PPT Presentation

NOTE SU PLURILINGUISMO E REPERTORI
LINGUISTICI DI IMMIGRATI NELL’ITALIA
DELL’INIZIO DEL XXI SECOLO
/
SOME REMARKS ON IMMIGRANTS’ LINGUISTIC
REPERTOIRES IN ITALY, AT THE BEGINNING
OF THE XXI CENTURY
Marina CHINI (University of Pavia)
MERIDIUM International Conference,
Perugia, 23-25 November 2011
24th November – II Session –
The impact of migration flows
Schema / Outline
1. Il contesto dell’immigrazione nell’Italia di oggi /
The context of immigration in contemporary Italy
2. Immigrazione e plurilinguismo in Italia: filoni di studio /
Immigration and multilingualism in Italy: some research trends
3. Lingue d’origine e comunità linguistiche immigrate /
The native languages and some immigrant linguistic communities
4. Repertori linguistici di alcuni gruppi immigrati /
The linguistic repertoires of some immigrant groups
5. Conclusioni, con alcuni spunti comparativi /
Conclusions, with some comparative remarks
Some statistical data
Official ISTAT data:
January 2011, in Italy 4.570.317 immigrants, over
a population of 60 million = 7.5%
 Dossier Caritas Migrantes 2011 estimates about
5 million immigrants in Italy in 2010, among
which 3 million came to Italy in the last 10 years.
 Cf. 150 years ago: Italy 1861, 88.639 immigrants
= 0.4%.

International and EU context


International level: in the last 10 years the immigrant
population in the world grew conspicuously,
+ 64 million - > now 214 million people
+ more than 15 million refugees.
EU: almost 1 / 10 inhabitants was born in a country
different from the country he/she is living in now.
In 2009 in EU 32.5 million people had a foreign
citizenship, 6.5%.
Almost 15 million were naturalized.
Origin of immigrants in Italy
Table A: Immigrants with residence permit (1980-2011)
(Source: Caritas/Migrantes based on ISTAT)
Year
1980
1990
2000
2003
2008
2011
Origin
Europe
53.2
33.5
40.7
47.9
53.6
53.4
(%)
Africa
10.0
30.5
28.0
23.5
22.4
21.6
total n.
Asia
14.0
18.7
19.2
16.8
15.8
16.8
America Oceania others
21.0
1.4
0.4
298.749
16.4
0.8
0.1
781.138
11.8
0.2
0.0
1.388.153
11.5
0.1
0.1
2.193.999
8.1
0.1
0.1
3.891.295
8.1
0.1
4.570.317
Main features of immigration in Italy - 1




Unequal distribution of the immigrants on the national territory, see
Table 1:
35% North West; 26.3%, North East; 25.2% Center; 13.5% South
and Islands. More precisely 24% of them live in Lombardy, about 1112% in Lazio, Veneto, Emilia Romagna; about 8-9% in Tuscany and
Piedmont.
In some regions and towns immigrants are about 10-12% of the
whole population: Emilia Romagna, Lombardy and Umbria; Brescia,
Mantova, Piacenza, Reggio Emilia, Prato.
78.8% of the immigrants are of working age; low mean age, 32
years vs. 44 years of Italians; only 2% of immigrants are more than
65 years old vs. 20% of the Italian population.
almost 1 / 10 of the whole working population of Italy is immigrant
Main features of immigration in Italy - 2
frequent mixed marriages, in 2009 1 out
of 10.
 growingly stable phenomenon: 600.000
acquired Italian citizenship according to
ISTAT (66.000 in 2010).
 growing number of minors, almost 1
million, and of second generation people,
almost 650.000.

