Università Roma Tre

The course is an introduction to formulaic language, considered in its various declinations. The expression ‘’formulaic language‘’ refers to all those phenomena that allow speakers to store prefabricated linguistic chunks in memory and retrieve them at the moment of use. The concept of formula thus makes it possible to look in a unified way at rather diverse phenomena, such as stylistic features of particular genres (e.g. the formulas used in horoscopes or podcasts), proverbs and pragmatic routines (formulas of greeting, apology, thanks, etc.), grammatical constructions (un X tira l'altro, N dopo N...), idioms (senza se e senza ma, rompere il ghiaccio) and collocations ((lavarsi i denti, avanzare un'ipotesi). The study of formulaic language in contemporary Italian will take place by means of concrete reflection on examples taken from written, oral and digital textual genres, characterised by the presence of clearly recognisable formular elements. In particular, the individual case studies tackled will allow for an in-depth study of the relationships between formulas, grammatical constructions, vocabulary and discourse.