Open Access Scientific Journals of the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures of the University of Verona
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La diplomazia è nelle arie: Zinaida Volkonskaja, la gentil mediatrice
No full textRiassunto: Zinaida Aleksandrovna Volkonskaja, nota per i suoi salotti mondani di Mosca e Roma, partecipa al Congresso di Verona, dove dà prova del suo talento vocale esibendosi nell’opera La molinara di Giovanni Paisiello, in un evento a Palazzo Bevilacqua ricordato in tutte le cronache del tempo. La scelta dell’opera è una chiara dedica allo zar Alessandro, di cui la principessa è amica di lunga data, e l’imperatore apprezza sinceramente, ma a un’analisi più approfondita il gesto si rivela un vero e proprio atto politico.
Abstract: Zinaida Aleksandrovna Volkonskaya is a well-known host of cultured salons in Moscow and in Rome. She took part in the Congress of Verona, where she performed as opera singer in Giovanni Paisiello’s La molinara in a concert at Bevilacqua Palace, registered in every chronicle of the period. According to my interpretation, the choice of the opera is a dedication to tsar Alexander, an old friend of the princess, who sincerely appreciated it. Further analysis, however, reveals that this was in fact a brave, fully political gesture.
Parole chiave: Volkonskaja, diplomazia, cultura del salotto, Congresso di Vienna, Congresso di Verona, politica
Key words: Volkonskaya, Diplomacy, Salon Culture, Congress of Vienna, Congress of Verona, Politics
Art for the Earth: we are opposite like that by Himali Singh Soin
No full textL’installazione immersiva di Himali Singh Soin we are opposite like that (2018-2019) rappresenta una tappa di un progetto creativo in corso, incentrato sui paesaggi ghiacciati dell’Artico e dell’Antartico e volto a promuovere un’etica della cura e della reciprocità in grado di superare le opposizioni binarie tipiche della civiltà occidentale, epitomizzate dagli opposti poli del titolo. L’opera multimodale di Soin comprende performance, video, musica, poesia, stampa e animazione digitale, impiegando un ampio ventaglio di fonti letterarie, scientifiche e musicali, nonché oggetti rinvenuti risalenti alle spedizioni polari del XIX secolo e ai primi tentativi del XX secolo di sfruttare le risorse minerarie custodite e protette dai ghiacci. Il presente articolo si propone di contestualizzare l’installazione di Soin all’interno della più ampia mostra collettiva, descrivere la sua tecnica poetica e artistica e analizzare l’uso che fa dei materiali culturali tardo-vittoriani.Himali Singh Soin’s immersive installation we are opposite like that (2018-2019) is one stage of an ongoing creative project focusing on Arctic and Antarctic icescapes and advocating for an ethic of care and reciprocity able to overcome the binary oppositions of Western civilization, epitomized by the titular polar opposites. Soin’s multimodal work encompasses performance, video, music, poetry, print manufacturing, digital animation, employing a wide range of literary, scientific, musical sources as well as found objects from the times of 19th century Polar expeditions to early 20th century attempts at exploiting the mineral wealth hidden and protected by ice. The aim of this paper is to contextualize Soin’s installation in the wider frame of the collective show, describe her poetic and artistic technique, and analyse the use she makes of late Victorian cultural materials.