Migrants with residence permit in some Italian regions
Region
Migrants with residence permit - beginning 2010
Piedmont
377.241
Lombardy
982.225
Veneto
480.616
Friuli-Venezia Giulia
100.850
Emilia Romagna
461.321
Tuscany
338.746
Lazio
497.940
Campania
147.057
Abruzzo
75.708
Apulia
84.320
Sicily
127.310
Sardinia
33.301
ITALY
4.235.059, 22% minors - SOURCE: Dossier Caritas 2010
Immigrant pupils in Italian schools





Foreign pupils in Italian schools in 2010-2011:
711.046 = 7.9%.
35.8% of the total number of foreign pupils are in primary
schools;
20.3 % in preschools, 22.3% in junior high schools,
21.6% in senior high schools.
Heavy growth in the last years in senior high schools:
14% in 2001-02 -> 21.6% in 2010-2011.
The whole world is represented in Italian schools
First native countries of pupils with non
Italian citizenship, 2010-2011 –
Total n. immigrants
Native country
Pupils,
2010-2011
Total n. of immigrants coming from these countries,
I.1.2010
Romania
126.452
887.763
(2011: 968.576)
Albania
99.205
466.684
(2011: 482.627)
Morocco
92.542
431.529
(2011: 452.424)
China
32.691
188.352
(2011: 209.934)
Moldova
20.580
105.600
India
20.536
105.863
Philippines
19.766
123.584
Ecuador
19.537
85.940
Tunisia
18.333
103.678
Ukraine
17.408
174.129
Italian educational policy




Focus on teaching Italian L2, intercultural education and
dialogue, more than on L1 maintenance (although some
pertinent hints are given in several laws)
Some laws and regulations: CM 301, 8.9.1989; law
40/1998; Regolamento DPR 394, 1999, etc.
CM 24, I.3.2006 Linee guida per l’accoglienza e
l’integrazione degli alunni stranieri [‘Guidelines for
welcoming and integrating foreign pupils’];
the 2007 document of the Italian Ministry of Education La
via italiana per la scuola interculturale e l’integrazione
degli alunni stranieri [‘The Italian way to intercultural
school and integration of foreign pupils’]:
Main principles: inclusive policy, promotion of the acquisition of L2
Italian and of intercultural dialogue, care to the uniqueness and
relational character of every pupil, [weak] development of
multilingualism, parental involvement
A recent resolution of the MIUR
January 2010
the It. Ministry of Education and University establishes that 30% is the
maximum percentage of foreign pupils in a class, in order to avoid
ghettoisation.
It also establishes that schools ‘can organize a first phase of language
learning for foreign pupils [newly arrived in Italy], before they enter
the class or in parallel to their setting-in phase, in order to facilitate
their integration in the class’;
Furthermore schools ‘can organize enhancement courses where it is
possible, resorting to teachers from the same school. Therefore it is
convenient, in teacher training, to give special attention to
methodologies and teaching measures suitable for promoting
integration’
(cf. http://www.istruzione.it/web/ministero/cs080110)
Italian L2 in the schools
and teacher training

Some Italian L2 teaching projects:
- MILIA, in the Nineties;
- integrated e-learning teacher training project Italiano L2: lingua di
contatto, lingua di culture, 2003-2006
http://venus.unive.it/italdue/index.php?name=EZCMS&page_id=326&menu=100

Some problems:
- still few resources at the financial and organizational level for
promoting multilingualism and a real intercultural dialogue;
- often not enough competence at the pedagogical and linguistic
level among teachers;
- non systematic intervention in this field;
- in principle no special teacher for Italian L2
Some positive sides, inter alia




growing expertise and sensitivity among
teachers;
significant involvement of the civil society and of
volunteers;
some costless public courses for immigrant
adults, also in order to help them getting a
certification
for ex. in Lombardy; www.certificailtuoitaliano.it.
Some research trends on immigration
and language in Italy - 1
a. Studies on immigrants’ acquisition of Italian as a second language (Banfi


1993, Giacalone Ramat 2003), also with a sociolinguistic perspective on
pidginized learner varieties (Orletti 1988), on Italian ethnolects (Vietti 2005).
The so-called ‘Pavia Project’ on L2 Italian:
some developmental regularities at the morphological, syntactic level, then
also at the lexical and discourse level
(cf. Giacalone Ramat 2003, Bernini et al. 2008).
Since the Nineties more interaction with European networks on SLA, work
on Italian L2 in a comparative perspective:
-Vigoni-Project on Italian-German L2 (Dittmar/Giacalone Ramat 1999);
-The Learner varieties project, in different phases, coord. MPI of Nijmegen
NL, with W. Klein, C. Perdue, then H. Hendriks, C. Dimroth
cf. http://www.learner-varieties.eu/
Some research trends on
immigration and language in Italy - 2
b. 2001-2002 new interest in the entire immigrants’ linguistic repertoire:


