structure potential, aspects of domain-specific knowledge construction and section (sub-)headings of UK SPCs and PILs to show how PILs link Knowledge Dissemination strategies with patient orientation and subjectivation.

2017 - Review of : Carolin Ostermann, 2015, Cognitive Lexicography. A New Approach to Lexicography Making Use of Cognitive Semantics [Lexicographica. Series Mayor 149], Berlin/Boston, Walter De Gruyter. In RESLA, Revista Española de Lingüística Aplicada/Spanish Journal of Applied Linguistics, 2017/1, pp. 1-12. [Recensione in Rivista]
Cacchiani, Silvia
abstract

Review of : Carolin Ostermann, Cognitive Lexicography. A new approach to lexicography making use of cognitive semantics. (Lexicographica. Series Maior, 149) Berlin/Boston: Walter De Gruyter, 2015, xi + 380 pages, ISBN 978-3-11-042744 8 (HBK); e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-042416-4; e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-042428-7. The author of this book provides a positive answer to the long-debated question whether or not lexicographers need to know about linguistics (among others, Rundell, 2012). In the same way as lexicography is seen by some as ‘art and craft’ (Landau, 2001), and the ‘poor relation’ of lexicology (Lipka,1995, p. 381), there are arguments—also hard-line—against the potential contributions of linguistics to lexicography (for one, Wierzbicka, 1985, p. 5). Without going all the way to endorsing a theory of lexicography (e.g., Tarp, 2008), arguments on the other side take a positive view of the relationship between linguistics and lexicography. In this context, this book takes as its starting point the premise that lexicography can benefit greatly from neighboring disciplines in linguistics and, more specifically, from Cognitive Linguistics and Cognitive Semantics. This is Cognitive Lexicography. With the title of Chapter 1, it represents “A new approach to lexicography,” in the sense that the full potential of this approach has not been explored yet. With works such as Kövecses and Csábi (2014) and Xu (2015), the author clearly reflects the main developments in applications of cognitive linguistics to lexicography. Whereas the suggested methodology can accommodate new features, it is also hoped that further research takes suggestions on cross-referencing between entries to a further stage, which envisages tailoring dictionary macro-structure and arranging entries and meanings according to the needs of individual users. This may enhance vocabulary learning by focusing on the systematicity of language. To give one example, Kövecses and Csábi (2014, pp. 136-137) point out that “a simply alphabetically arranged dictionary may become a systematically arranged group of entries at a click, if it is made possible that, for instance, we can select words and expressions that describe ANGER or LOVE, in order to see what source domains these use, or words and expressions that contain the word fire in order to see what target domains there may be.” In short, Cognitive Lexicography in the electronic age can adapt dictionaries and dictionary entries specific user needs, goals and profiles, thus playing a major part in making so-called ʽlexicographersʼ dreamsʼ (de Schryver 2003) come true.

2017 - Review of: Nadežda Stojković (ed.), 2015, Vistas of English for Specific Purposes, Newcastle upon Tyne, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, pp. x-ix + 405. [Recensione in Rivista]
Cacchiani, Silvia
abstract

Review of: Nadežda Stojković (ed.), 2015, Vistas of English for Specific Purposes, Newcastle upon Tyne, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, pp. x-ix + 405.

2017 - Review of: Stojković, Nadežda. (ed.). 2015. Vistas of English for Specific Purposes. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. pp. x-ix + 405. ISBN (10): 14438-7635-6; ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-7635-3 [Recensione in Rivista]
Cacchiani, Silvia
abstract

In recent years it has become increasingly clear that courses in English for Special Purposes (ESP) constitute an inescapably diverse and multi-facetted domain of research. Vistas of English for Specific Purposes, edited by Nadežda Stojković, takes up the challenge and provides the reader looks at selected problematic issues and key aspects of locally focused teaching experiences from different perspectives and in multiple fields of expertise – also where English language teachers are flying blind to a large extent (e.g. English for Music or English for Customs Officials). The 32 chapters in the volume, we learn from the book blurb, constitute a selection of papers from the First International Conference on Teaching English for Specific and Academic Purposes – Connect and Share (Faculty of Electronic Engineering, University of Niš, Serbia, May 2013). They are organized in fifteen main sections – from the Table of Contents: English for Art (i.e. music); English for Business; English for Customs, Military, and Police Forces; English for Law; English for Mathematics; English for Medicine; English for Tourism; English for Engineering and Technology; One Country ESP Specifics; ESP Perspectives; Language Teaching Strategies; Material Design, Performance Assessment; Political Science and International Relations; Professional English; English for Social Sciences (1-386). The remaining sections cover bio-notes (Contributors, 387-400) and a short Subject Index (401-405). Nearly all contributions reflect on different stages in the development of successful pilot studies and projects launched in the fields of ESP teaching in Eastern European universities. More important, given the strongly context-dependent and most definitely learner-centered nature of ESP teaching/learning (Nunan 1988), the bottom line that shapes research across this diverse array of chapters is the strong interconnection between needs analysis, students’ perceived needs (Dudley-Evans and St John 1998), motivation and attitudes, as well as authenticity, material design, task development and assessment. The following selection of papers provides the reader with analyses and applications that reach beyond individual case studies and fields of expertise. In sum, the papers in this volume bring us to reflect on a multiplicity of contexts, aims and objectives. It could generally be noted that including an introductory chapter would have helped to bring order to multiplicity and set the stage for the following 32 contributions. We also feel that a handful of papers might have perhaps benefited from another round of proofreading, and that abstracts should have been consistently used throughout the volume. However, this does not detract from the merits of the collection: the publication illustrates just some of many areas of enquiry under investigation in Eastern European countries, and yet it is a demonstration that an especially dynamic and committed, locally focused but globally dedicated ESP teaching community is beginning to earn international recognition. As we see, the challenge for all those involved in the community is to tailor course design, materials and methods to the specific needs and goals of specific learners, with one appropriate point of departure being Ushioda’s (2009) person-in-context relational view of emergent motivation, self and identity. A good deal has been written in this intersectional area of research. (See e.g. articles and references in Byram and Hu, eds, 2013.) What most contributors think is important, however, is to move the emphasis away from the literature review towards the applied side of ESP teaching, with a focus on sharing hands-on experience and reflections on particular game changers. ESP teachers and teacher trainers will certainly appreciate this choice and extend the details and scope of the activities, tasks and projects presented in the volume to cater for the specific needs of other specific learners.

2016 - La parasinonimia nel dizionario giuridico francese e inglese [Capitolo/Saggio]
Cacchiani, Silvia; Preite, Chiara
abstract

The present study provides a preliminary qualitative investigation into the presence and treatment of near-synonymy in selected articles from the Vocabulaire Juridique (VJ) and the Oxford Dictionary of Law (ODL), two compact paper dictionaries currently available on the market. Both dictionaries target native speakers (French and British users, respectively) with various expertise (mainly non-experts and semi-experts). Lemmas are organized in a semasiological structure, and micro- and medio-structures are used to explicitate the semantic relations between terms (e.g. via integrated and non-integrated cross-references). A comparison of the meaning descriptions and cross-referencing systems in VJ and ODL suggests that most near-synonyms are pragmatically motivated. They comprise stylistic, diachronic and diatopic variants, as well as acronyms (e.g. from the Incoterms), borrowings and legal transplants, and instances of francisation. Reference device and near-synonym may constitute the only segment in the meaning description, be integrated in the meaning description, or account for separate additions. However, the data suggests that the cross-referencing system and the cross-references devices and conventions adopted in VJ and ODL are inconsistent and may thus fail to assist dictionary users retrieve information that serves their needs.

2016 - On "intralinguistic translation" from summaries of product characteristics to patient information leaflets [Capitolo/Saggio]
Cacchiani, Silvia
abstract

This paper addresses features of UK Patient Information Leaflets (PILs) as originating and shifting from the corresponding Summaries of Product Characteristics (SmPCs). PILs accompany prescription-only and over-the-counter medicines to ensure that all citizens have equal access to reliable and effective quality information. To this purpose, they have been regularly revised by pharmaceutical companies and then validated by the national departments of Health in compliance with national regulations and EU directives and regulations. Alternatively, they are now licensed for use in EU Member States by the European Medicines Agency. The discursive construction of risk (Fage-Butler 2011) and trust generation (Earle 2010) informs patient-centeredness (Balint 1969; Mead, Bower 2000): intralinguistic and intergeneric expert-to-layman translation (Zehtsen 2007) are at work to turn highly specialized Summaries of Product Characteristics (SmPCs) into functionally adequate Patient Information Leaflets (PILs), their closer cognates. These can be seen as seats for Knowledge Dissemination (Calsamiglia, van Dijk 2004), reconceptualization and recontextualization. In his context, it is the purpose of this paper to address questions about the shift from presentation of biomedical research to interactive and patient-friendly communication that pursues engagement with the reader via recourse to general words (as against specialist terms or hypernyms), basic categories (vs. hyponyms) and, importantly, 1st and 2nd person conditionals and 2nd person imperatives and question-answer patterns (as against nominalizations).

2016 - On Italian lexical blends: Borrowings, hybridity, adaptations, and native word-formations [Capitolo/Saggio]
Cacchiani, Silvia
abstract

This paper addresses intentional lexical blending in Italian as conscious wordplay (cf. e.g. Renner 2015; Sablayrolles 2015a; Zirker and Winter-Froemel 2015). Working on the assumption that the obvious increase in lexical blends in Italian suggests ongoing processes of language change, which, at least partly, appear to be contact-induced, we address the transfer of lexical blends from English, including borrowings, adaptations, and hybrid blends. To this purpose, a preliminary exploration of native blends and lexical blending techniques and the scalar notion of morphotactic (non-)transparency (or opacity) (Dressler 1987; Ronneberger-Sibold 2010, 2012; Cacchiani 2011), will make it possible to discuss types of wordplay – not only formal complexity, transgression, or semantic play on words (Renner 2015) but also graphic play in hybrid blends, pseudo-anglicisms and foreign-sounding word formations. Based on the assumption that discourse mode and genre conventions interact with the selection of blending technique, type of wordplay and pragmatic purpose of the lexical blend – from maximally descriptive to maximally ludic (cf. e.g. Sablayrolles 2015a) – we will suggest some preliminary equations between these dimensions grounded in qualitative analysis of examples from journalese, advertising, names of brands, companies, events, etc., children and nonsense literature. Crucially, where making meta-sense from phonological motivation and play with sound shapes is the goal (e.g. in Lewis Carrollʼs “The Jabberwocky”), choosing to render more transparent ST techniques by means of more morphotactically opaque types in the Italian TT demonstrates the remarkable ability of Italian to exploit lexical blending – if only in specific contexts.

2015 - Discourse In and Through the Media. Recontextualizing and Reconceptualizing Expert Discourse [Curatela]
Bondi, Marina; Cacchiani, Silvia; Mazzi, Davide
abstract

This book stems from the 2013 CLAVIER Conference held in Modena in November 2013 and includes a selection of the papers presented on that occasion. As the title suggests, the aim of the conference was to stimulate the debate on a variety of aspects related to the representation of specialized discourse in and through the media, e.g. voice and point of view, argumentative practices, knowledge construction, multimodality, re-contextualization and re-conceptualization of knowledge, and peer-to-peer communication within genres aimed at knowledge dissemination and popularization. The conference was therefore intended to encourage cross-generic and cross-disciplinary investigations, in an attempt to advocate integrated approaches to the study of media discourse with a view to both theoretical background and practical applications. Recontextualizing and reconceptualizing expert discourse has become increasingly important in modern society. Yet although Knowledge Dissemination (KD) is now receiving increasing attention, the discursive strategies and the pragmatics of KD in and through the media have yet to receive serious consideration. Knowledge dissemination can be seen as a form of ‘asymmetric’ communication between experts and lay-people, or ‘mediation’ of knowledge and intercultural and ‘inter-discourse communication’ (Scollon & Scollon 1995) between members of different cultures, discourse communities and communities of practice. This amounts to re-contextualization (Calsamiglia & Van Dijk 2004) and inclusion of types of ‘intralinguistic’ translations, whereby simplification, explicitation, reformulation (Mauranen 2006), reconceptualization of terms in the subject field ‘translate’ exclusive expertise into ‘comprehensible’ knowledge, suitable to the background of the addressee. In this connection, knowledge dissemination (Engberg 2014: knowledge mediation) is seen as a three-fold intra-linguistic and cross-cultural process that combines representation, construction and communication of knowledge intended for specific addressees (Kastberg 2010; Ditlevsen 2011). The volume is intended to encourage cross-generic and cross-disciplinary investigations, in an attempt to advocate integrated approaches to the study of media discourse with a view to both theoretical background and practical applications. Secondly, it aims to foster debate on a variety of aspects related to the representation of specialized discourse in and through the media, e.g. voice and point of view, argumentative practices, knowledge construction, multimodality, re-contextualization and re-conceptualization of knowledge (hence, knowledge transmission), opinion formation and peer-to-peer communication within web genres aimed at knowledge dissemination and popularization in and through traditional, digital and social media. Taken together, the contributions to the volume provide extensive exemplification of the type of research that is currently conducted on these issues. The variety of the questions posed and the wide array of methods used in the chapters are therefore intended to make a substantial contribution to sharpen existing knowledge and further the ongoing debate among scholars in the field. TABLE OF CONTENTS Marina Bondi: Preface Marina Bondi, Silvia Cacchiani & Davide Mazzi: Discourse in and through the media. Recontextualizing and reconceptualizing expert knowledge I – NEW MEDIA AND NEW MULTIMODAL ENVIRONMENTS FOR KNOWLEDGE DISSEMINATION 1. Cornelius Puschmann: A digital mob in the ivory tower? Context collapse in scholarly communication online 2. Jan Engberg & Carmen Daniela Maier: Exploring the hypermodal communication of academic knowledge beyond generic structure II – DISSEMINATING SCHOLARLY KNOWLEDGE 3. Susan Hunston: Talking science: Science in the news on BBC radio 4. Elsa Pic & Grégory Furmaniak: Comparison as a mode of re-conceptualization in popularization: Focus

2015 - Discourse In and Through the media: Recontextualizing and reconceptualizing expert discourse [Capitolo/Saggio]
Bondi, Marina; Cacchiani, Silvia; Mazzi, Davide
abstract

Recontextualizing and reconceptualizing expert discourse has become increasingly important in modern society. Yet although Knowledge Dissemination (KD) is now receiving increasing attention, the discursive strategies and the pragmatics of KD in and through the media have yet to receive serious consideration. Knowledge dissemination can be seen as a form of ‘asymmetric’ communication between experts and lay-people, or ‘mediation’ of knowledge and intercultural and ‘inter-discourse communication’ (Scollon & Scollon 1995) between members of different cultures, discourse communities and communities of practice. This amounts to re-contextualization (Calsamiglia & Van Dijk 2004) and inclusion of types of ‘intralinguistic’ translations, whereby simplification, explicitation, reformulation (Mauranen 2006), reconceptualization of terms in the subject field ‘translate’ exclusive expertise into ‘comprehensible’ knowledge, suitable to the background of the addressee. In this connection, knowledge dissemination (Engberg 2014: knowledge mediation) is seen as a three-fold intra-linguistic and cross-cultural process that combines representation, construction and communication of knowledge intended for specific addressees (Kastberg 2010; Ditlevsen 2011). The main point of this chapter is to consider and discuss research on the recontextualization and reconceptualization of knowledge in and through the media, across genres and knowledge domains. Second, it gives an overview of the chapters included in the volume, thus addressing the tensions embedded in internal and external scholarly communication, KD in corporate communication and from institutions to lay audience, and audience empowerment in traditional and new media. The main emphasis lies on cross-generic and cross-disciplinary investigations, in an attempt to advocate integrated approaches to the study of media discourse with a view to both theoretical background and practical applications, and to foster debate on a variety of aspects related to the representation of specialized discourse in and through the media, e.g. voice and point of view, argumentative practices, knowledge construction, multimodality, re-contextualization and re-conceptualization of knowledge (hence, knowledge transmission), opinion formation and peer-to-peer communication within web genres aimed at knowledge dissemination and popularization in and through traditional, digital and social media.

