German-speaking communities in Italy: a typology

In Italy, German is not only a foreign language taught in schools and universities, but it is also a native language spoken in several communities in the north of the country. The presentation will highlight the similarities and differences between these linguistic communities in terms of dialect, sociolinguistics and, finally, language policy. Concrete examples will be used to illustrate this variety of cases. Silvia Dal Negro is full professor of Linguistics at the faculty of education of the Free University of Bolzano. Her main research areas are contact linguistics, sociolinguistics, variation in spoken language, with particular reference to the Italian context.