first sociolinguistic outlines of the linguistic situation of migrants in Italy
[Mioni 1998] and presumptive lists of migrants’ native languages.
Cf. Vedovelli & Villarini 2001.
National CNR-Agenzia 2000 Project "Le lingue straniere immigrate in Italia"
[lit. ‘The immigrated languages in Italy’], coord. by Massimo Vedovelli,
University for Foreigners of Siena. Six Italian Universities [Bergamo,
Cagliari, Milano Bicocca, Pavia, Siena, Verona].
On linguistic repertoires, language maintenance and language shift in some
Northern Italy contexts, such as Turin, Pavia, Bergamo, Verona (Chini 2003,
2004; Massariello Merzagora 2004; Chini 2009c; Valentini 2005, 2009; Chini
2009a e 2011), the structure of immigrants’ repertoires (Guerini 2006;
Berruto 2009), presence of immigrant languages in the Italian linguistic
landscape (Bagna et al. 2004).
Possible rise of ethnolects and their internal variation in Italy [Vietti 2005].
CNR-Agenzia2000 Project –
The Pavia research Unit


The Pavia research Unit, coord. by M. Chini, with C.
Andorno, M. Biazzi, G.M. Interlandi, investigated some
sociolinguistic aspects of migration in the Province of
Pavia and in Turin in 2002:
some qualitative investigations [Chini 2003]
a quantitative research based on a questionnaire studied
the linguistic repertoire, the linguistic competence and
the language uses of 414 immigrant pupils of public
schools (9-20 years) and of 171 adults in the same
areas, in Pavia and its Province and Turin (Chini 2004)
The main native languages of
immigrants in Italy







1) Romanian (21%)
2) Albanian (11%)
3) Moroccan and Tunisian Arabic, various Arabic dialects
(13%)
4) Chinese (5%)
5) Ukrainian (and Russian) (4-5%)
6) Tagalog/English (3%)
7) several varieties of Spanish (about 6%).
On the whole possibly 122 languages according to
Vedovelli/Villarini (2001: 228-229).
Lingue immigrate

Some L1 can become or are ‘immigrated languages’,
i.e. languages socially rooted and potentially able to
influence the local linguistic setting
[lingue "di sicuro radicamento sociale" in grado "di
condizionare l’assetto idiomatico locale"; Bagna et al.
2003: 203].
Possible immigrants’ minority
communities in Italy
[Source: ISTAT 2011]
Country
% living in the provincial or Five first towns with at least 5000 immigrants in
regional capitals
2011
Romania
30.6
Rome, Turin, Milan, Padua, Verona
Albania
27.1
Rome, Turino, Genoa, Milan, Florence
Morocco
22.2
Turin, Milan
China
46.8
Milan, Rome, Prato, Turin
Ukraine
38.6
Rome, Neaples, Milan
Philippines
80.1
Milan, Rome
Moldova
45.2
Rome
Poland
35.1
Rome
Peru
62.3
Milan, Rome, Turin, Florence
Ecuador
56.9
Genoa, Milan, Rome
Criteria for identifying proper
immigrant minorities
[Lüdi 1990, Chini 2004, 2009a]






1) sufficiently high number of migrants;
2) existence of a migrant community sharing the same
culture and language;
3) quite regular and frequent interactions also in L1
within the immigrants’ community;
4) the migratory project should be definitive (long
duration of stay; high number of young immigrants
attending schools; important number of naturalizations);
5) creation of (cultural, religious, sport, recreational,
union, media) institutions specific of the immigrant
community.
6) positive intention to maintain L1.
Immigrants’ media in Italy 2005

about 50 newspapers and magazines, printed or on the internet,
on the whole 350.000 copies (3000-20.000 copies each);
70% is distributed free of charge.