2015 - Knowledge Dissemination in the Digital Era. Language and Episteme. INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE. 18-20 October, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia. Italy [Altro]
Bondi, Marina; Cacchiani, Silvia; Coliva, Annalisa
abstract

CONFERENCE ANNOUNCEMENT AND CALL FOR PAPERS The CLAVIER group at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia and LUIQ Lund are currently organizing a conference on KNOWLEDGE DISSEMINATION IN THE DIGITAL ERA: LANGUAGE AND EPISTEME (KDDE), Modena, 18 - 20 November 2015. The conference brings together know-how and expertize from philosophy (social epistemology), information technology and (applied) linguistics to cast new light on the link between knowledge dissemination strategies as devices for recontextualization and reconceptualization, and credibility and trust generation in selected research blogs, online reference works (e.g. free, also non-institutional, encyclopedias), websites such as Academia.edu, search engines (notably, Google), etc. (See below for more on the conference.) CONFERENCE DESCRIPTION Knowledge construction and knowledge dissemination are key to the socio-economic development of contemporary society and the cultural growth of EU citizens. More particularly, knowledge dissemination in the digital world is now making a significant move from traditional genres to new forms of web-mediated communication. This, however, leaves many open questions about the whys and wherefores of relevance and credibility, trust and reputation, effective and efficient linguistic choices, and multimodal communication. We therefore bring together know-how and expertize from philosophy (social epistemology), information technology and (applied) linguistics to cast new light on the link between knowledge dissemination strategies as devices for recontextualization and reconceptualization, and credibility and trust generation in selected research blogs, online reference works (e.g. free, also non-institutional, encyclopedias), websites such as Academia.edu, search engines (notably, Google), etc. Using the tools of corpus linguistics and genre studies, linguists will concentrate on linguistic and multimodal knowledge dissemination strategies that may improve or undermine the transfer of high-quality information (research results) to peers and professionals, as well as to different types of lay-audiences in highly asymmetric contexts (e.g. children). From a complementary perspective, philosophers will concentrate on epistemic reputation and objective selection of websites, and on the subsequent inclusion of relevant high-quality information. Third, the contribution of information technology will allow investigation into issues such as algorithms for website selection and listing by search engines (Google.com), as well as reflection on document and web-page design. INVITED PLENARY SPEAKERS: Linguistic strand: Naomi Baron – American U, Washington, USA; Anna Mauranen ? U of Helsinki, Finland; Cornelius Puschmann ? U of Friedrichshafen, Germany; Josef Schmied - Chemnitz U of Technology, Germany; Marina Sbisà/Paolo Labinaz - U of Trieste, Italy; Rita Cucchiara - U of Modena; Stefano Ossicini - U of Modena. Social epistemology strand: Kristoffer Ahlstrom-Vij – U of Kent, UK; Catherine Felix – Lund U, Sweden; Elisabeth Fricker, Oxford U, UK; Emmanuel Genot – Lund U, Sweden; Magnus Jiborn - Lund U, Sweden; Erik Olson - Lund University, Sweden; Gloria Origgi - Institut Jean Nicod, CNRS, France; Rasmus Rendsvig – Lund U; Judith Simon – U of Vienna, Austria, U of Copenhagen, Denmark; Ylva von Gerber – Lund U, Sweden. WORKING LANGUAGE: English.

2015 - Lexi-Term : approches plurielles de la lexicographie spécialisée et de la terminologie/terminographie [Curatela]
Cacchiani, Silvia; Preite, Chiara
abstract

Ce numéro de R.I.L.A. ‒ Rassegna Italiana di Linguistica Applicata, sur Lexi-Term : approches plurielles de la lexicographie spécialisée et de la terminologie/terminographie, naît de l’intérêt que le Groupe de Recherche Modena Lexi-Term porte à la lexicographie spécialisée, à la terminologie et à la terminographie mono- et bilingues, ainsi qu’à l’étude du comportement des termes en contexte, étroitement liée à l’analyse de corpus de textes authentiques. aduzione giuridica?

2015 - Morphological translation equivalence for TLA development in the teacher trainee classroom [Capitolo/Saggio]
Cacchiani, Silvia
abstract

The research question this study addressed was whether and to what extent morphological translation equivalence might contribute TLA in the teacher training class. We have therefore attempted to look at some features of intensifying and evaluative morphology and their functional counterparts within and across languages. Though the following conclusions must be viewed as partly tentative given the initial stage of our research, the importance of morphological translation equivalence for TLA and of explicit knowledge of overlapping L1 and L2 types beyond formal equivalence is uncontroversial. This, we have argued, can be assumed to apply especially to the Italian teacher trainee. More specifically, being educated in a country that affords limited opportunities for L2 use, teacher trainees enrolled in TFA/SPA programmes in Italy group similarly not only according to proficiency level, type and length of learning experience but also according to exposure to L1 and (to a minor degree) L2 explicit instruction (e.g. in high school). Also, having completed minors in General and Applied Linguistics and majored in Language and Translation, teacher trainees are (relatively) well equipped with terminology, knowledge of theoretical notions and awareness of practical applications, and can thus be assumed to group together in terms of skills and ability to explore and reflect on different types and language paradigms. Participant (i.e. teacher trainee) and contextual characteristics, therefore, invite work on explicit instruction along the lines suggested in Task 1 and Task 2, which concentrate on difference ‒ rather than similarity – of morphological types and intensifying and evaluative paradigms in particular, within and across languages. This is evidenced by one-to-many equivalence in the case English and Italian super-, which do not overlap, or by Italian elative -issimo, which is ubiquitous for English intensifying adverbs, implicit superlatives and intensifying prefixes in complex words. Formal differences across languages may also pair with similarity of subsenses and functions, as in jocular uses of Italian -one and English little in It. birbone > dirty/little rascal, and show up in one language, as in It. -ino and -one, in ‘Che bel gelatino/gelatone!’. Importantly, we have shown that explicit knowledge of intensifying and evaluative morphology minimally requires generalizations and verbalization of rules along semantic roles and features such as degree, emphasis and affect. In this context, it is clear that, if we want to eventually come out with effective tasks that can build and encourage TLA, we first need to isolate specific form-function connections for all the L1 and L2 types involved, at the morphological and phraseological level.

2015 - On Concluders and other discourse markers in the concluding moves of English and Italian historical research articles [Capitolo/Saggio]
Cacchiani, Silvia
abstract

Starting from the assumption that local and disciplinary cultures have an impact on the rhetorical organization of the text and on identity construction within a genre (Fløttum, Dahl and Kinn 2006, for academic genres), this paper takes a corpus-assisted approach to genre variation across English and Italian research articles in history. Specifically, the main emphasis lies on conclu* and its lemmatizations, or, more precisely, on second-level Summarizers and Concluders (Siepmann 2005), and the way they interact with other discourse markers (primarily Summarizers and Resumers, and Inferrers) and metadiscourse across moves. As will be seen, second-level discourse markers (SLDMs) represent a marked option, in that they add extra meaning to their more general, more transparent, more frequent, and less specific counterparts. Whereas variation within the unit or pattern results from combinations with discourse markers from the same or other categories, variation across English and Italian is better accounted for within an interpersonal model of metadiscourse (Hyland 2005, 2008), in terms of different strategies on the interactional level.

2015 - On Italian lexical blends: from language play to innovation [Articolo su rivista]
Cacchiani, Silvia
abstract

This paper concentrates on lexical blending in Italian. While it has been regularly dismissed in Italian linguistics as an elusive and peripheral word-formation technique, lexical blending has been addressed within the broader category of parole macedonia (literally, ‘fruit-salad words’; Thornton 1993, 2004a, 2004b). This said, however, lexical blends still avoid definition. The paper is an attempt at contributing to the latest body of work on the issue with qualitative data analysis base on examples from the www (for journalese, adverts, product names and brand names), nonsense and children literature. The main emphasis lies in new lexical blends as names and nouns (neologisms and, mainly, occasionalisms), coined for naming and descriptive purposes, for hypostatization, as attention seeking devices and signals of in-group membership, and, importantly, for ludic purposes and language play. Broadly working within Naturalness Theory, we adapt work by Ronneberger-Sibold (2006, 2010, 2012) to rank different blending techniques along a cline from most to least morphotactically transparent, according to similarity of the blend to its constituent words and recognizability of the words within the blend: complete blends (telescopes), inclusive blends, contour blends (portmanteau or prototypical blends), and semi-complete blends represent fuzzy subsets within the prototype category parole macedonia. They gradually merge into one another and into neighbouring word-formations, extragrammatical (complex clippings) and grammatical (pseudo-derivations and compounds). As regards the distribution of blends across domains, modes and genres, a first look into the question suggests that where the major emphasis lies in language play and amusement, semantic and phonological motivations conflate in telescopes, semi-complete blends, and most effective and memorable paronymic contour blends. Conversely, where the name or noun is coined to evoke pseudo-Latin and pseudo-English sound shapes for promotional purposes, recourse is made to complex clippings or pseudo-derivations. Cet article porte sur les amalgames lexicaux en Italien. Généralement la linguistique italienne considère cette technique de création lexicale comme insaisissable et périphérique. En effet, les amalgames lexicaux sont englobés dans la catégorie plus large des parole macedonia (mots valises ; Thornton 1993, 2004a, 2004b) et échappent à une définition précise. Cet article se propose de contribuer aux plus récents travaux sur le sujet à travers une analyse qualitative de données tirées du web (langage journalistique, publicité, noms de produits et de marques) aussi bien que de la littérature nonsense et pour l’enfance. L’intérêt majeur réside dans les nouveaux amalgames lexicaux, comme les noms propres et communs (néologismes et surtout occasionalismes), forgés à des fins descriptifs ou dénominatifs, d’hypostatisation, d’attention seeking et d’appartenance groupale, aussi bien que pour créer des jeux de langage et des formes ludiques. Dans le cadre de la théorie de la morphologie naturelle, nous adaptons les travaux de Ronneberger-Sibold (2010, 2012) pour classer les différentes techniques de création des amalgames lexicaux sur la base du niveau de transparence morphotactique, selon le degré de ressemblance de l’amalgame avec les mots qui le constituent aussi bien que la reconnaissabilité des mots à l’intérieur des amalgames : amalgames complets (telescopes), amalgames inclusifs, amalgames « contour » (portmanteau ou amalgames prototypiques), et amalgames semi-complets représentent des catégories floues à l’intérieur de la catégorie prototypique des parole macedonia. Ces catégories fusionnent graduellement l’une dans l’autre et dans des formes proches, qu’elles soient extra-grammaticales (composés bi-apocopés) ou grammaticales (pseudo-dérivations et mots composés). Quant à la di

2015 - Performativity and modal meanings in the case law of the European Court of Justice [Articolo su rivista]
Cacchiani, Silvia
abstract

This chapter discusses performativity, modal meanings and directive speech acts in a small sample of ECJ cases written in Court French and then translated into so-called Bruxellish. Insights from philosophy of law, legal communication and legal linguistics on the one hand, and from recent investigations into the semantics of modality and imperatives, shall enable us to take the first step to reassess the role of performativity in uttering legal expressions. Pre-theoretical discussion and description of the meaning and linguistic realizations of (priority) deontic modal meanings will follow. As will be seen, the main factors behind drafting and translating performativity and priority modal meanings are: the legitimacy ascribed to law and institution, construed as a collective entity; the ongoing politically-driven effort to create a superordinate but unifying law; the importance of equal effect and uniform intent of the instrument.

Colloquium: Popularization and Knowledge Mediation in the Legal Field Programme Friday, 10 July 2015 9.00 – 9.30: Silvia Cacchiani / Chiara Preite; On informative and interactive concerns in www.justice.gouv.fr and www.justice.gov.uk: making sense of rights and the law 9.30 – 10.00: Judith Turnbull: Communicating and reconceptualizing legal advice online 10.00 – 10.30: Silvia Cavallieri: Broadcasting legal discourse: the popularization of Family Law through Youtube Coffee break 11.00 - 11.30: Andrzej Dabrowski: Reel justice in the context of teaching Legal English as a foreign language 11.30 – 12.00: Almut Meyer: Audiences of the Law 12.00 – 12.30: Alida Maria Siletti: Structure et paratexte de deux documents sur l’UE à visée vulgarisatrice : le cas des illustrations Lunch 14.00 – 14.30: Silvia Modena: La divulgation juridique en tant que stratégie argumentative contre l'euro 14.30 – 15.00: Giuliana Diani: Transferring legal concepts to children: a cross-linguistic analysis 15.00 – 15.30: Jan Engberg / Karin Luttermann: Vermittlung rechtlichen Wissens an Kindern und Jugendlichen Important information Contact for this colloqium: Jan Engberg, je@bcom.au.dk Conveners: Jan Engberg, Silvia Cacchiani, Karin Luttermann, Chiara Preite Aim and scope The field of studying communication in law may be subsumed under the name of Legal Linguistics. Traditionally, this type of study of specialized communication has had its focus upon performative legal texts like contracts, statutes and judgments (Engberg, 2013a). Studies of legal texts have thus often been focused upon communicative acts that may be termed internal to the legal institutions (cf. Busse, 2000), i.e., such communicative acts that fulfil the core purposes of the legal institutions. In many fields of specialized communication, this is also the case, but especially in the field of science and technology beside the expert-expert communication also the communication of specialized topics between experts and non-experts has been a frequent object of study, especially under the headline of popularization (Calsamiglia & van Dijk, 2003), both in traditional genres and, more recently, in new and Web 2.0 genres and modes. This has hardly been the case in the field of Legal Linguistics. The special thing about the legal field compared to other fields of specialized communication is that even the institution-internal communication has direct impact upon the lives of citizens outside the institutions, too: Statutes and contracts establish a legal framework that the citizens have to comply with, even if they do not understand these texts fully. Most studies of the intelligibility of legal texts have focused upon this aspect and thus on the aspect of achieving institution-internal communicative purposes. However, in a modern Western society also this type of state institutions have to think of other asymmetrical communicative purposes like informing citizens about the law and influencing their behavior (Engberg & Luttermann, 2014), but also the purpose of mitigating the skeptical attitude of citizens towards the law and the legal institutions (Preite, 2013). We expect these functions and purposes to be the central ones to be investigated in the colloquium. The conveners of this colloquium all have published studies on instructional and popularized texts used in asymmetrical communication and on different aspects of textual intelligibility in the field of law or in other fields (Cacchiani, 2013; Engberg, 2013b; Engberg & Luttermann, 2014; Luttermann, 2010; Preite, 2012; Preite, 2013). And we have investigated texts in a number of different languages and lingua-cultures. With this experience, we will be able to sketch some relevant lines of development of this new branch of study in the field of legal linguistics in our own presentations and guarantee a high degree of multilingualism in the work of the colloq

