CITAS Lecture Series | The Mediterranean as a transnational space: a sociolinguistic perspective from France and Italy (Robert Blackwood & Stefania Tufi)

The Mediterranean as a transnational space: a sociolinguistic perspective from France and Italy

Robert Blackwood & Stefania Tufi (Liverpool)

The lecture will discuss linguistic and semiotic practices of spatial demarcation on the part of transnational actors in the linguistic landscape of France and Italy, therefore focusing on the element of ‘diversity’ aptly described by the poet Eugenio Montale. Using data gathered in the two contexts over more than 10 years, the lecture will be underpinned by an understanding of the city as a Mediterranean invention, and as such a synthesis of linguistic and cultural hybridity and contamination – defining characteristics of the Mediterranean area. Transnational spaces can be conceptualised as spaces of potentiality, where discursive practices engender alternative forms of subjectivity.