Main languages used in these publications:


English and French for Africans; Albanian; Romanian and Italian for Romanians;
Spanish for Latin-American immigrants;
Portuguese for immigrants from Brazil and Portuguese-speaking African countries;
Chinese and sometimes Italian for Chinese people;
Arabic, French, Italian for people from Arabic speaking countries;
English and Tagalog for media from the Philippines;
Polish in media for Polish people;
Urdu, Bengali, English, Punjabi, Sinhalese for immigrants from the Indian Region;
Russian, Ukrainian and Italian for Ukrainian [and Russian] people in Italy.
[Fiorentini 2005]
Immigrants’ media in Italy in 2007
The 2007 survey of the Cospe organization
(Cooperazione per lo Sviluppo dei Paesi
Emergenti) found:
 about 150 newspapers and magazines in
immigrants’ languages: 63 magazines, 59 radio
broadcasts, 24 TV broadcasts
 two thirds of them are born in the last 5 years.
cf. Dossier Caritas 2008.

Main immigrants’ native languages
(Pavia and Turin; Chini 2004)


Indo-european languages: Albanian, Bengali, Bosnian,
Bulgarian, Sinhalese, Croatian, Kurdish, Indian and
Iranian dialects, Romance dialects, Farsi or Persian,
French, Greek, Hindi, English, Macedonian, Moldavian,
Polish, Portuguese, Punjabi, Romany, Serbian, Spanish,
Romanian, Russian, German, Ukrainian, Urdu.
Languages from other language families: Amarish,
several varieties of Arabic, Bata, Berber, Bini or Edo,
Standard Chinese, Wu Chinese, several Chinese
dialects, African dialects, Diula o Jula, Lingala, Quechua,
Swahili, Ruanda, Tagalog, Tigrinya, Twi, Yoruba, Zagon.
Multilingualism before migration










Syria: Kurdish/Syrian Arabic
Romania: Zagon/Romanian
Ukraine: Moldavian/Russian/Ukrainian
Ethiopia: Amharic/Tigrinya
Nigeria 1: Bini/Edo/English/Pidgin
Nigeria 2: English/Yoruba
Ghana: English/Twi
Angola: Portuguese/Lingala
Congo: French/Lingala
Morocco: Moroccan Arabic/Berber (Chini 2004)
Language choices with different
interlocutors in Italy
Verona (n. 267)
Pavia (n. 309)
Turin (n. 105)
L1
IT
L1+IT
L1
IT
L1+IT
L1
IT
L1+IT
%With father
59.6
10.9
14.2
48.5
14.6
26.2
53.3
12.4
27.6
%With mother
58.4
9.4
20.2
47.9
10.4
35.6
46.7
19.0
27.6
%With
brothers/sisters
25.5
28.1
18.4
28.2
19.7
35.0
31.4
24.8
22.9
%With
parents
grand- 79.4 2.2
1.1
80.9
2.2
8.5
80.9
2.2
8.5
%With
(non-it/it.)
friends 4.1
62.6
24.7
33.7/1.0
29.1/92
24.6/1.9
39.0/-
25.7/97
27.6/-
6.0
79.8
4.5
-
-
-
-
-
-
%With neighbours
Scale of language shift to Italian and L1
maintenance in immigrant children
SHIFT:
school, Italian friends > transactions > non Italian
friends > family (brothers/sisters > father >
mother > grand-parents
 MAINTENANCE:
grand-parents > father/mother > non Italian
friends > brothers/sisters > school, Italian
friends, transactions (Chini 2004)

Relevant factors for language use
and L1 maintenance






native country
sex
generation
length of stay in Italy
endogamy
parents’ profession
school attendance in
the host country
 school attendance in
the native country
 interlocutors
 social context of life
 others
(Chini 2004).

The linguistic repertoire of immigrant
communities before migration




1) a national language and local related varieties and
dialects, sometimes in a diglossia relationship;
2) a national language, (local related varieties) and a
minority language;
3) an (international) exolanguage (also in pidginized
varieties), sometimes one or more vehicular languages
or lingua franca (cf. Wolof in Senegal), national
languages, and local varieties and dialects;
4) two widely spread languages, and sometimes more
local varieties (i.e. Standard Arabic together with French,
besides regional varieties of Arabic, among educated
people from Morocco and Tunisia).
Multilingual practices, code mixing
and switching

mio fratello eh before arbeit lavora
Pakistan + tre/äh du/+ anno + Germania
++ and then go/and then gehen Pakistan
and eh + una fabbrica + fabrica and then
arbeit ålf [elf] person
(Pakistani immigrant in Alto Adige – South Tyrol;
Banfi 1995: 146-147)
Some immigrants’ linguistic
repertoires in Italy
Ghanaian community in Bergamo and its
province (Guerini 2006)
 Nigerians in Turin (Berruto 2009)
 Pakistani immigrants near Milan (Berruto
2009)
 Peruvian immigrants in Turin (Berruto
2009)