2015 - 2nd International Symposium on Figurative Thought and Language (FTL2), INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE, Pavia, 28-30 October 2015 [Altro]
Baicchi, Annalisa; Bottini, Roberto; Cacchiani, Silvia; DELLA PUTTA, PAOLO ANTONIO; Mollica, Fabio
abstract

2nd International Symposium on Figurative Thought and Language (FTL2) 28-30 October 2015, University of Pavia, Italy FTL2 is held under the auspices of AIA - Associazione Italiana di Anglistica and the Department of Humanities - University of Pavia Sponsored by John Benjamins The 2nd International Symposium on Figurative Thought and Language (FTL2) will focus on the centrality of conceptual metonymy, conceptual metaphor and metaphtonymy in language and the reasoning processes with a view to fostering interdisciplinary and intercultural dialogue, promoting the study of figuration in different languages and cultures, and enhancing dissemination of research results. We invite contributions from different theoretical and applied perspectives (e.g. cognitive linguistics, cognitive science, neuroscience and the philosophy of the mind), and methodologies (e.g., experimental protocols, cross-linguistic comparison, synchronic and diachronic analyses, translation, corpus studies). Suggested topics include (but are not restricted to) the impact of figuration on levels of linguistic analysis (morphology, lexis, semantics, pragmatics), on areas of grammar, on various types of discourse (e.g., the discourse of economics, law, medicine, philosophy, politics, psychology and psychotherapy), on the language of emotions. The Symposium will bestow the FTL Young Researchers’ Award (FTL-YRA) upon three deserving young researchers, who must be doctoral candidates or doctoral graduates within the five years prior to 30 June 2015. The papers must be an original unpublished investigation dealing with figuration. The Young Researcher Award Committee will select three papers based on scientific quality, innovation, significance of the contribution to the field, and clarity. The best paper will receive a certificate of recognition and a monetary prize of 300 euros; the second and third finalists will receive a certificate of recognition and a book from John Benjamins. Plenary Speakers: Prof. Angeliki ATHANASIADOU, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece; Prof. Mario BRDAR and Rita SZABÓ, Osijek University, Croatia, and Eötvös-Loránd University, Hungary; Prof. Herbert L. COLSTON, University of Alberta, Canada; Prof. Zóltan KÖVECSES, Eötvös-Loránd University, Hungary; Prof. Emeritus Günter RADDEN, University of Hamburg, Germany; Prof. Francisco RUIZ DE MENDOZA, University of La Rioja, Spain; Prof. Luca VANZAGO, University of Pavia, Italy Contact: Prof. Annalisa Baicchi (Symposium Chair); symposiumftl2015@gmail.com

2014 - Creating online specialized information tools for translating university texts: user profiles and needs [Articolo su rivista]
Cacchiani, Silvia; Palumbo, Giuseppe
abstract

La produzione di materiali in inglese come anche la traduzione di materiali dalla lingua nazionale all’inglese e viceversa costituiscono necessità ormai imprescindibili per un numero sempre più elevato di università, non solo per scopi di ricerca ma anche e in misura crescente a fini amministrativi e promozionali, nell’ambito di un processo di internazionalizzazione dalle conseguenze di ampia portata in termini di modelli organizzativi, procedure amministrative e strategie di marketing. L’uso dell’inglese rappresenta un vantaggio competitivo, fondamentale nell’attrarre studenti stranieri. Scopo di questo contributo è individuare, sulla base di registri, generi e situazioni d’uso ricorrenti in due università italiane, profili e necessità specifici di personale amministrativo e traduttori operanti in tale ambito, ai fini della progettazione e compilazione di un dizionario bilingue online specializzato che funga da strumento di informazione personalizzato rivolto di volta in volta alle esigenze specifiche del singolo utente.

2014 - Introduction. Lexi-Term: approches plurielles de la lexicographie spécialisée et de la terminologie/terminographie [Articolo su rivista]
Cacchiani, Silvia; Preite, Chiara
abstract

2014 - Non-Word Morphology (NWM): Non-words, nonce-words and morphology teaching. ESSE 2014 Seminar – Linguistics strand (SLANG28). SEMINAR AT INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE. 12th ESSE Conference - ESSE 2014, 29 August - 2 September 2016, Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice, Slovakia, The Department of British and American Studies, Faculty of Arts and SKASE (The Slovak Association for the Study of English). [Altro]
Cacchiani, Silvia; Haase, Christoph
abstract

ESSE: The European Society for Englsh Studies ESSE 2014 Seminar – Linguistics strand (SLANG28) 29 August 2014 – 2 September 2014, Kosice, Slovakia http://kaa.ff.upjs.sk/en/event/4/12th-esse-conference Full title: Non-words, nonce-words and morphology teaching. Acronym: NWM: NON-WORD MORPHOLOGY SEMINAR The seminar ‘Non-words, Nonce-words and Morphology Teaching’ will be held within the 12th ESSE Conference in Košice, Slovakia. CONVENORS Silvia Cacchiani, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy; Christoph Haase, Purkyně University, Ústí nad Labem, Czech Republic DESCRIPTION While psycho- and neurolinguistics (e.g. Marslen-Wilson 1987, 2007, Kielar et al. 2008, Rastle et al. 2008, Crepaldi 2010) have shown increasing interest in the representation of non-words, nonce-words or nonsensical words in the mental lexicon, their potential as a yardstick for the morphological competence of L2 learners has not been widely explored. The aim of this seminar is to bring together theoretical and applied research on non-words, nonce-words, and the teaching of English morphology. Suggested topics include (but are not restricted to): – morphological processes in language comprehension, also models of word recognition; – analogy in morphology and analogy in L2 learning; – best practice in morphology teaching; – learner access to lexical strata, feature percolation and permissibility, and related performance. CFPs Please send your abstract totaling no more than 300 words (including references) by February 28th 2014 to the following addresses: silvia.cacchiani at unimore.it, christoph.haase at ujep.cz. NOTIFICATION OF ACCEPTANCE March 31st 2014

2014 - Sui trapianti giuridici: rappresentazione lessicografica del significato e analisi fattuale [Articolo su rivista]
Cacchiani, Silvia; Pighi, Francesco
abstract

Ideally, legal translators are comparatists with a training in translation and extremely high language expertise. In practice, Legal Translation courses in Italy are often offered to students majoring in Modern Languages, with limited, if any, domain expertise, and C1 knowledge of the L2. This paper concentrates on the (re-)conceptualization of copyright ‒ a legal transplant from English to French and Italian ‒, Italian diritto d’autore and French droit d’auteur. While comparative law invites dynamic conceptualizations that speak for the need to alert students to the problematic nature of terminological equivalence across highly culture-specific legal systems and traditions, static conceptualizations in comparable medium-size monolingual legal dictionaries can be used for efficient communication of ‘shared’ expert knowledge and thus provide assistance with the knowledge-oriented needs of non-experts and semi-experts (students and translators with experience in other domains).

2014 - Teaching effective academic writing: If-conditionals in economics research articles [Capitolo/Saggio]
Cacchiani, Silvia
abstract

This contribution looks into knowlegde construction in research articles (RAs) in economics. Based on insights from insiders (for one, Brandis 1968) and discourse analytical investigation carried out manually by Merlini Barbaresi (1983), we proceed on the assumption that knoweldge construction results from the complex interplay of the macro-speech-acts (in the sense of Searle and Vandervecken 1985) of hypothesis, analysis/intepretation/generalization and prediction, where hypothesis and analysis/interpreation/generalization are functional to prediction. Using the tools of corpus linguistics (Scott 1997/2010), we provide grounded insights into this central claim (Cacchiani 2011). We then concentrate on the grammar of if-conditionals as a key cohesive device in the text, briefly touching uppon issues of grammatical form and meaning (in the sense of Purpura 1996).

2014 - Tourist gaze, tourist destination images and extended tourist destination experiences: Description and point of view in community travelogs [Capitolo/Saggio]
Cacchiani, Silvia
abstract

Visual perception is key to defining tourist destination image and experience, has a major part in framing the tourist gaze, and motivates the distinctive bias towards procedural place descriptions in traditional paper guidebooks. Research in the sociology of tourism and in tourist marketing and management, however, points to the complex nature of tourist gaze, tourist destination image and tourist destination experiences as resulting from the intersection of social values and perception (Urry/Larsen 32012) in geographical places that are also sites for activities and services (Ricci/Werthner 2002). Constructing tourist gaze and the tourist destination experience thus draws on a diverse range of common and unique, tangible and intangible attributes and related holistic imagery (Echtner/Ritchie 2003). Given the proliferation of ICTs and the more active role now played by tourists in the construction of technologically mediated travel experiences, it is the purpose of this paper to concentrate on travelogs as ‘word-of-mouth’ (Murphy/Moscardo/Benckendorff 2007) and a non-promotional genre that may influence travel decisions and take part in the (co-)creation of tourist gaze and tourist destination experience. My main goal is to discuss the role of description, perceptual and attitudinal point of view in (co-)creating travel experiences. To this end, I carry out a corpus-assisted qualitative investigation into a small corpus of American English travel blogs (VirTra – EN Blog: 90 posts, 180,000 running words), mainly posted on virtual community websites and online travel guides and adopt an integrated framework of analysis that bringing together insights from research in Computer-Mediated Communication (e.g. Herring et al. 2005; Puschmann 2009; Herring 2013; Puschmann 2013), in tourism marketing (e.g. Neuhofer/Buhalis/Ladkin 2012) and notions from studies on text types (Werlich 1976; Smith 2003; Merlini Barbaresi 2009) and attitudinal point of view (Thompson/Hunston 2001). Destinations are defined as “a complex amalgam of tourism products and services” (Neuhofer/Buhalis/Ladkin 2012), geographical entities and sites for activities and services. I have thus suggested that readers use and compare information from what they deem credible blog posts to get ideas or narrow down choices at the beginning of the virtual pre-travel phase. What this means for the analysis is that procedural place descriptions do not define travelogs and, most importantly, description, perceptual and attitudinal point of view are Background. Instead, travelogs are better seen as subjective narratives that show extreme variance as regards both the relation of subjective narratives to other types (primarily description), and the combination of speech acts such as narrating, describing, characterizing and evaluating in comments and narratives. Perceptual, attitudinal, and social images are all key to shaping and reinforcing gaze as well as creating unique and attractive destinations based on popular clichés and stereotypes. Topic-centric publishing appears to establish and demonstrate the writer’s credibility and expertise, which goes pairs with backgrounding of attitudinal point of view.

2013 - Introduction [Standardized Language Testing in Teaching and Research] [Articolo su rivista]
Cacchiani, Silvia; Morgan, Sian; Silver, Marc Seth
abstract

In 2001 the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) was first published, raising awareness of the crucial role standardization plays in making assessment transparent, meaningful and fair; this is especially important with the growing phenomenon of internationalisation in higher education. In Italy, as in other European countries, the independence of the teacher and institution in assessment has traditionally been regarded as sacrosanct; consequently, what Alderson (2011) appropriately labels the transition from “innocence to professionalism”, may have to be an evolutionary rather than revolutionary process. Nevertheless, the transition is undoubtedly beginning to take place. Standard setting (Alderson, Banerjee 2001:218) is variously seen as the process of ensuring shared ‘codes of practice’ at different stages in the assessment procedure, as the identification of ‘norms’ for specific levels of difficulty in standardized tests, which are typically norm-referenced tests, or as the identification, delimitation and description of specific ‘levels of proficiency’. The ideal of standardization in testing is, however, widely acknowledged to be fraught with constraints, and the gap between sound testing principles and good enough testing practice can at times seem almost unbridgeable. The critical path of defining a test construct and developing and validating a test which yields reliable results and accurately predicts future achievement is time-consuming, labour-intensive, and costly. Constructs need to be linked to the reference framework to be valid. Tests need to be field-tested, results analysed and cutpoints set in a principled way. Ongoing familiarisation is essential if standards are to be meaningful and reliable. All this means that some tension is almost inevitable when balancing validity and reliability with practical and financial imperatives. Stakeholders may have differing priorities, and the great challenge is to produce a rigorous and cost-effective test that meets expectations of test developers, test-takers, funding institutions, and certification boards, among others. In particular, the constraints of the Italian university context – the tradition of the one-to-one oral exam, the unquestioned authority of the teacher, the right of the student to re-sit exams ad infinitum, all create a testing environment at odds with the ideal of standardized and cost-effective assessment. All of the chapters in this collection have addressed one or more of these considerations. This paper is intended as an introduction to the volume. It gives a picture of the multitudinous concerns facing professionals involved in this most complex of enterprises, also referring to recent trends and projects taking place in Italian institutions.

2013 - Standardized Language Testing: Contemporary Issues and Applications [Curatela]
Cacchiani, Silvia; S., Morgan; Silver, Marc Seth
abstract

The present issue of R.I.L.A- Rassegna Italiana di Linguistica Applicata was prompted by the Standardized Language Testing in Teaching and Research Conference, held in Modena between 2 and 4 December 2010. The contributions in the volume are based on papers presented at the conference and provide insights into issues variously related to the broad theme of standardization, referring to recent trends and projects taking place in Italian institutions. TABLE OF CONTENTS: EDITORIALE, Gianfranco Porcelli; S. CACCHIANI, S. MORGAN. M. SILVER, Introduction; A. DAVIES, The equivalence of ratings; S. RADIGHIERI, Theoretical notions and controversial issues at the heart of language testing; A. BANDINI, S. LUCARELLI, L. SPRUGNOLI, B. STRAMBI, Procedure di verifica della valutazione nei test di certificazione; C. BAGNA, S. MACHETTI, A. SCAGLIOSO, Il collegamento del test di produzione orale CILS A1 con il CEFR: risultati e prospettive future; S. HARTLE, Measuring and assessing spoken language in university oral tests; E. CASTELLO, G. DAVIES, An approach to the assessment of spoken interaction at level B2 in a university context with the aid of a learner corpus; M. ROCKENHAUS, Placement testing face validity; L. LOPRIORE, Early language learning: Investigating young learners’ achievement in a longitudinal perspective.

