Ateneo - UPO

Language, orality and writing: the voice as an instrument of knowledge

1) F. Albano Leoni, Voce. Il corpo del linguaggio, Roma, Carocci, 2022
(ALL);
2) D. Crepaldi, Neuropsicologia della lettura, Roma, Carocci, 2020 (ALL);
3) A. De Dominicis (a cura di), La voce come fenomeno culturale, Roma,
Carocci, 2002, n. ed. 2023 (caps. 1 to 8, pp.7-157).
For non-attending students add:
4) C. Severi, Il percorso e la voce. Un’antropologia della memoria, Torino,
Einaudi, 2004 (part.: cap. III, pp. 185-239).

The first objective of the course is to provide the student with the main
linguistic, sociolinguistic and ethnopragmatic notions necessary to
correctly analyze language in all its diaphasic and diamesic aspects
(orality, aurality, literacy, etc.), both in the examples provided in class
than during the final check. A second, more advanced objective is to
enable the student to apply the metalanguage and independently
develop the concepts and methodologies learned for linguistic reasoning
on theoretical and empirical data connected to the performative
component of languages and to the mythical-ritual aspects of the voice. A
third objective is to prepare students for the teaching of applied
linguistics

Anyone who has never taken a linguistics exam during their previous university career is required to replace this course/program with the General Linguistics A course from the LSM triennio, and in any case to contact the teacher beforehand.
Given the monographic, seminar and advanced nature of the course,
attendance is highly recommended. Anyone who has never taken a linguistics exam during their previous university career is required to replace this course with General Linguistics A from the three-year Languages ​​course.
This program is valid until the exam session of
February 2026, after which everyone is required to ask the teacher for a
new updated program.

Frontal lessons and online teaching (DIR); the material in DIR
however, constitutes only and exclusively an aid and does NOT replace in any way
the texts indicated in the program bibliography.
During the lessons, the active involvement of the students is expected through the examination, analysis and commentary of
linguistic and ethnological data, also with short essays and compulsory reports assigned by the teacher, in order to
develop the ability to analyze diachronic and synchronic
material, the assimilation of teaching methodologies
of applied linguistics and specific communication skills.

Students with physical disabilities, Learning Disabilities or Special
Education Needs can request
specific services and tools via the Staff Sviluppo e Coordinamento
Carriere e Servizi alle Studentesse
e agli Studenti, consulting the University webpage:
https://www.uniupo.it/en/services/servicesstudents-
physical-or-learning-disabilities. Students with disabilities,
learning disabilities or special education needs, once they have contacted
the University Staff, must refer to the tutor in charge of the course to
define the modalities of examination
at least 15 days before; some of these must be approved by docent.

Anyone who has never taken a linguistics exam during their previous university career is required to replace this course/program with the General Linguistics A course from the LSM triennio, and in any case to contact the teacher beforehand.

Oral examination lasting approximately 30-40 minutes. The examination
will be passed when the grade is 18/30 or higher. During the examination
it is possible to withdraw and at the end of the examination to reject the
grade if positive; the grade accepted on the spot can no longer be
changed. The formulation of the overall grade will be based on the
assessment of the appropriate use of the specific metalanguage and the
accuracy and appropriateness of the answers to the questions on the
texts indicated in the syllabus and in class. Honours will be awarded on
the basis of an assessment of in-depth and independent elaboration
skills. In accordance with Art. 35 of the University Teaching Regulations,
students may sit for the same examination no more than three times in
one academic year.

The course will focus on the analysis of the main characteristics of the
voice as an intrinsic and indissoluble element of language and its coevolution,
both from a pragma-linguistic, socio-cultural and historicalcognitive
point of view. After having identified the animal and human
origins and the basic functions related to the use of the phonic-acoustic
apparatus and its biological evolution, the voice will face perception and
classification, its use as a work tool and as a cultural asset, and the
relationships between voice and historical-natural languages, between
voice and writing, between voice and neurolinguistics of reading
(graphematics of languages and history of alphabets, reading aloud,
dyslexia, etc.). Finally, the examination of the ethnolinguistic
characteristics of the ritual voice will highlight some metalinguistic and
cognitive peculiarities of the voice that is embodied in a traditional
cantor, linking them to the development of consciousness and selfawareness,
to the voices within

The pre-established objective is the achievement of a level of
competence such as to profitably allow the conclusion of the course of
study and subsequent work applications wherever in-depth and advanced
knowledge of general and applied linguistics are required.
KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING: knowing how to illustrate the
theoretical bases of linguistic and ethnopragmatic analysis presented in
the course with the appropriate specific metalanguage; knowing how to
understand the linguistic differences between the different types of
performative agency and texts produced in the utterance. • ABILITY TO
APPLY KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING: Knowing how to set up the
linguistic analysis of texts, even those that have never been analyzed
before; identify, explain and evaluate at least three of their main
pragmatic, diamesic and diaphasic characteristics (context
characteristics and their textual impact, type of linguistic register chosen,
focusing mechanisms, discursive signals, interruptions, overlaps, dialogic
repetitions, evaluate the degree of involvement , of symmetry or
dissymmetry between the interlocutors, self-referentiality and identity of
those who take turns, etc.); provide examples of at least two of the types
of written and oral texts addressed during the course. • MAKING
JUDGMENTS: Knowing how to recognize which are the main linguistic
phenomena that operate in the proposed examples and appropriately
propose their own. • COMMUNICATION SKILLS: knowing how to express
one's knowledge using the specific metalinguistic terminology with
awareness. • LEARNING SKILLS: knowing how to deepen the topics
presented and develop a capacity for critical analysis with respect to the
theoretical references presented during the course and their concrete
application.