Italian and Romance dialects in
immigrants’ discourse
(8) dove vivo io parrano tutti il dialetto – dov|dove vado io a comprare
un pane mi fa – rice- “quanto
t’accattari?”, cioè quanto
t’accattare è:: dialetto. e vabbene. piano piano::: mi sono imparato.
già delle volte mi trovo difficoltà di parrare italiano perché già ! parro
il dialetto meio di::: l’italiano vah!
(Palermo, Sicily; D’Agostino 2004: 207)
(9) c’era da scegliere far su famiglia + o andare sempre avanti + eh e
niente con/ poi è stato + diciamo ‘sta ragazza qui “ma no state qui
ma qui ma no” va ben abbiamo valudato che poi c’era il lavoro, c’era
la casa e qui e là e quindi i conti li abbiam fatti io e lei + ?s’è ca fuma
[= che cos’è che facciamo?] (Lombardy, Chini 2003: 237)
The typology of immigrants’ repertoires
depends on




number of languages in the pre-migration
repertoire and its complexity;
status, functions and prestige of the languages
of the original repertoire in the immigration
context;
presence, function, penetration of Italian and its
dialects in the immigrants’ repertoire;
structural distance between the languages of the
repertoire; if reduced, probably more contact
phenomena (Chini 2009a: 296)
Some conclusions
Main results:
- principal immigrants’ languages;
- initial language shift also in intra-ethnic domains.
Data to collect or topics to elaborate on:
 statistical data on native languages and language use of immigrants
in whole Italy;
 language attitudes of immigrants and of native residents in regard to
the languages of the repertoires, inn regard to multilingual practices
and multilingualism;
 rise and in depth analysis of the sociolinguistic situation of specific
new linguistic minorities;
 possible rise of new ethnolects in Italy;
 impact of immigrants’ languages on the Italian "linguistic space" (De
Mauro 1980).
Comparing language uses in
different immigration contexts - 1
NISU Project in Scandinavia (Boyd & Latomaa 1999):
 intra-ethnic friendship networks are very conservative in relation to
L1 maintenance;
 90-100% L1 usage among partners from the same country;
 gradual shift and decreasing L1 maintenance along the following
scale [cf. scale for Pavia and Turin]:
Maintenance of minority language among immigrants’ children in the
Nordic area:
Father or mother of the minority language [ML] > adult of ML >
brothers and sisters [younger > older] > father or mother of the
majority language (Boyd & Latomaa 1999: 309-311)
Comparing language uses in
different immigration contexts - 2
Australia:

in many immigrants’ communities L1 is more often used by children with their parents
and among the parents, than by the children with brothers and sisters (Clyne & Kipp
1999; Clyne 2003: 42-46).
The factor ‘native country’:
Chinese immigrants and often Moroccan Arabic immigrants show high L1 maintenance
(cf. in the Netherlands and in Australia: Extra & Verhoeven 1999: 19; Clyne 2003: 35).
Data about Spanish speaking immigrants are less coherent in various areas.
Other possible explaining factors:
linguistic and cultural distance;
socio-cultural condition;
settlement patterns in the new country;
migration models
migration phase.
Grazie molte
dell’attenzione!
Thank you very much for your attention!
Mulţumes mult! Hvala!
Grazzi ħafna!
Merci bien! Gracias! Danke sehr!
NOTE SU PLURILINGUISMO E REPERTORI
LINGUISTICI DI IMMIGRATI NELL’ITALIA
DELL’INIZIO DEL XXI SECOLO
/
SOME REMARKS ON IMMIGRANTS’ LINGUISTIC
REPERTOIRES IN ITALY, AT THE BEGINNING
OF THE XXI CENTURY
[email protected]