2013 - Traduire la normativité dans les arrêts de la Cour de Justice de l’Union européenne : le cas des dispositifs en français et anglais [Capitolo/Saggio]
Cacchiani, Silvia; Preite, Chiara
abstract

Dans cette contribution nous avons fourni une première analyse comparative de l’expression de la performativité et de la modalité déontique dans les dispositifs de 18 arrêts de la CJUE, partant de l’hypothèse que les choix des formules employées pour exprimer les actes de langage juridiques dans les deux « Court Languages » – français et anglais – sont déterminés pas les pratiques partagées pour la rédaction des documents, plutôt que par les règles morphosyntaxiques des langues examinées. La comparaison de textes parallèles appartenant à une Institution spécifique a permis de passer en revue les éléments utilisés pour formuler dans les deux langues des actes linguistiques qui véhiculent le même contenu normatif et de relever ainsi que l’expression de la performativité dans les dispositifs se caractérise par un degré minimal de variation dans les choix traductifs, ce qui pourrait est dû à l’emploi du logiciel GTI pour la traduction semi-automatique des arrêts. Toutefois, la traduction des éléments déontiques dans les mêmes dispositifs montre une variabilité et une liberté de traduction plus fortes, ce qui pourrait revenir, d’une part, au style personnel des juges qui rédigent la version en français et, de l’autre, aux choix traductifs privilégiés par les traducteurs qui ne demeurent nécessairement pas toujours les mêmes. Malgré l’existence dans les deux « Court Languages » de couples d’équivalents récurrents, l’emploi de l’équivalent attendu en anglais n’est pas systématique de la part des traducteurs. A ce propos, il convient de remarquer que – selon les indications et les pratiques de l’Institution – les choix traductifs sont toujours subordonnés à l’exigence de garantir une interprétation et une application uniformes de l’instrument législatif – dans ce cas le contenu prescriptif des dispositifs – pour atteindre les mêmes objectifs indépendamment de la langue.

2013 - Understanding Written Practical Instructions. Studies in English and Italian Multitype Texts [Monografia/Trattato scientifico]
Cacchiani, Silvia
abstract

Recipes, instructions for use and patient information leaflets are part and parcel of our day-to-day experience. They are ‘genres we live by’, which bring with them a special focus of attention on imperatives and imperative strategies as directive speech acts. This book integrates in-sights from text linguistics, research into text types and genre studies so as to provide a fresh view on English and Italian recipes, instruc-tions for use and patient information leaflets as members of the proto-typical category of written practical instructions and genres on the move. Based on notions such as participant roles, relationships, needs and goals in (a)symmetric communication, future orientation and de-sire-, goal- and rule-oriented sentential modality, authority of practical validity, competence/accuracy, rational, factual knowledge, and pro-cedural knowledge, the book shows how the fruitful interaction of studies on text, text types, discourse modes and genre, and, on the other hand, imperatives, imperative strategies and speech acts, can contribute to a better characterization of text types and genre conventions (also, generic structure potential) while explaining the pragmatic versatility of imperatives and imperative strategies.

2012 - Condizionali, previsione e costruzione del sapere nel discorso economico [Capitolo/Saggio]
Cacchiani, Silvia
abstract

L’applicazione degli strumenti offerti dalla linguistica dei corpora (WordLists, KeywordLists, Collocations) all’analisi degli articoli di ricerca di economia (HEM-E) all'intero di un quadro teorico di riferimento che integri nozioni sviluppate e discusse dalla analisi dei generi (es. Biber et al. 1999, Hyland 2008), dalla linguistica testuale (Merlini Barbaresi 1983) e dalla linguistica generale (Declerk e Reed 2001), conferma che la costruzione del sapere avviene attraverso il complicato intreccio dei (macro-)atti allocutori della ipotesi, analisi/generalizzazione, atti allocutori ancillari alla previsione. In particolare, abbiamo visto come, a livello locale, la previsione sia realizzata da una relazione di coerenza del tipo premessa-conclusione o causa-effetto. Tra i segnali discorsi pertinenti evidenziati ricorrono con particolare frequenza, if, then, assum*, therefore, thus, suggest*, denote, impl*, due, follow*, hypothes*, estimat*, result*, find*, likely; in the context of the, if and only if, these results suggest that, the results show that, it is easy to show that, this implies that the. Tra questi, if costituisce non solo il connettore chiave più frequente nello HEM-E, ma anche uno tra gli elementi funzionali più frequenti nel corpus, secondo solo a and e seguito da when. Partendo da tali osservazioni, sono state pertanto discusse alcune delle funzioni delle condizionali in if così da delineare, sulla scorta di Declerck e Reed (2001), i primi tratti di un modello descrittivo che renda conto di funzioni e caratteristiche formali di condizionali e ipotetiche nel discorso economico. Elementi quali (A) la tipologia dei mondi possibili espressi dalle condizionali e (B) il tipo di relazione che si instaura tra p e q costituiscono criteri validi ai fini della descrizione delle condizionali. Ciò ha permesso di individuare una serie di tipi ricorrenti nell'articolo d ricerca di economia. Un’indagine più approfondita su questi e ulteriori tipi, sottotipi e funzioni di condizionali e ipotetiche all’interno dell’articolo di ricerca di economia potrà contribuire a delinearne i tratti specifici, e, dunque, gli aspetti sintattici e lessico-grammaticali ricorrenti, compresi indicazioni temporali e uso di tempi, modi e modalizzazione epistemica.

2012 - Cultural keywords across communities of practice, languages and cultures: the glass-ceiling (effect) [Capitolo/Saggio]
Cacchiani, Silvia
abstract

This paper explores the meaning dynamics behind the conceptualization of glass ceiling (effect) as a general term and a cultural keyword (Williams 1976/1983), related word-formations, and the mechanism of re-conceptualization of its calque, loan translations and related compounds in Italian. Integrating the tools of corpus linguistics (Scott 2005) with insights from Štekauer’s (2005) Meaning Predictability Theory, Conceptual Metaphor Theory (Lakoff 1987, Lakoff/Johnson 1980, 1999) and Dobrovol’skij/Piirainen (2005), we focus on meaning descriptions (Wiegand 1992) in expository texts from the specialist press, research articles, dictionaries, glossaries, encyclopaedic entries (for English) and textbook sections (for Italian). As will be seen, glass ceiling finds its motivation in knowledge of material culture and aspects of artefacts. It activates the orientational metaphors UP – DOWN, the Career ICM (SUCCESSFUL IS UP; UNSUCCESSFUL IS DOWN; MAKING A CAREER IS UP), the metaphor DIFFICULTIES ARE IMPEDIMENTS TO MOTION, and the concepts FORCE and CONTROL. However, while English glass-ceiling describes a (hidden) limit and a barrier to the advancement of women and other minorities, covering potential cultural keywords such as equal opportunities (for all) and social mobility in a fluid society, its Italian calque and loan translations show conceptual narrowing in that they appear to only address gender (IN)EQUALITY.

2012 - LINKD 2012 Workshop - Language(s) In Knowledge Dissemination. Modena, 11-13 October 2012. University of Modena and Reggio Emilia [Altro]
Bondi, Marina; Cacchiani, Silvia; Seidenari, Corrado; Sezzi, Annalisa; Sorrentino, Daniela; Diani, Giuliana; Poppi, Franca
abstract

Knowledge Dissemination (KD) has become increasingly important in modern society for the socio-economic and cultural development of citizens. The issue of how experts communicate their specialist knowledge to lay-people has been widely discussed in the press and is often tackled in terms of "translating" otherwise exclusive knowledge into more comprehensible language. Comprehensibility can be seen as a matter of simplification, explicitation or formulation in terms that are suitable to the level of knowledge of the addressee. The issue can also be studied in terms of re-contextualizing knowledge. As the applied linguistics literature on popularising is not extensive, useful indications can come from studies on intercultural communication, when looking at KD as "mediation" of knowledge between members of different communities, each with their peculiar cultural and communicative practices. KD can be seen as an example of "inter-discourse communication" i.e. communication that cuts across the boundaries of discourse communities characterized by different types of knowledge. While the issue of KD has often been studied in relation to sciences that require exclusive expertise - e.g. chemistry or physics, the LINKD workshop would like to consider both "hard" and "soft" sciences. The objective of the workshop is to explore the language processes involved in KD in a theoretical, descriptive and applied perspective. In particular, it aims to provide a clearer definition of the nature of popularizing discourse, by means of an analysis of its strategies across disciplines and languages, also including the discursive construction of professional identity and intercultural communication, a closer lexical investigation of specific domains, the deployment of lexicographic tools and an investigation of the use of visual elements in popularisation. Two complementary strands of linguistic investigation - corpus analysis and genre analysis - will be brought together to ascertain how far KD is actually characterized by intense use of metadiscourse, forms of readers' engagement, systematic use of definitions, reformulation, higher degrees of explicitness, careful use of word-image relationship. The basic strands of analysis concern: i) intralinguistic analysis of the recontextualization process that leads from a specialized texts to its popularization outside the circle of domain-specific experts; ii) multilingual analysis of the internal features of knowledge dissemination, aimed at defining its strategies in different genres, media, domains; iii) thematic exploration of the multiple formats of KD, ranging from introductory readings to scientific reports, travel literature or children's books.

2012 - Mimsy e mélacri: tradurre la creatività morfologica nei viaggi di Alice [Capitolo/Saggio]
Cacchiani, Silvia
abstract

Molto è stato detto su Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There, Jabberwocky e le loro molteplici traduzioni. Scopo di questo contributo non è tuttavia quello di contribuire alla critica stilistica e letteraria dei testi, quanto quello di utilizzare i testi stessi (originale e traduzioni) per condurre una riflessione attenta sulla creatività morfologica della lingua, o, in altre parole, sulla flessibilità del sistema e sul ruolo giocato dalla motivazione fonologica. Si tratta infatti di testi nonsensici, che danno pieno diritto di cittadinanza a grammatica della fantasia, language play e innovazione, garantendo la presenza di «tutti gli usi della parola», in quanto espressione di immaginazione e creatività. In particolare, l’analisi ha permesso di distinguere due tipi principali di creazioni morfologiche, che si allontanano in vario modo da processi di formazione grammaticali, produttivi e prevedibili. Da un lato, la motivazione fonologica è alla base della selezione di tecniche di modificazione di forme specifiche per scopi ludici e nonsensici. È l’affinità fonologica a determinare il piacere per la reduplicazione (es. Ingl. Humpty Dumpty, It. Bindolo Dondolo) come anche la presenza di alienazioni ortografiche e sostituzioni fonetiche (es. Ingl. Reeling and Writhing, It. pinna e calamaro). L’errore ortografico diventa errore creativo e porta alla selezione di nuove relazioni semantiche e nuovi sensi per referenti nuovi o meno. Questo è tuttavia possibile solamente nella misura in cui percepiamo e identifichiamo deformazioni e alienazioni in relazione al lessico conosciuto. Dall’altro lato, nel blending lessicale la motivazione fonologica è di nuovo all’opera, accanto alla motivazione semantica. Contrariamente all’opinione condivisa nella letterature pertinente, innovazioni e occasionalismi nei testi nonsensici hanno permesso di evidenziare come, nel rispetto della fonotassi della lingua, anche l’italiano preferisca a forme correlate (es. acronimi e clipping) tecniche di blending sofisticate e ingegnose, se stilisticamente motivate (ovvero motivate in relazione agli scopi del genere). Nessun atto creativo è tuttavia libero da vincoli: pur violando le regole (grammaticali) della lingua e, in primo luogo, la generale tendenza della lingua a perseguire scelte relativamente naturali e trasparenti, i blend lessicali sono soggetti a una serie di vincoli che ne garantiscono la codifica in virtù della riconoscibilità dei costituenti, e, dunque, della loro analizzabilità, che deve risultare non immediata. Questa “aura di mistero” che avvolge i blend e ci sollecita a scioglierli, a scoprirne le basi, è parte del gioco: si tratta in breve, anche nel caso di formazioni creative quali il blending lessicale, di trovare il senso nascosto del nonsense.

2012 - V Workshop Modena Lexi-Term: Lessicografia versus terminologia: tra contatti e contrasti. Modena, 24 maggio 2012 [Altro]
Cacchiani, Silvia; Capra, Daniela; Preite, Chiara
abstract

Tema del V Workshop Modena Lexi-Term è l'acceso dibattito attorno al rapporto tra lessicografia e terminologia/terminografia in quanto a scopi, metodi, risultati, utilità e fruibilità delle applicazioni. Secondo la teoria classica, il lavoro terminologico si inserisce in un'ottica onomasiologica e normalizzatrice. Per contro, il lavoro lessicografico persegue scopi descrittivi e privilegia un approccio di tipo semasiologico. Tuttavia, recentemente si è tentato di dimostrare che le distinzioni tra terminologia/ terminografia e lessicografia o, meglio, lessicografia specializzata sono superate o superabili. Lessicografia specializzata e terminologia (con particolare riferimento alla terminografia) condividono infatti diverse caratteristiche e, almeno in parte, gli obiettivi: entrambe fanno capo alla linguistica e sono "applicate"; entrambe perseguono la compilazione di repertori lessicali; entrambe descrivono unità lessicali (seppure con intenti talvolta diversi). Le innovazioni tecnologiche hanno avuto un ruolo fondamentale nello sfumarne le differenze anche a livello metodologico: entrambe fanno uso di corpora, di software per l'estrazione dei lemmi e della cartografia delle relazioni semantiche. Il V Workshop Modena Lexi-Term dedicherà dunque particolare attenzione ai punti di contrasto e soprattutto di contatto tra trattamento lessicografico e terminologico del lessico, all'interno di differenti approcci teorici e in riferimento a molteplici questioni, quali il trattamento della fraseologia o le problematiche traduttive. PROGRAMMA: 10.00: Saluti di apertura (Marina Bondi, Preside della Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia, Marco Cipolloni, Direttore del Dipartimento SLTT, Leo Schena, Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia); Introduzione alla giornata (Chiara Preite, Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia – Gruppo MLT – Gruppo DoRiF Socioterminologie et textualité), PARTE I: IL LESSICO TRA TRATTAMENTO LESSICOGRAFICO E TERMINOLOGICO: 10.30-12.00: Maria Teresa Cabré (Universidad Pompeu Fabra – Barcellona): El léxico, punto central de la confluencia entre lexicología, lexicografia y terminología o cómo una aproximación descriptiva a los términos modifica los fundamentos y la práctica de la terminología; Pierre Lerat (Université Paris XIII): Quel traitement lexicographique plurilingue pour le vocabulaire juridique fondamental?; 12.00-13.00: Natascia Leonardi (Università di Macerata – Gruppo MLT): L’ontologia nella terminografia e nella lessicografia; Micaela Rossi, Anna Giaufret (Università di Genova – Gruppo MLT – Gruppo DoRiF Socioterminologie et textualité): Les énergies renouvelables entre description lexicographique et traitement terminologique; Maria Teresa Musacchio (Università di Padova – Gruppo MLT): The global economic and financial crisis in English and Italian lexicography and terminography. A comparison. Pausa Pranzo. PARTE II: LESSICOGRAFIA E FRASEOLOGIA: 15.00-15.45: Daniela Capra (Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia – Gruppo MLT): Di locuzioni e altre forme fisse: il metalinguaggio in dizionari e testi specialistici in Italia e in Spagna; Giuliana Diani (Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia – Gruppo MLT): Per un'indagine fraseologica del lessico giuridico italiano e inglese: implicazioni lessicografiche a confronto. PARTE III: SOCIOTERMINOLOGIA E TRADUZIONE: 15.45-16.30: Luciana Tiziana Soliman (Università di Padova – Gruppo MLT – Gruppo DoRiF Socioterminologie et textualité): Rebondissements de la socioterminologie: de la variation terminologique à la sociologie de la communication; Giuseppe Palumbo (Università di Trieste – Gruppo MLT): Identifying and translating educational terminology; CONCLUSIONI: 16.30: Silvia Cacchiani (Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia – Gruppo MLT): Sintesi e chiusura dei lavori.