Writing and Translating on the Margins: Dissonance in J. M. Coetzee’s The Pole
No full textQuesto articolo esplora il tema della dissonanza nell’ultimo romanzo di J. M. Coetzee, The Pole (2023). Pubblicato per la prima volta in traduzione spagnola con il titolo El polaco nel 2022, il romanzo di Coetzee ruota attorno al ruolo della musica nel definire diversi momenti di incontro culturale e linguistico. Partendo dalle precedenti riflessioni di Coetzee sulle lingue e sulla musica, si legge qui The Pole non solo come un romanzo plurilingue, ma anche come una composizione polifonica, mostrando come l’autore utilizzi l’ibridazione artistica e linguistica per creare una dissonanza su più livelli, che affronta questioni di marginalità e dislocazione. L’interazione “dissonante” tra le varie arti e lingue in The Pole riflette inoltre la mentalità marginale di un migrante perpetuo, trasformando il romanzo musicale in un’allegoria moderna sulla scrittura e sulla traduzione ai margini nell’era plurilingue.The article explores the theme of dissonance in J. M. Coetzee’s latest novel The Pole (2023). First published in its Spanish translation El polaco in 2022, Coetzee’s novel centers around the role of music in framing various moments of cultural and linguistic encounters. By drawing from the Coetzee’s previous reflections on languages and music, I read The Pole not only as a multilingual novel but also as a polyphonic composition by showing how Coetzee uses artistic and linguistic blending to create a multilevel dissonance that addresses issues of marginality and displacement. The “dissonating” interplay among various arts and languages in The Pole also reflects the marginal mindset of a perpetual migrant, who turns a musical novel into a modern allegory about writing and translating on the margins in the multilingual age.
Presence and Absence in Language. Reflections on the Work of Maja Haderlap and the (Linguistic) Landscape of Carinthia
No full textIl contributo esamina il concetto di confine attraverso il corso tortuoso della memoria esplorato da Maja Haderlap, scrittrice nata in una famiglia appartenente alla comunità linguistica slovena della Carinzia. I suoi testi analizzano le caratteristiche dei paesaggi alpini, dando voce a una comunità spesso omessa dal discorso culturale europeo. In particolare, il romanzo Engel des Vergessens incarna il pólemos identitario, la lotta tra la lingua slovena e l’idioma tedesco imposto dai confini politici e culturali. L’opera funge da sorta di amnios per l’autrice, indagando la cresta dell’esistenza umana, traccia dopo traccia. Attraverso gli interstizi delle fratture tedesco-slovene e tedesco-slave, l’analisi intende far luce sulla scrittura letteraria di Haderlap e sul paesaggio (linguistico) carinziano.The articles examines the notion of border through the meandering riverbed of memory explored by Maja Haderlap, a writer born into a family belonging to the Slovenian-speaking community of Carinthia. Her texts dissect the features of Alpine landscapes, giving voice to a community often omitted from the European cultural narrative. In particular, her novel Engel des Vergessens embodies the identitary pólemos, the struggle between the Slovenian language and the German idiom imposed by political and cultural borders. The work functions as a kind of amnion for the author, investigating the ridge of human existence, trace by trace. Through the interstices of German-Slovenian and German-Slavic fractures, the analysis aims to shed light on Haderlap’s literary practice and on the (linguistic) landscape of Carinthia
I, Otherstani: War on Terror and Defence of the Margins in Talha and Hamja Ahsan
No full textThe contextual frame of the article is the widespread Islamophobia which has been scarring British society, particularly after the July 2005 bombings. After presenting the laws and policies which have been worsening this phenomenon (and especially the 2003 Extradition Act) and their impact on British Muslims, the article concentrates on some creative responses represented by Talha Ahsan’s written and video poetry and by Hamja Ahsan’s artivist writings. In different ways and forms, both brothers broaden their concerns onto other forms of otherness, thus stressing the critical power of margins and the political importance of dissent. Il contesto di questo articolo è costituito dalla diffusa islamofobia che ha ferito la società britannica, soprattutto dopo gli attentati del luglio 2005. Dopo una presentazione delle leggi e politiche che hanno esacerbato il fenomeno (con particolare attenzione all’Extradition Act del 2003) e del loro impatto sulla comunità musulmana britannica, l’articolo si concentra sulle risposte creative alla situazione nella poesia scritta e video di Talha Ahsan e negli scritti artivistici di Hamja Ahsan. Con modalità e con strategie differenti, entrambi i fratelli ampliano le loro riflessioni fino a includere altre forme di alterità, mettendo così in primo piano sia il potenziale critico dei margini, sia l’importanza politica del dissenso
Call for papers: XIX Symposium of the International Dostoevsky Society (Buenos Aires, June 2026)
