Progetto speciale Regione Friuli Venezia Giulia
Più lingue e culture: innovare l’educazione linguistica
per una azione comunicativa integrata.
CONTRIBUTO DELLA CLASSE
5ALS - Liceo Scientifico Albert Einstein
sede associata ISIS della Bassa Friulana
Prof.ssa M. BELTRAMINI
Prof.ssa L. GIOLO
OUR CONTRIBUTION
Encountering Languages
and Cultures.
Learning about languages and cultures through the literary text.
Lingue e culture a confronto.
Un’esperienza di apprendimento linguistico-culturale attraverso
il testo letterario.
A LEAD IN
A video to set the atmosphere
LEARNING STEPS
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Step 1: Reading and Comprehension
Step 2: Analysis of Novel Structure
Step 3: Identifying hot themes in and through the novel
Step 4: Identifying main themes
Step 5: Learning about the context
Step 6: Comparing original text and Italian translation
Step 7: Drawing conclusions
Step 8: Reflecting on what we learned
The Context
Pakistan
Stati Uniti
Fundamentalism
Islam/s
Symbols of Islam
Italian Poetry and the Twin Towers Attack
Interview to the novelist at Udine’s Vicino Lontano
Podcast from RAI Letteratura
English Teacher’s resources
IRC Teacher’s Resources
L’ Altro Siamo Noi
The film by Mira Nair 2013
The Novel and its Structure
Examples of structure analysis
Example 1: Group: Grando, Pavoni, Puppo
Example 2: Group: Abetini, Ferrazzo, Mazza
Example 3: Group: Scarpin, Vitale
HOT THEMES
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Different cultures encounter
Different and vehicular languages
Fundamentalism/s
Different genders encounter
Different social classes
Encounter
Love relationship
American and Pakistani women
Western and Eastern stereotypes
Identity, multiple identity/ies
The condition of in-betweenness
Human nature and the alter
Differences and similarities
Communication styles (linguistic and non linguistic)
INTERCULTURAL OBJECTIVES
with a focus on language/s
 Comparing linguistic phrases, expressions and key words in
different languages
 Making etymological research about relevant and key words
 Making hypotheses about different interpretation of the same
quotation
 Understanding different linguistic and cultural codes
 Drawing conclusions about the way languages make meaning
 Becoming aware of the meaning of translation
 Improving personal knowledge of the potential of language
 Learning about similarities and dissimilarities between
Christianity and Islam
 Reflecting on one’s identity/ties
FOCUS
“and we produce ourselves in language”
D.LODGE, Nice Work
Languages conceptualize the world differently,
through linguistic systems
The particular language you speak shapes the way
you think about the world
FOCUS ON LANGUAGE/S AND TRANSLATION
Translation should consider language constraints like:
 context
 the rules of grammar of the two languages
 their writing conventions
 their idioms
There does not exist a simple
word-for-word correspondence .
Translation is NOT a straightforward mechanical process.
OUR COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS
Quotations from original text and Italian
translation have been analysed and compared
Example 1 E. Vitale Quotations
Example 2 L. Santini Quotations
Example 3 L.Grando Quotations
English and Italian Language Systems
 English generally expresses the same concepts in a form
shorter than Italian
 Italian generally priviledges a more complex syntax:
hypotaxis rather than parataxis
 English displays a high density of substantives than Italian
 Italian needs to reshape sentences resorting to
different grammar categories
 English shows a higher lexical density than Italian and
embeds therefore much more information.
 Modal verbs are very frequent in English. They allow to reshape
the speaker’s attitude and opinions in grammatical forms
 English modal verbs replace complex verb tense use
in Italian
What we learnt about translation and the original text
Moving from one language to another one
is forced to reduce or convert meanings.
Manipulations or loss of meanings through
cultural codes are unavoidable.
Translating implies taking decisions and
is often an act of recreation
When two people from two
different language spaces get together they have to
 look for an in-between-ness to redefine themselves
 accept the language as a medium of (mis) understanding and
(mis)communication
OUR CONCLUSIONS
 Multilingualism and Multiculturalism: atttitudes necessay in the
present complex society
 Life long learning is a must
 The complexity of the world is the result of different interactions
and mediations
 Translation is a mediation useful to communicate ideas rather than
words
 There exist no perfect language correspondences
 In translation language trans-forms thoughts adopting the rules
and conventions of a different culture
Translations offer interpretations of reality
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and require
willingness to decenter oneself and open up to different codes
WHY WAS THE PROJECT USEFUL?
The Project challenged us to
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Foster improved comprehension
Learn new vocabulary and its potential
Gain awareness of languages mutually influence
Compare phrases and idioms
Reflect on and evaluate the choices the original text made to express
English concepts in the Italian translation
Gain awareness of the different syntactical structures of English and Italian
Understand the metaphorical value of proper names in English literary
texts
Gain awareness of the role of graphetics in writing
Experience the potential of the dramatic monologue as a literary and
socio-cultural medium to convey a peculiar perspective about American
culture
Understand stereotypes are a culturally and ideologically marked form of
communication
THANK YOU
FOR
YOUR ATTENTION
5ALS
Project documentation