2011 - CLAVIER 09 - Corpus Linguistics and Language Variation [Curatela]
Bondi, Marina; Cacchiani, Silvia; G., Palumbo
abstract

The articles included in this special issue of R.I.L.A- - Rassegna Italiana di Linguistica Applicata reflect the wide spectrum of applications of corpus-based methodologies for language research. The papers represent a selection of the contributions that were presented at the international conference CLAVIER 09 - Corpus Linguistics and Language Variation. M. Bondi, S. Cacchiani, G. Palumbo provide an introduction to the volume. The first four articles (Part 1) discuss the potential of corpus linguistics (J. Schmied; G. Williams; N. Nagy; S. Rastelli, F. Frontini). Many of the questions raised int he four initial chapters are further investigated in the papers that follow. The papers in Part 2 use corpora to address variation across languages (L. Caiazzo; E. Incelli; G. Balirano, S. Guzzo; Z. Mustafa Awad; P. Sambre; D. Cesiri, L. Colaci; J. Turbull; C. Samson; E. Manca; D. Milizia; S. Castagnoli; S. Anselmi). The papers in Part 3 use corpora to address variation in languages (R. Mayoral Hernandez, A. Alcazar; A. Sharokny-Prehn, S. Hoeche; R. Marti Solano; P. Urena Gomez-Moreno).

2011 - Conclu* in English and Italian historical research articles [Relazione in Atti di Convegno]
Cacchiani, Silvia
abstract

This paper integrates the tools of corpus linguistics and a more genre-oriented perspective in order to explore the lemmatizations of conclu* in the Conclusions of English and Italian research articles in history. Specifically, the main emphasis is placed on second-level Summarizers and concluders (Siepmann 2005) and the way they interact with other discourse markers and metadiscourse across moves. As will be seen, SLDMs represent a marked option,in that they add extra-meaning to their more general, more transparent, more frequent, and lessspecific counterparts. Whereas variation within the unit or pattern results from combinations with discourse markers from the same or other categories, variation across English and Italian isbetter accounted for within an interpersonal model of metadiscourse (Hyland 2004, 2008), interms of different strategies on the interactional level.

2011 - Identità culturali e identità disciplinari nel discorso accademico storico italiano e inglese: prospettive di analisi cross-linguistica [Capitolo/Saggio]
Cacchiani, Silvia; Diani, Giuliana; Palumbo, Giuseppe
abstract

Il presente contributo intende indagare la costruzione del testo e del discorso in prospettiva cross-culturale con riferimento all’espressione del punto di vista. Lo studio si basa sull’analisi di corpora di discorso accademico privilegiando il discorso storico e, in particolare, book review articles tratti da riviste di storia italiane e inglesi. Obiettivo principale è quello di studiare mezzi coesivi, parole ed elementi fraseologici che caratterizzano non solo l’oggetto del discorso, ma anche e soprattutto gli stili argomentativi e le premesse epistemologiche nelle culture oggetto del confronto, al fine di mettere in luce aspetti che potrebbero risultare problematici, non solo ai fini della comprensione di un testo accademico in Inglese L2, ma anche ai fini della scrittura accademica in Inglese L2. Verranno illustrati i risultati di prospettive e metodologie di analisi diverse la cui integrazione può contribuire a mettere in luce come book review articles inglesi ed italiani realizzino diversi meccanismi di costruzione dell’identità culturale e dell’identità disciplinare. In particolare, un primo approccio prevede l’analisi del punto di vista attraverso gli strumenti dell’analisi dei generi e del discorso e della linguistica dei corpora (tramite l’utilizzo di software quali WordSmith Tools 1998). Particolare attenzione in questa fase verrà dedicata all’analisi di collocazioni (Sinclair 1990), fraseologia e preferenza semantica (Sinclair 1996), ovvero la tendenza della parola a co-occorrere con altre parole e con parole che appartengono ad uno specifico campo semantico. Secondo elemento di riflessione saranno densità lessicale e lunghezza del periodo nei generi e lingue in esame, investigate tramite l’applicazione di misure lessicometriche. A un tale metodo di indagine, privilegiato in passato da studi sulla complessità/marcatezza del testo finalizzati alla preparazione di materiali didattici, verrà affiancata l’analisi contrastiva dei meccanismi coesivi e, in particolare, dei meccanismi di ipotassi e paratassi, analisi più spesso data come complementare allo studio dei meccanismi coesivi in corpora paralleli. Specificamente, questo contributo costituisce un primo tentativo di evidenziare i punti di contatto che si instaurano tra i suddetti approcci al testo, ma si prefigge soprattutto di mettere in luce e sottolineare la possibilità di fornire prospettive complementari su fenomeni correlati all’interno del testo, testimonianza di diverse identità culturali e disciplinari, e discuterne le eventuali implicazioni per lo studio della fraseologia in quanto elemento trasversale alle tre prospettive, ai fini della comprensione e scrittura di un testo espressione del genere accademico in Inglese L2.

2011 - Intensifying affixes across Italian and English [Articolo su rivista]
Cacchiani, Silvia
abstract

This paper concentrates on the (dis-)similarities in meaning and uses of intensifying affixes across Italian and English nouns and adjectives adopting an integrated approach that brings together research on intensifiers (Paradis 2008), on intensifying and evaluative morphology in Italian and other languages (Grandi 2002; Montermini 2008) and on the morphopragmatics of Italian and other languages (Dressler and Merlini Barbaresi 1994). Specifically, we carried out a qualitative investigation into (partly) comparable corpora so as to have a means to support or revisit statements from encyclopaedic monolingual dictionaries which are typically used for categorial comparison in morphology (e.g. GRADIT, for Italian), as well as statements and current descriptions from the literature.As will be seen, this shall enable us to concentrate on the multiple dimensions along which intensifying affixes may differ or overlap both intra- and crosslinguistically, with special attention to quantity, degree, ±boundedness, the semantic shift from quantity to degree, and the interaction between semantic (degree) and pragmatic intensification.

2011 - Introduction [ CLAVIER 09 – Corpus Linguistics and Language Variation] [Articolo su rivista]
Bondi, Marina; Cacchiani, Silvia; Palumbo, Giuseppe
abstract

Corpus-based research is not in opposition to other methodologies of language investigation, such as those favoured by researchers studying language as a system or an ability. The analysis of corpora can shed light on language used as a medium of communication, especially where it successfully manages to relate the patterns and regularities it identifies to accurate descriptions of users and situations. At the same time, corpus research can also provide insights into some systemic aspects of a language. In this respect, the way has been shown (as in so many other areas of language research) by the work of the late John Sinclair (see, in particular, Sinclair 1991; Sinclair, Mauranen 2006), who never hesitated to draw implications from corpus studies that were of significant relevance not only for applied linguistics but also for the description of language as a whole. Individual papers are briefly summarized and discussed in order to unveil the potential of corpus linguistics for the study of variation across languages and language varieties, genres and time.

2011 - Keywords and key lexical bundles as cues to knowledge construction in RAs in economics [Relazione in Atti di Convegno]
Cacchiani, Silvia
abstract

Numerous studies have recently focussed on lexical bundles, or extended collocations which we encounter in specific genres more frequently than expected by chance. As such, they help characterize disciplinary discourses. Using the tools of corpus linguistics, we explore a 2.7 word million corpus and focus on discourse signalling devices, and 5-word, 4-word, and 3-word bundles in particular. This enables us to identify the basic means of knowledge construction in research articles in economics as against research articles in history and business/marketing. Data analysis provides compelling evidence for seeing discourse-signals in RAs in economics as realizing conditional prediction and empirical hypothesis within the macro-speech acts of hypothesis, analysis/interpretation/generalization, and prediction.

2011 - Langues et cultures en contact: le statut des gallicismes dans l'anglais juridique du Royaume Uni [Relazione in Atti di Convegno]
Cacchiani, Silvia; Preite, Chiara
abstract

Cet article analyse le statut des gallicismes dans l’anglais juridique du Royaume Uni, sur la base de renseignements étymologiques tirés du Manual of Law French et de l’Oxford English Dictionary aussi bien que d’informations propositionnelles, procédurales et épisodiques fournies par les microstructures de dictionnaires juridiques comparables: l’Oxford Dictionary of Law (et en moindre mesure The Longman Law Dictionary) pour l’anglais et le Vocabulaire Juridique pour le français. Ainsi, il a été possible d’identifier et de catégoriser, d’un côté, un grand nombre d’emprunts (pour la plupart intégrés) venant surtout de l’anglo-normand et du moyen et ancien français et, de l’autre côté, un nombre réduit d’emprunts récents et non intégrés, venant surtout du droit international. Enfin, nous avons pris en considération les transformations sémantiques et conceptuelles entraînées par le passage d’une langue-culture juridique à l’autre.

2011 - On unfamiliar Italian lexical blends from names and nouns / O manj pogosti vrsti leksikaknih spojenk iz imen in samostalnikov [Articolo su rivista]
Cacchiani, Silvia
abstract

Italian has recently witnessed a steady increase in the use of unfamiliar morphological blends from names and nouns. While they serve an identificatory and descriptive function (in the sense of Anderson 2007), blends are created in extragrammatical morphology with careful attention to the semantic concepts encoded by the individual SWs, understanding blends from names and nouns depends on the decoder’s direct or surrogate experience of the related reference. Significantly, blends are coined out of the need to be relevant (Sperber/Wilson 1990) and show various degrees of morphotactic and morphosemantic transparency (Thornton 1986; Dressler 1987, 1999), which makes them memorable (Lehrer 2003). In this paper we therefore address blends from names and nouns within the framework of the Naturalness Theory (Thornton 1986; Dressler et al. 1987; Dressler 1999). As will be seen, although blends are not created in rule-based grammars, some overall preferences and regularities can be observed for more core items (see Bat-El/Cohen, in press, within the framework of Optimality Theory) under the principle of saliency (Dressler 1987). Focusing on their morphosyntactic transparency, we provide a typology of Italian unfamiliar blends from names and nouns functioning as naming units in order to delimit the category and reassess current typologies. While we allow for a continuum of morphotactic transparency within the prototypical category of extragrammatcial subtractive word-formations, we slightly adapt Ronneberger-Sibold (2006) and suggest we distinguish between blends on the one hand and the neighbouring category of clipped compounds on the other. Moving on to morphosemantic transparency and conceptual motivation, we use concepts from Cognitive Grammar, Cognitive Metaphor Theory and theories of Conceptual Blending (cf. Lakoff/Johnson 1980; Langacker 1987; Ruiz de Mendoza 1998, 2000; Kemmer 2003) to provide some preliminary remarks on specific subtypes, and blends from personal names used in journalese and media language in particular (e.g. Berluscotti < Berlusconi + Bertinotti, Berlingotti < Berlinguer + Bertinotti). The data suggests that we cannot as yet talk about instantiations or extensions of entrenched schemas.

2011 - Review of Pedro A. Fuertes-Olivera (ed.) 2010, Specialised Dictionaries for Learners, [Lexicographica. Series Maior 136], De Gruyter, Berlin/New York [Recensione in Rivista]
Cacchiani, Silvia
abstract

Review of Pedro A.Fuertes-Olivera (ed.) 2010, Specialised Dictionaries for Learners, [Lexicographica. Series Maior 136], De Gruyter, Berlin/New York

2011 - Understanding [N-N]N compounds [Relazione in Atti di Convegno]
Cacchiani, Silvia
abstract

This paper addresses the meaning predictability of recent English [N-N]N compounds. As will be seen, CL provides a comprehensive framework of analysis for investigating and accounting for the context-dependent meaning construction and interpretation not only of [N-N]N compounds but aso of lexical blends as (nick-)names from names in terms of the language user’s mental work. Since CL banks heavily on the linguist’s insightful interpretations, it may be said to risk turning into a subjective and impressionistic approach. Far from this, however, the analysis reveals the strong explanatory power of CL to investigate, among others, the properties of so-called exocentric compounds, and illustrate the interplay and fine-tuning of multiple motivations behind metaphorical selection within seme combinations in terms of schema-based analogy, world knowledge and salience, or accommodation of elements from the SIs, and emergent signification.

2010 - A CL perspective on complex intensifying adjectives [Articolo su rivista]
Cacchiani, Silvia
abstract

Intensifiers are optional elements, typically adverbs, which express the semantic role of degree. They modify a range or point along an abstractly conceived scale of intensity. Amplifiers scale upwards the property expressed by the item they modify (very, extremely, absolutely); downtoners scale the property downwards (rather, a bit, little) (Quirk et al. 1985: 589). Additionally, intensifiers carry expressive meanings (Bühler 1934), express and achieve subjectivity (Athanasiadou 2008), and contribute speech act modification (in the sense of Searle and Vandervecken 1985). This, Bolinger (1972) observes, brings about continuous variation within the category. While amplifying Adv-Adj collocations have enjoyed pride of place in the vast literature on intensification, morphology has not paid much attention to complex intensifying adjectives. One exception, however, is Booij (2009, 2010), who addresses the semantic relation of intensification in Dutch compounding and derivation within the broader debate on the role of analogy and abstract schemas in word formation. Proceeding on the assumption that the parallelism between intensifying phrases and complex intensifying adjectives can highlight the lexical unit properties of complex intensifying adjectives, in this paper we take the first steps towards classifying complex intensifying adjectives by semantic relation and provide some preliminary remarks on their conceptualization, based on a list of around 200 constructs gathered from grammars, studies in English morphology and the Oxford English Dictionary online, 2nd ed. and later additions (www.oed.com). Taking into account insights from Paradis’ (2004, 2008) Cognitive (Lexical) Semantics, Lakoff and Johnson’s (1980, 1999, Lakoff 1987) Cognitive Metaphor Theory, and Booij’s (2005, 2009, 2010) work on intensifiers in Construction Morphology, we characterize intensification as an instance of subjectivity (Athanasiadou 2007), or a scale transfer from content domains to the schematic domain of degree. As will be seen, the integration of the two component elements into a composite intensifying structure depends on correspondences between substructures within the component elements that are configured on the basis of bounded and unbounded scales for one or more domains, and variously motivated through metaphorical and metonymic mappings.