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A Comparative Content and Linguistic Analysis of Stakeholder Engagement Disclosure within the Fast Fashion Industry: The Whos and Whats of Website Communication
No full textThis study examines stakeholder engagement disclosures within the fast fashion industry, focusing on how Inditex and Gap Inc. communicate corporate social responsibility (CSR) through their websites. The fast fashion sector, often criticized for its environmental and social impact, relies on effective CSR communication to maintain public trust and credibility. Employing a corpus-based discourse analysis, the research investigates the main stakeholders addressed, key topics disclosed, and the linguistic features used to engage stakeholders. The analysis reveals a strategic use of first-person plural pronouns and inclusive language to emphasize organizational accountability, collaboration, and sustainability commitments. Both companies highlight topics such as ethical supply chains, community engagement, employee well-being, and environmental responsibility, with attention to diversity and transparency. By comparing the communication practices of European and U.S. fast fashion giants, this study highlights similarities and regional differences in their approach to CSR. The findings suggest that stakeholder engagement disclosures are carefully crafted to balance promotional goals with transparency, aiming to convince diverse stakeholder groups of the companies’ sustainable business practices. Future research could explore more brands and examine how stance and evaluation further shape corporate trustworthiness within this industry
By Way of Example: The Transparency of Exemplification in Reporting Genres
No full textTransparency can be seen as providing access to more and better information, in ways that inevitably involve both informativity and accessibility, comprehension and comprehensiveness. It is difficult, however, to identify linguistic features that may be critical in the process, apart from generic appeals to avoiding ambiguity and vagueness. The present paper focuses on elements of accessibility and looks in particular at the use of exemplification. Keeping in mind work on strategies of recontextualization in popularising, exemplifications can be seen as a way of adjusting information to the readers’ knowledge and information needs by offering specific examples of general phenomena, clarifying general questions and adapting them to the audience. But how do exemplifications stand from the point of view of informativity and vagueness? The study is based on a corpus of Annual and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) reports in the rail sector. The corpus collects reports in English from different cultural backgrounds – including Native Englishes across continents and Non-native Englishes, whether English as a Lingua Franca or translation. The analysis of exemplification was conducted by identifying the various types of Vague Category Identifiers (VCIs) within the different forms of Exemplifying Markers, focusing particularly on the two main components of exemplifications: the General Element and the Exemplifying Element. This combined methodology allowed for a detailed examination of the dynamics between vagueness and exemplification, suggesting that exemplifications may increase accessibility but their informativity may vary and so can their contribution to transparency
The Changing Discourse of YouTube’s About Us Page
No full textThe paper examines the evolving discourse of YouTube’s About Us page through a multimodal linguistic lens. It analyzes two iterations of the page (2019-2021 and 2021-present) in comparison with TikTok’s corresponding section, tracing how corporate self-representation is linguistically and visually constructed across time. The About Us page is approached as a multimodal genre (Garzone and Catenaccio 2021; Petroni 2020) in which linguistic, visual and compositional resources combine to construct corporate ethos and discursive identity. Grounded in Systemic Functional Linguistics (Halliday 2007 [1975]; 1978), Appraisal Theory (Martin and White 2005), and Multimodal Ideational Mapping (Moschini 2022), the study focuses on the ideational metafunction as the axis through which experience is represented and specific worldviews are naturalized. Multimodal Ideational Mapping (MIM) is employed as an interpretive framework to trace how ideational meanings are distributed across language, image and layout, and how recurrent conceptual nuclei emerge through their intersemiotic alignment. By reinstating Halliday’s notion of context of culture as a historical and ideational environment, the analysis connects local semiotic choices to broader cultural scripts that inform platform self-representation. The findings suggest that YouTube’s corporate discourse underwent a partial reorientation after the global diffusion of TikTok in 2020: from a participatory and civic-oriented rhetoric associated with the Californian Ideology (Turner 2006; Barbrook and Cameron 1996) toward a mode of self-presentation increasingly grounded in aesthetic pleasure and emotional engagement