Italian Language and Italian Youth Culture for UNO STRANIERO
English is the international language, right? But what does that really mean? And what effect does it have? Whilst living in Italy, working for a pair of Film Festival organisations in the northwest city of Trieste, I was struck by the way that contemporary Italian youth culture used the English language as some kind of symbol; to be elegant, to be international and, most importantly, to be cool. Naïve as it perhaps was of me, I had never once thought of my language in this way. And then I realised something extremely obvious. English is not simply the language that is spoken in England. Far more importantly, it is the language of Hollywood, social media and Justin Bieber. In other words, the cultural behemoth that is the United States of America. As long as America continues to have the most influential film industry, design the way we chat to each other online, and produce music in epic quantities, how can the English language fail to be so culturally powerful in the world? Especially since, amongst said contemporary pop culture, the US has produced a large proportion of what is considered ‘cool’ - from hipsterism to skater boys.
In Italy, the way I noticed the use of the English language most was precisely through media: film, the internet and music. There is an Italian rapper called Fedez, whose video announcing the release of his latest album used words such as il pass-backstage, il reminder, l’album and il booklet. In all, I would say he used about 10 English words which very definitely correspond to their own translations in Italian. Why did he choose to do this? Simply because using English words like that is cool, it gives off a certain cosmopolitan feel, and it connects him with the terminology used in American music. Another example in a film: when I was out in Trieste, the films Guardians of the Galaxy, Sin City - A Woman to Kill For and Interstellar were all released. They were playing in nearly every cinema in the city and all my friends had gone off to see them. Yet when the Italian film La grande bellezza came out in 2013 (winner of Best Foreign film at the Oscars and subject of a review in the Culture section of this issue) where could you go and see it in the UK, or the USA I wonder?
hugh stanley
dai nostri inviati
il reminder
Reading an opera score would be a lot less elegant if, instead of rallentando, we saw ‘getting slower’
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