2010 - Blends as (nick-)names – Identification, motivation, description [Capitolo/Saggio]
Cacchiani, Silvia
abstract

The paper addresses blends as nicknames within a comprehensive framework of analysis which chiefly integrates (i) insights from Štekauer’s (2005 and previous work) Onomasiological Theory of context-free meaning predictability of novel word-formations as naming units, with (ii) observations on the discriminatory, classificatory and expressive functions of blends as descriptive (nick-)names whose meaning results from cognitive blending and conceptual interaction, and can therefore be accounted for within the framework of Ruiz de Mendoza’s (1998 and following) Combined Input Hypothesis. The data suggests that meaning predictability in blends as (nick-)names, (most often names with identificatory, descriptive and expressive functions) varies with their processing complexity. Comparing blends as nicknames provides evidence for considering the process of meaning (re-)creation as a trade-off between factors affecting morphotactic non-compositionality (e.g. recategorization, underlying exocentric compound) and semantic non-constituency (e.g. the presence of eponymous adjectives, meaning selection/restriction or expansion/emergence via reduplication of identical qualities, selection/matching of non-prototypical or idiosyncratic features, value judgements against the background of culturally-significant values and stereotypes).

2010 - Degree expressions and intensifiers. Terminological issues of lexicological and lexicographic relevance [Relazione in Atti di Convegno]
Cacchiani, Silvia
abstract

Intensifiers represent an extremely varied and everchanging lexico-functional category. Although they have been an extremely popular topic in linguistics and English linguistics in particular, naming and delimiting the category still represents a highly debated issue, possibly as a result of relying on the psychological process of grading and of continuously developing from other categories. Most importantly, we argue in favour of using degree expressions as an umbrella term for various categories that interact with scales: scale adjusters, (degree of) quantity modifiers, excessives (or excessive degree modifiers), emphasizers and intensifiers. Intensifiers are characterized by: a) vague specification of a domain along a scale of degree, from most central degree modification to most peripheral degree-fixing intensification, depending on the scale associated with the predicate; b) shift from more objective to more subjective meanings; c) expressivity, or ability to index the speaker, and speech act modification. Ability to combine with other (pragmatically) intensifying devices (to begin with, predicates with relative standards of comparison, and inherent superlatives in particular) is precisely to be taken as a diagnosis for membership into the category.

2010 - English law dictionaries from native to non-native target users. Is there room for improvement? [Relazione in Atti di Convegno]
Cacchiani, Silvia
abstract

The present study is concerned with the need to compile English law dictionaries addressing the law student from different legal systems, national and disciplinary cultures. To this purpose, we concentrate on three English law dictionaries currently available on the market: The Law Student’s Dictionary 2008 (LSD), Oxford Dictionary of Law 2006 (ODL), and The Longman Dictionary of Law 2007 (LDL). Whereas they target native speakers with various expertise (cf. Prefaces and/or informative blurb), in the absence of a pedagogical law dictionary for English learners they are most often recommended to non-native students. The investigation is carried out against the background of current debate on the genuine purpose of the dictionary (Wiegand 1977 ff.) on the one hand and its knowledge- and communication-orientated functions on the other (cf. e.g. Bergenholtz/Tarp 1995, 2003). Specifically, we adapt Wiegand’s (1977 ff.) actional-semantic theory of dictionary form in order to compare features of the meaning description of a restricted but highly representative number of entries across LSD, ODL and LDL. The lexicographical practices they adopt at the microstructural level are evaluated in terms of the specific needs of the non-native law student in the ESP classroom and of the translator alike. Since the analysis suggests that LSD, ODL and LDL are encyclopaedic dictionaries which assist specific target user groups with reception and knowledge-orientated tasks, we conclude giving some final thoughts to the future development of English law dictionaries into pedagogically-oriented multifunctional products addressing multiple target user groups.

2010 - Giornata Europea delle Lingue "Diritto, Linguaggio, Cultura" [Altro]
Cacchiani, Silvia; Fiorani, Flavio Angelo; Mazzi, Davide; Preite, Chiara; Robustelli, Cecilia
abstract

L'incontro mira a analizzare il linguaggio giuridico in un'ottica interdisciplinare nella quale si combinano le diverse prospettive di traduttologi, analisti del discorso e giuristi. La giornata comprende il III Workshop Modena-Lexi-Term, che pone l'attenzione sulla dimensione sociocognitiva e testuale del lessico specialistico. http://www.sltt.unimore.it/site/home/attivita/convegni-e-seminari/articolo63008469.html

2010 - III Workshop Modena Lexi-Term: Lessicografia specializzata, terminologia e testualità: verso un dizionario pedagogico giuridico. 27 settembre 2010, ore 9:00 - 13:00, Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia [Altro]
Cacchiani, Silvia
abstract

La lessicografia specializzata (che si occupa dell’analisi delle parole in un’ottica semasiologica) e la pratica terminologica (che studia i termini in un’ottica onomasiologica e referenziale) condividono alcuni scopi ma non i metodi impiegati per raggiungerli. Come tali, le due discipline sono spesso correlate a due ambiti di indagine separati. In particolare, questa visione è normalmente supportata da chi lavora alla pratica terminologica e sottolinea la mancata sistematicità che caratterizza la maggior parte dei lavori di lessicografia specializzata. Per contro, i lessicografi specializzati tendono a vedere la terminologia e le sue applicazioni pratiche come prodotti di ingiustificati tentativi di normalizzazione, lontani dagli utenti e dalle reali situazioni d’uso del dizionario. La “rivoluzione elettronica”, tuttavia, ha portato all’adozione di pratiche più coerenti in lessicografia specializzata, basate sull’utilizzo di corpora e metodi semiautomatici di strutturazione del dizionario e di scrittura di dati. Allo stesso tempo, gli ultimi quindici anni testimoniano un crescente interesse per la costruzione di dizionari specialistici come prodotti di consumo, progettati, strutturati e compilati in modo da soddisfare le esigenze di gruppi specifici di utenti finali in situazioni d’uso specifiche. Su queste basi è possibile identificare nel lungo termine punti di contatto e scambio con la pratica terminologica e, in particolare, l’approccio socio-cognitivo alla terminologia, che identifica lo scopo del dizionario nella promozione dell’autonomia discorsiva o l’abilità di spiegare con parole appropriate termini e nozioni all’interno di un ambito del sapere. Si tratta di una riflessione teorica in larga misura nuova sul rapporto, non riducibile a semplice antonimia, tra terminologia/terminografia - lessicologia/lessicografia specializzata. Essa trova un ambito di applicazione e indagine privilegiato nella ricerca sul lessico giuridico e nel dibattito sul ruolo di traduzione giuridica, terminologia giuridica e dizionario giuridico ai fini dell’armonizzazione della terminologia giuridica in ambito UE. È un dato di fatto che problemi di (non-)traducibilità sorgono sia a livello di ricezione della legislazione europea nella legislazione nazionale, sia nel confronto tra singole legislazioni nazionali. L’ampliamento dell’UE si accompagna dunque a una crescente spinta verso l’armonizzazione/standardizzazione del diritto europeo, promossa, tra gli altri, dall’intensa attività del Legal Studies Institute o dello Study Group on European Civil Code, così come dai servizi linguistici delle istituzioni europee impegnati nella codifica e standardizzazione delle lingue europee. Tuttavia, aree cruciali del diritto nazionale quali il diritto privato e contrattuale mantengono le loro peculiarità e specificità linguistiche e culturali con ovvie conseguenze negative nella gestione dei rapporti tra singoli paesi membri. Nasce da qui il recente e acceso dibattito tra giuristi sui limiti e le prospettive di sviluppo della creazione di un linguaggio giuridico pan-europeo e sulla conseguente apertura alla riflessione relativa al contributo dell’analisi linguistica, della pratica lessicografica, e delle applicazioni della terminologia. Esaminare la relazione tra sistemi giuridici nazionali e tra sistemi giuridici nazionali ed europei comporta non solo uno studio approfondito dei vari sistemi giuridici, ma anche un’analisi attenta della loro sistematizzazione all’interno di banche dati terminologiche, dell’inclusione e rappresentazione di termini e parole appartenenti al linguaggio specialistico nei prodotti dizionariali, e della misura in cui i prodotti lessicografici e terminologici esistenti promuovono, oltre alla diffusione e all’eventuale regolarizzazione dei termini in circolazione, l’autonomia discorsiva dell’utente. Il Gruppo di Ricerca Modena

2010 - Law dictionaries across languages: different structures, different relations between communities of practice? [Capitolo/Saggio]
Cacchiani, Silvia; Preite, Chiara
abstract

This paper concentrates on the inclusion and representation of borrowings from French into English and from English into French within the latest editions of English and French desk law dictionaries (Oxford Dictionary of Law, 2006 [ODoL] and Longman Dictionary of Law, 2007 [LDoL]; Vocabulaire Juridique, 2007 [VJ], Vocabulaire du Juriste Débutant, 2007 [VdJD]), which, according to their Prefaces, would seem to address the same or similar target user groups. After some preliminary remarks on the macrostructure of the dictionaries, we shall contrast their medio- and, most importantly, microstructures, with a focus on the lexicographic (as against terminological) definition of recent borrowings from and into the two languages. Wiegand’s (1992, 2003, 2005) theory of dictionary form will enable us to highlight striking differences across English and French dictionary entries. Whereas this might be accounted for in terms of their highly culture-dependent nature and, therefore, of the two different underlying legal systems (cf. e.g. the extended representation of estoppel or abatement in ODoL, as against estoppel and abattement in VJ), the same doesn’t hold good for recent borrowings from commercial law, international regulations (e.g. Incoterms 2000) or European law (e.g. copyright [ODoL] vs. copyright [VJ], or CE [ODoL] vs. Communautée Europeenne [VJ]). Most importantly, they seem to depend on two factors, whose interaction ultimately results into and motivates the observed differences at the macro-, medio- and microstrutural levels: a. different presuppositions on users' profiles and the special needs of target user groups (Bergenholz and Nielsen 2006) as related to Wiegand's (1998:52) notion of genuine purpose, which do systematically underpin the initial stages of any dictionary design or dictionary revision projects; b. differences in disciplinary cultures within communities of practice (Wenger 2008) and, possibly, national cultures (Katan 1999).

2010 - Prestiti, trapianti, neologismi: gli anglicismi nel dizionario giuridico italiano [Articolo su rivista]
Cacchiani, Silvia
abstract

Muovendo dall’osservazione che la maggior parte dei cambiamenti all’interno di un sistema giuridico sono determinati da prestiti, questo contributo si propone di discutere inclusione e descrizione di significato degli anglicismi nel dizionario giuridico compatto italiano in quanto fonte di conoscenza di tipo cognitivo-proposizionale, episodica e enciclopedica. In particolare, l'analisi della descrizione di significato dell’anglicismo nella lingua e cultura disciplinare di origine tramite il ricorso a dizionari giuridici rivolti al mercato britannico, e, ove presente, il confronto con l’equivalente italiano, permettono di evidenziare come il passaggio da un sistema giuridico all’altro comporti una parziale riconcettualizzazione del prestito/trapianto in termini di frames e scenari pertinenti, più spesso ai fini di una specializzazione di significato dello stesso all’interno della normativa italiana.

2010 - Prestito giuridico e specificità culturali: un approccio contrastivo [Articolo su rivista]
Cacchiani, Silvia; Preite, Chiara
abstract

Rispetto ai linguaggi specialistici legati alle scienze pure e alle tecnologie, il linguaggio giuridico non si caratterizza per la monosemia dei suoi termini ma, al contrario, per una forte polisemia che dipende dalla storia della disciplina e dalla sua compenetrazione con la cultura della società che in essa si esprime. Ciò non toglie tuttavia che il lessico giuridico possa essere analizzato, nella maniera più oggettiva e univoca possibile: pur essendo polisemico e culturo-specifico infatti, il linguaggio giuridico resta comunque altamente specializzato in quanto utilizzato prevalentemente in testi emessi da esperti e destinati ad esperti. La forte specificità culturale di tale lingua di specialità crea difficoltà traduttive dovute alla mancata equivalenza dei concetti e degli oggetti nel passaggio da una lingua-cultura ad un’altra, accentuate nel caso di contatto tra sistemi giuridici differenti quali common law e civil law. Nel caso specifico, il contatto tra francese e inglese giuridico ha generato e tuttora genera – per via dell’evoluzione costante della disciplina, dei sistemi giuridici e dei tentativi di unificazione promossi dall’Unione Europea – il fenomeno dei prestiti in entrambe le direzioni, seppur con differenze diacroniche. Ci proponiamo quindi di sondare il legame esistente tra francese e inglese giuridico, reso evidente dal passaggio di prestiti tra le due lingue, rilevando le diverse tipologie di prestiti riscontrabili in alcuni vocabolari giuridici francesi e inglesi, con particolare attenzione da un lato per l’emergere di differenze diacroniche che si rivelano nei diversi tipi di prestito (integrato, xenismo, ibrido, etc.) dall’altro per il fenomeno della francisation, per il quale accanto al termine inglese originale preso a prestito dalla lingua francese si vede l’impiego di una variante francese, proposta dalle Commissioni Terminologiche del Conseil International de la Langue Française, che tuttavia difficilmente riesce a soppiantare completamente il prestito, ragione per la quale i vocabolari spesso riportano entrambe le entrate (seppur con definizioni e approfondimenti diversi).

2010 - Procédés définitoires dans les vocabulaires juridiques français et anglais : le cas des emprunts [Articolo su rivista]
Cacchiani, Silvia; Preite, Chiara
abstract

Dans cette étude nous nous proposons d’analyser les définitions lexicographiques de quelques emprunts du français juridique à l’anglais et de l’anglais juridique au français, dans une optique contrastive. A cette fin nous avons composé deux corpus. L’un accueille les termes juridiques que le français a empruntés à la langue anglaise, relevés dans le Vocabulaire Juridique (VJ) de CORNU (2007). L’autre recense les termes juridiques que l’anglais a empruntés à la langue française, relevés dans l’Oxford Dictionary of Law (ODoL) de MARTIN – LAW (2006). Les deux listes d’entrées ainsi obtenues, complétées par leurs articles lexicographiques ainsi que par les articles correspondants tirés des dictionnaires juridiques de la langue d’origine (de l’ODoL pour les entrées du VJ et vice-versa), nous permettent de mettre en comparaison la convergence éventuelle du sens entre emprunt et mot d’origine aussi bien que la construction des définitions dans les deux langues. La première partie de cet article est centrée sur la description de la typologie et des fonctions des deux vocabulaires pris en examen (§ 1.), sur le débat ouvert autour de la définition lexicographique (§ 2.), ainsi que sur la présentation du modèle de définition avancé par WIEGAND (§ 2.1.), que nous utiliserons comme cadre théorique dans lequel situer l’analyse de notre double corpus, bien qu’en version adaptée à nos propos et simplifiée. La deuxième partie procède à l’analyse des démarches définitoires des emprunts lexicaux juridiques relevés (§ 4.) – préalablement subdivisés selon leur typologie (§ 3.) – afin de mettre en évidence les convergences et les divergences définitoires éventuelles.

2010 - Standardized Language Testing in Teaching and Research. University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, December 2-4, 2010 [Altro]
Bondi, Marina; Cacchiani, Silvia; S., Morgan; G., Porcelli; Radighieri, Sara; Robustelli, Cecilia; Silver, Marc Seth
abstract

The conference provided scholars, teachers and students specializing in language assessment an open forum for discussing current research issues from the field of language testing. The main focus of the conference was on teaching methodologies, new technologies, standardization of language levels, evaluation and assessment, the test-taker. The conference prompted lively debate around the following topic areas: evaluation vs assessment in Language Testing; models of communicative language ability and L2 assessment; levels, domains, frameworks and Language Testing; technology in language assessment: developing online test tasks for LSPs; task and performance based language assessment; assessing/testing the language of primary school teachers; research and Language Testing/assessment; language policy/ies and the setting of language standards; socio-cognitive and socio-pragmatic factors in Language Testing; item writing and test production Codes of practice and language testing as a profession

2010 - Sul ruolo dell'analisi contrastiva per il traduttore: foglietti illustrativi di medicinali in Italia e nel Regno Unito [Capitolo/Saggio]
Cacchiani, Silvia
abstract

Il contributo discute l’importanza, in ottica traduttiva, delle convenzioni di genere testuale e delle aspettative dei destinatari, applicando l’analisi, da un lato, a foglietti illustrativi di medicinali italiani standard e alle revisioni degli stessi effettuate a seguito di adeguamento alle direttive UE, dall’altro, a foglietti illustrativi relativi a farmaci in commercio nel Regno Unito. I dati mostrano come differenti contesti culturali e diversi destinatari, ruoli e relazioni tra partecipanti motivino le principali dissimilarità osservate. Una traduzione funzionalmente adeguata dall’italiano richiede pertanto la trasformazione dell’originale in un testo altamente leggibile, interattivo, patient-centred, e in quanto tale focalizzato sul destinatario anziché sul contenuto. Conseguenza di ciò è la necessità di un adattamento a convenzioni linguistiche e di genere tipiche del testo di arrivo.

2009 - CLAVIER 2009: Corpora and Language Variation in English Research, International Conference [Altro]
Bondi, Marina; Cacchiani, Silvia; Cavalieri, Silvia; Diani, Giuliana; Palumbo, Giuseppe
abstract

Corpora – principled collections of data in electronic format – have emerged over the last decades as a powerful analytical tool both in applied and theoretical linguistics. They have turned out of particularly significant importance in studies on language variation and language varieties. Indeed, the wealth and amount of data made available through corpus compilation and query tools have increasingly enabled researchers to explore differences across spoken and written discourse, social, diachronic and geographic varieties, age groups, gender, idiolects, etc. The widening of studies on language variation and language varieties, however, still calls for discussion on significant methodological issues, which pose, among others, the following questions: What are the major methodological problems in the research field? What is the role of the comparative perspective? Which tools and methodology best suit research? The conference focuses on such issues in order to provide a better definition of the concepts under investigation and bring together significant and innovative contributions in what is now understood as a widely researched area, thus presenting new tools and perspectives to be investigated. This is also the main general objective of the CLAVIER research group (Corpus and Language Variation Research Group), a research centre recently founded by the Universities of Bergamo, Firenze, Modena and Reggio Emilia, Roma “La Sapienza”, and Siena, and currently based in Modena. The point of departure is the invaluable contribution of two complementary strands of linguistic investigation - corpus analysis and discourse analysis – to research on language variation in English, both in quantitative and qualitative terms. One of the purposes of the 2009 CLAVIER conference is to reinforce national and international cooperation with scholars and research centres that can widen and complement the interest in language variation currently driving research at the centre. Plenaries by Udo Fries (University of Zürich), Anna Mauranen (University of Helsinki), Josef Schmied (University of Chemnitz), Geoffrey Williams (University of Bretagne-Sud). The conference brought together different perspectives on language variation and use. Plenaries and papers gave a special insight into the following topics: a. using historical corpora to investigate diachronic language variation; b. using corpora as an innovative tool in exploring geographic varieties; c. corpus linguistics in the investigation of non-native language use in professional settings; d. corpus linguistics tools, special languages, and specialist lexicography.

2009 - Description and point of view in heterogeneous texts [Capitolo/Saggio]
Cacchiani, Silvia
abstract

The present study has been an attempt to bring together different approaches to description in order to highlight its main features as against exposition and, to a minor extent, characterization and evaluation, within heterogeneous texts. What emerged was converging evidence supporting the view that: (i) Description is concerned with individuals located in space and time and correlates with the cognitive process of perception in space. Although, broadly speaking, the descriptive text type may be seen as amenable to dictionary definitions and has therefore been considered as a form of imperfect definition, it holds its own assets. Specifically, besides banking on the encyclopaedic knowledge of observer/describer/addresser and intended addressee, linking particulars to universals and, accordingly, seeing the particular as a type, descriptions situate the particular and distinguish it from other instantiations of the same type. (ii) Since the goal of description is to recreate a mental picture of the phenomenon perceived, the observer provides a coherent, progressive schematization of the phenomenon itself, or, better still, of the current, partial selection of the parts of the phenomenon, with different degrees of detail using axial vocabulary in the context of one or usually more frames of reference and, within scenes, locating subsequent Figures against the relevant Ground. Accordingly, the main linguistic correlates of description are: a. progression through spatial advancement; b. a tacit durative time adverbial with no amount specification in the first sentence of the descriptive passage and which takes scope over the whole passage; c. situations comprising states (e.g. to be or verbs of posture); d. atelic events, which comprise verbs of communication and perception, and verbs of change (used metaphictively), with adverbials of place among their arguments. (iii) Although all descriptions schematise a list of selected parts which is at the same time partial and subjective, the linguistic representation provided is assumed to overlap with vision and reality and ranges from technical through neutral to expressive (i.e. relatively more subjective) according to the attitudinal point of view expressed by the responsible source. Most importantly, descriptions interact with attitudinal point of view in the form of evaluation and characterization, which realize separate speech acts as a result of the different propositional content.

2009 - From names to nouns and the other way round: on the recognizability of identificatory and descriptive morphological blends [Capitolo/Saggio]
Cacchiani, Silvia
abstract

This paper is an attempt at investigating what affects the recognizability of recent and novel identificatory and descriptive blends based on names and nouns within a comprehensive framework of analysis which brings together insights from previous structural studies, psycholinguistics, pragmatics, natural morphology and the theory of complexity. As will be seen, such blends have a descriptive dimension not only when used as nouns, but also when used as names: Specifically, next to an identificatory function, blends as names may take on discriminatory, categorizing and expressive/evaluative functions. Morphotactic complexity and (if only marginally) morphosemantic complexity affect the recognizability of the blend. However, failure in understanding blends based on at least one name or blends used as names also depends on the encyclopaedic knowledge of the addressee, and on his/her direct or surrogate experience of the related reference.

2009 - II Modena Lexi-Term Workshop, 5 November 2009, Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia [Altro]
Cacchiani, Silvia; Soliman, Luciana Tiziana
abstract

Pre-Conference Workshop Dictionaries: resources and perspectives / Dictionnaires: ressources et perspectives. ABSTRACT: Designing and compiling general or specialized dictionaries (in paper or electronic format) calls for entirely different choices and decisions in terms of language resources and technological tools. Lexicographers and terminologists may take on a descriptive, prescriptive, or pedagogical approach, and variously recur to different methods and techniques in order to meet the needs of their specific target user(s) in the relevant situations of use. A crucial issue in the dictionary-making process is lemma selection: choosing what word to include is a function of the linguistic adequacy and density of the relevant semantic networks. In light of this, the second Modena Lexi-Term Workshop brings together scholars working in lexicography, terminology and knowledge engineering to discuss the role played by new technologies in lemma selection, inclusion and representation within the dictionary. PROGRAMME: 9:00: Greetings and introduction/Salutations et introduction, Marina Bondi (Director - Department of Studies on Language, Text and Translation/Directeur du Département d'Etudes Linguistiques sur la Textualité et la Traduction); CHAIR: Giuseppe Palumbo (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia); 9:15-10:00: Keynote lecture/Cours magistral, Geoffrey Williams (Université de Bretagne-Sud) Going natural: Building organic dictionaries; 10:15-10:45: Silvia Cacchiani (DSLTT, Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia), On the genuine purpose of the dictionary; 11:00-11:30: Serena Sorrentino (DII, Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia), Semi-automatic schema labels normalization for improving schema matching; 11:45-12:15: Laura Po (DII, Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia), Lexical Knowledge Extraction: an effective approach to schema and ontology matching; 12:30-13:00: Conclusions/Conclusions, Luciana T. Soliman (DSLTT, Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia), Ce qu'on ne doit pas dire: le texte et le terminaire

2009 - Le abilità di listening e speaking nel Certificate of English for Primary Teachers (CEPT) tra linguaggio per la classe e formazione linguistica permanente [Relazione in Atti di Convegno]
Cacchiani, Silvia; Radighieri, Sara
abstract

This paper reports on the design and development of Certificate of English for Primary Teachers (CEPT). The test is meant for NN Primary School English teachers in Italy. The paper concentrates on the listening and speaking tests. While focusing specific teaching skills and needs, communicative situations are investigates in order to tailor language tasks and tests to the Primary School teacher.

2009 - Lexico-functional categories and complex collocations: the case of intensifiers [Capitolo/Saggio]
Cacchiani, Silvia
abstract

The lexico-functional category of intensifiers comprises core items expressing degree (very), and less grammaticalized, polyfunctional items which form a gradient from central to peripheral (bloody, desperately, thumpingly). Building on previous work on intensifiers, I queried the British National Corpus using the SketchEngine to provide evidence for considering occurrence in complex collocations as a parameter along which individual intensifiers vary with respect to each other: whereas occurrence in complex collocations extending to the right turns out to be a clue to extent of grammaticalization, semantic prosody, and pattern of intensification of the intensifier (very vs. easily), ability to modify intensifiers in collocations extending to the left reflects type and extent of expressivity and involvement of the intensifier.

2009 - Translating intensifiers: (non-) equivalences across English and Italian [Capitolo/Saggio]
Cacchiani, Silvia
abstract

Adverbial intensifiers like English very, deeply and absolutely and Italian molto, profondamente and assolutamente express the semantic role of degree. They are also modal, speaker oriented adverbs, text structuring devices and local vehicles for speech act modification. In view of their enormous variety and subtle differences in use within and across languages, this paper sets out to investigate equivalences in translation between English and Italian intensifiers and predicate-intensifier collocations. Crucially, due attention will be given to intensifiers as expressions of speaker’s attitudes and evaluations and, hence, to connotational and pragmatic equivalences between source and target language at the micro-textual level.

2008 - From lexicographic evidence to lexicological aspects: a cognitive linguistic perspective on phonaestemic intensifiers [Relazione in Atti di Convegno]
Cacchiani, Silvia
abstract

Depending on source domain, pattern of intensification and extent of grammaticalization, intensifiers may differ in a number of ways: degree (Paradis 2000, 2003) and degree and polarity sensitivity (Klein 1998); semantic prosody (Bublitz 1998); genre and register restrictions (Paradis 2000, 2003, Ito and Tagliamonte 2003), type and degree of expressivity, extent to which they can take part in reinforcing, aggravating or mitigating the underlying speech act, and, of course, collocational profile (Cacchiani 2005). It the light of this, it is the purpose of this paper to show how lexicographic data can provide evidence in favour of adopting a cognitive-linguistic perspective on the process of loosening and meaning recreation which characterizes the development of intensifiers from other categories. Specifically, using data from the Oxford English Dictionary, I shall investigate the nature and use of phonaestemic intensifiers (e.g. howlingly), within the framework of Ruiz de Mendoza’s (1998ff) Combined Input Hypothesis. While acknowledging the role of contextual and encyclopaedic knowledge, this helps shed light on the pattern of intensification (Lorenz 2002, Cacchiani 2005) at play. As will be seen using the Combined Input Hypothesis offers considerable lexicological insights: While providing reasonable motivations for the polysemous nature of phonaestemic intensifiers, it accounts for the discourse-pragmatic restrictions on their use. The other way round, it appears to provide strong grounds for the inclusion and representation of non-grammaticalized, peripheral intensifiers in general, and phonaestemic intensifers in particular, in advanced learner’s dictionaries and bilingual dictionaries alike.

2008 - Intensification in English [N-A]A and [A-A]A compounds [Relazione in Atti di Convegno]
Cacchiani, Silvia
abstract

Of all the possible vehicles for intensification, adverbial intensifiers in predicate-intensifier collocations (very interesting) and, to a lesser extent, intensifying adjectives in adjective-noun collocations (great fun), are the most widely studied intensifying devices in the relevant literature. By contrast, as far as I am aware, intensifying [N+A]A and [A+A]A compounds have not received much attention to date. It is therefore the purpose of this paper to investigate the relation of intensification which links the two constituents of the compound against the background of previous research on intensifying compound adjectives and, most importantly, on predicate-intensifier collocations, in order to discuss degree of intensification and underlying pattern of intensification. As will be seen using a preliminary set of examples and lexicographic evidence from previous studies and the Oxford English Dictionary, such compounds achieve intensification for the extremely high and absolute degree (snow-white, all-red) chiefly via semantic-feature copying (snow-soft), or are motivated via direct or indirect comparison (snow white, blind drunk).

2008 - La Corpus Linguistics [Articolo su rivista]
E., Tognini Bonelli; Cacchiani, Silvia; Diani, Giuliana
abstract

Questo contributo ripercorre le origini della Corpus Linguistics in Gran Bretagna per poi passare ad un resoconto dei maggiori contributi e settori in cui tale metodologia è stata utilizzata in Italia e infine concludere fornendo un ampio panorama sulle prospettive di applicazione future della stessa.

2008 - On the role of knowledge and images in post-factum explanations of culturally significant N-N compounds: the glass-ceiling [Capitolo/Saggio]
Cacchiani, Silvia
abstract

This paper focusses on cultural key-words in disciplinary cultures and the Western world at large bringing together corpus-based analysis and insights from cognitive linguistics and recent works on the cultural dimension of idioms. In particular, we demonstrate that glass-ceiling is a cultural keyword, which signals the need to renegotiate the identity and public role of women in contemporary Western society while at the same time pointing to the imbalance between paid and unpaid work in family life. As such, glass-ceiling names the effects of tacit gender assumptions based on cultural, social and institutional patterns which tend to associate women with FAMILY responsibilities and men with JOB, WORK and CAREER against the background of the discussion on gender (in)EQUALITY. It comes therefore as no surprise that, besides referring to lexicographic evidence both for the constituent words and the compound itself, a convincing post-hoc explanation of the meaning of glass-ceiling could not do without taking into account material and cultural knowledge, i.e. specific cultural, social and institutional patterns, values and stereotypes as observed in our data. This enabled us to account for the emergence of glass-ceiling as an established recent metaphorical compound which structures and conceptualises an otherwise barely structured situation in private, public, institutional and professional settings.

2007 - Discourse-pragmatic features of novel evaluative blends [Relazione in Atti di Convegno]
Cacchiani, Silvia
abstract

This paper investigates the discourse pragmatic features of novel evaluative blends in English. Bringing together relevant approaches in Natural Morphology, psycholinguistics and pragmatics, we identify four categories on the basis of lexico-semantic and discourse-pragmatic features: referential blends, referential blends that can take on an evaluative meaning, blends which express a relatively more rational evaluation, and, fourth, strongly evaluative blends.

2007 - From narratives to intensification and hyperbole: promotional uses of book blurbs [Relazione in Atti di Convegno]
Cacchiani, Silvia
abstract

This paper demonstrates that book blurbs position the book as product and inform potential readers about the content and quality of the book. They promote and market the book from the shelves and are therefore intended to make it attractive to buy. This is the rationale behind the generic structure of book blurbs, the text-types selected, and the constraints on style and content. Specifically, back-cover blurbs from fictional texts only seem to share the Identification and the Endorsement moves, with quality-attributing sentences representing the basic text idiom. Related to this, narratives are optional and descriptions (if present at all) merge into characterizations and evaluations, whereby the writer takes an explicit, voluntary stance with respect to the book. Most importantly, characterizations of people and settings via contextual antonyms seem to be a defining property of book blurbs (cf. sweaty, fetid; finest nose, no personal odour). Lexical resources chiefly construct attitudinal evaluation in terms of appreciation and, second, judgement. The type of evaluation expressed is clearly constrained by genre. This means that book blurbs as a promotional genre are a rich source of intensifying devices: novelty and creativity of the lexical device and degree of semantic intensification help appeal to the reader and foreground the relevant assets of different types of read. Hyperbole is therefore a function of the promotional use of book blurbs, which, however, appears to be restricted to words constructing ‘value’. Implicit superlatives (e.g. wonderful), repetitions (e.g. funny, funny), and predicate-intensifier collocations in which the intensifier conveys different degrees of intensification and different types and degrees of expressivity (e.g. screamingly funny; read-out-loud-to-complete-strangers funny) are most often felt to be too weak. As such, they tend to combine together and with other devices, e.g. metaphorical expressions, so as to creatively express strong intensification. Next to graduation, however, accumulation of words which are not usually found together also plays a crucial role in making the book attractive to buy. This prompts the prospective reader to qualify the book as a first-rate choice with respect to all the relevant dimensions along which it is possible to create the need for a desirable read (e.g. fun, wisdom and truth).

2007 - Lexis in constrast and (non-)equivalences in translation: juxtapositional reduplication across English and Italian [Articolo su rivista]
Cacchiani, Silvia
abstract

La giustapposizione in italiano è una variante diastratica, colloquiale, normalmente resa in inglese da collocazioni di predicato e intensificatore (vecchio vecchio [very old], similitudini intensificanti (zitto zitto [quiet as a wisper]) e superlativi impliciti (cattivo cattivo [disgusting]) (Cacchiani, in stampa). Seppure presente anche in inglese, essa risulta essere relativamente poco percepita e non ha dunque ricevuto la necessaria attenzione in letteratura. Scopo di questo articolo è pertanto quello di fornire testimonianze a favore delle (previste) restrizioni d’uso della reduplicazione in inglese all’interno della teoria morfopragmatica (Dressler, Merlini Barbaresi 1994), integrata con teorie relative alla modificazione dell’atto illocutorio (Merlini Barbaresi 1997, Sbisà 2001) e da studi sull’intensificazione (Cacchiani 2003, 2005). L’analisi contrastiva della reduplicazione in inglese e in italiano insieme a studi precedenti su traduzioni dall’italiano all’inglese (Cacchiani, in stampa) e all’analisi di traduzioni dall’inglese all’italiano porterà ad evidenziare le dissimilarità esistenti e, soprattutto, i punti di contatto osservabili attraverso i due sistemi linguistici.

2007 - On translating Italian word reduplication into English [Relazione in Atti di Convegno]
Cacchiani, Silvia
abstract

This paper focuses on the translation of Italian word reduplication into English, e.g. piccino piccino (teeny weeny). Word reduplication is common in Italian. From a sociolinguistic point of view, it is a diastratic, colloquial variant, extremely frequent in substandard Italian. Although not widely perceived, it is also present – but, it seems, not so common - in English (e.g. bad bad news). Now, if reduplication is a numerically minor pattern in English, and a relatively more marked choice, when it comes to its English translations what we expect is systematic recourse to other linguistic devices, most notably predicate (i.e. head) to intensifier collocations (e.g. vecchio vecchio [very old]), intensifying similes (e.g. zitto zitto [quiet as a wisper]), and superlative predicates (e.g. cattivo cattivo cattivo [disgusting]). It makes sense therefore to focus on the implications for the translator. Specifically, on the basis of a small collection of literary texts, we shall carry out a qualitative analysis of what exactly translates meaning, textual and discourse-pragmatic functions of Italian reduplication within the framework of Dressler and Merlini Barbaresi’s (1994) morphopragmatics.

2006 - Desperately, utterly, and other intensifiers. On their inclusion and definition in Dr Johnson’s Dictionary [Articolo su rivista]
Cacchiani, Silvia
abstract

This paper applies the methodology of corpus linguistics to Dr Johnson’s Dictionary in order to evaluate the lexicographer’s mastery and interest in registering actual language usage. Specifically, it focuses on the ways and extent to which Dr Johnson's Dictionary accounts for the enormously varied and ever-changing lexico-functional category of intensifiers (e.g. abominably, abundantly, ardently, bad), varying connotations, type and degree of expressivity, as well as style and register restrictions. By using the Dictionary itself as a corpus and referring for comparison to the Oxford English Dictionary (restricted to the relevant time span), we demonstrate that intensifiers in the Dictionary – around 860 altogether – are depicted as varying not just along the continuous scales of formality and history but also on the scale of attitude, on the lexico-semantic dimensions of degree, connotations and expressivity, and on the scale of language purity. The paper thus demonstrates that Johnson had a genuine and surprisingly deep interest in colloquial language.

2006 - Dis/Similarities between PILs in Britain and Italy: implications for the translator [Articolo su rivista]
Cacchiani, Silvia
abstract

Whereas we can observe macro-pragmatic equivalence between PILs across languages based on common macro-aims, it is rare to encounter other types of equivalence. Indeed, different cultural backgrounds and assumptions about the readers and their roles motivate significant non-equivalence at the syntactic, structural, lexico-semantic and micro-pragmatic levels. Failure to recognize such differences may affect the process of translation and result in particularly inadequate (cf. Nord 1997) translations. I present the results of a contrastive analysis of a small corpus of British and Italian PILs with the aim to foreground the most significant dissimilarities between the two. Based on the results of this analysis, I look at Italian PILs translated into English in order to assess their functional adequacy. I argue that the characteristics of the genre justify a functional approach to translation and, accordingly, recourse to a strong cultural adaptation to the social needs of the target language.

2006 - La prova di ascolto nel Certificate of English for Primary School Teachers [Capitolo/Saggio]
Cacchiani, Silvia; Radighieri, Sara
abstract

In questo articolo giustifichiamo l’elaborazione del Certificate of English for Primary Teachers in quanto test per lingue speciali esclusivamente rivolto ai docenti non madrelingua di LS nella scuola primaria. Mentre in futuro, e solamente dopo una adeguata fase di piloting e la validazione finale, sarà dato ampio spazio alle modalità di valutazione relative a tale certificazione, scopo principale di questo contributo è stato illustrare lo stretto legame esistente tra la considerazione attenta dello scenario in cui il docente non madrelingua di LS si trova ad agire e la necessità di un test per la certificazione di una lingua per scopi speciali che si allontani dalle certificazioni, troppo generiche, già esistenti. In particolare, il riferimento alla prova di ascolto prevista nel prototipo ha permesso di illustrare come definizione di scopi, situazione e partecipanti e relativa identificazione delle conoscenze e abilità linguistiche necessarie ai fini di un insegnamento efficace (cf. profilo linguistico) portino all’elaborazione di tasks specifici. Oltre a vedere il test taker impegnato in attività simili a quelle che dovrà svolgere come docente di LS, tali task permettono di testare al meglio le competenze del candidato, in relazione al linguaggio della classe come anche al linguaggio dell’autoaggiornamento professionale, ossia ai due ambiti in cui deve sapersi muovere il docente non madrelingua di LS nella scuola primaria.

2006 - Lexico-functional categories in Noah Webster’s American Dictionary of the English Language: the case of intensifiers [Relazione in Atti di Convegno]
Cacchiani, Silvia
abstract

This paper investigates in what ways and to what extent Noah Webster accounts for different types and degrees of intensification within the enormously varied and ever-changing lexico-functional category of intensifiers, varying along dimensions such as connotations, type and degree of expressivity, and style and register restrictions as well. Specifically, we shall investigate inclusion and characterization of intensifiers in Naah Webster’s American Dictionary against the background of Dr Johnson’s 1755 Dictionary using their electronic editions both as a dictionary and as a corpus. Reference will be made to the Oxford English Dictionary online up to 1828 for comparison. Essentially, after compiling the intensifiers wordlist of Webster’s and Johnson’s dictionaries, we shall compare their treatment touching upon definition practices, usage labels and notes, examples and quotations. The main emphasis will be on Webster’s lexicographic achievement rather than on his debt to Johnson.

2006 - Review of: i. Marina Bondi, Laura Gavioli, Marc Silver (eds), 2004, Academic Discourse, Genre and Small Corpora, Officina Edizioni, Roma. ii. Laurie Anderson, Julia Bamford (eds), 2004, Evaluation in Oral and Written Academic Discourse, Officina Edizioni, Roma [Recensione in Rivista]
Cacchiani, Silvia
abstract

Review of: i. Marina Bondi, Laura Gavioli, Marc Silver (eds), 2004, Academic Discourse, Genre and Small Corpora, Officina Edizioni, Roma. ii. Laurie Anderson, Julia Bamford (eds), 2004, Evaluation in Oral and Written Academic Discourse, Officina Edizioni, Roma.

2005 - Local vehicles for intensification and involvement: the case of English intensifiers [Capitolo/Saggio]
Cacchiani, Silvia
abstract

This paper explores degree intensifiers as local vehicles for expressivity, involvement and speech-act modification. Intensifiers clearly pertain to the discourse-pragmatic dimension and, following on type and degree of expressivity, may contribute speech act modification, both reinforcement, aggravation and mitigation, and signal diverse inner and mental states. Although the degree function of intensifiers has received considerably more attention in the relevant literature, the key role of expressivity cannot be overestimated at this point. Most importantly, different types and degrees of expressivity and involvement obviously originate in the lexico-semantic features of individual intensifiers, hence in their degree, pattern of intensification, extent of grammaticalization, as well as in the natural language-internal tendency towards diversification. This has obvious implications also for their collocational, genre and stylistic preferences. Essentially, two basic equations emerge: the more grammaticalized the intensifier, the less expressive, in the sense of emotionally coloured, the intensifier; the higher the degree expressed, the more expressive the intensifier. In other words, there is room for viewing expressivity as a major scalar property, a surplus value of all intensifiers, by their very nature indexical to the reader. It is clear that rather than attitudes, intensifiers with no connotations at all, like very, represent a still subjective, but much more rational, descriptive choice towards the expression of belief. Still, selecting from among competing intensifiers is most often a choice towards the expression of inner states, attitudes and feelings included. Here, we can distinguish between intensifiers that convey relatively more undifferentiated emotions (e.g. crackingly) and intensifiers that express specific emotions (e.g. desperately).

2005 - Towards a corpus-based combinatory dictionary of English predicate-intensifier collocations [Capitolo/Saggio]
Cacchiani, Silvia
abstract

The author presents a model for investigating the collocational behaviour of English upgrading intensifiers - both central items like very, which expresses degree, and less prototypical, polyfunctional items like bloody, dramatically or doggedly. Her aim is to build a sample entry for an electronic combinatory dictionary of English and Italian intensifiers aimed at the advanced language learner, the translator, and the linguist.

2004 - Towards a model for investigating predicate-intensifier collocations [Relazione in Atti di Convegno]
Cacchiani, Silvia
abstract

This paper concentrates on very, absolutely, extremely, impossibly. It provides an elegant model for investigating the whys and wherefores of adverbial intensifiers. Specifically, the main emphasis lies on the motivations behind choosing from among competing intensifiers in a non-haphazard way. The model is meant as a ‘combinatory chart’ that allows for fair comparison of near-synonymic intensifiers with respect to a number of parameters of variation or textual preferences on the morpho-syntactic, lexico-semantic and discourse-pragmatic levels. It is intended as the first step in a comprehensive study of English and Italian predicate-intensifiers collocations. Among its expected applications are a combinatory dictionary of English intensifiers and a bilingual combinatory dictionary of English and Italian intensifiers.

2002 - Tipi testuali e linguaggi specialistici: metodologia di analisi [Capitolo/Saggio]
Cacchiani, Silvia
abstract

La difficoltà dell’apprendimento linguistico e della comprensione del testo si ascrive a complessità a più livelli (morfologia, lessico, sintassi, semantica, livello tecnico-informativo, livello retorico-pragmatico): Al fine di individuare percorsi mirati e motivati per l’apprendimento linguistico e la valutazione, è necessario determinare criteri più precisi per la definizione di complessità. Questo è possibile facendo ricorso alla teoria di Naturalezza-Marcatezza del testo/discorso elaborata in Merlini Barbaresi 1988: il testo risulta essere una soluzione di compromesso tra scelte più o meno marcate ai vari livelli, spesso in conflitto tra loro, che interagiscono creando complessità. Valutare la complessità di un testo a più livelli, tuttavia, comporta una fase preliminare di determinazione degli aspetti linguistici significativi del testo in relazione al tipo testuale di appartenenza. Essendo il concetto di complessità relativo e la tipologia testuale un parametro pertinente di valutazione (e quindi necessario, seppur non sufficiente), questo contributo confronta tipologie testuali e classificazioni di generi proposte in letteratura al fine di individuare i descrittori che risultano fondamentali al fine della creazione di una metodologia di analisi valida, applicabile a qualsiasi testo e capace di mettere in evidenza ad ogni livello di analisi gli aspetto linguistici significativi.

Università degli studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia

Pubblicazioni