Italian Language and Culture

Degree: Master of Arts in Italian Language and Culture
Mode of Study: Full-time
Duration: 1 year
Start date: September, February
Language of instruction: Italian
Specialisations:
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The MA in Italian Language and Culture is run in co-operation with two other universities in the Netherlands: the University of Amsterdam and the University of Utrecht. As a student in Leiden you may profit from the programme’s excellent contacts with top universities in Italy.

The information about this programme is available in the following languages:

The programme is character­ised by a high degree of per­sonal contact with teachers and fellow students. The department is relatively small, which allows for frequent and inspirational contacts between students and researchers work­ing in fields of expertise closely related to the students’ interests. Teaching is in small groups.

By the end of the programme in Italian Language and Culture, you will have acquired a thorough knowledge and full understanding of your chosen specialisation area. You will be qualified to work independently and to deal with complex academic issues, and be able to carry out academic research and produce academic reports, under expert supervision, and explain your research results clearly and analytically.

Prof. d'Alessandro

“Even today nobody is born as a native speaker of Standard Italian.”

“My field of specialisation as a researcher is dialectology and formal linguistics, and in Leiden I will be heading a research group focusing on Italian dialects and linguistic variation.

The Italian linguistic scenario is extremely rich. This is partly because of the central location of Italy within the Mediterranean and partly because of the late Italian linguistic unification. In fact, Italian only became the official language at a relatively late stage with respect to other European official languages. As a result, linguistic fragmentation in Italy is the most significant among European countries, and even today nobody is born as a native speaker of Standard Italian. We are all speakers of a regional variety of Italian that can show different degrees of similarity with the local dialect (which is, like all dialects, a sister language of Italian, not derived from it).

Dialects, that encode our culture and tradition, are fast disappearing, particularly under the influence of television. Note that dialects are generally not written and that the last-remaining speakers are dying because of old age. Therefore, if we don’t document these dialects immediately, they will soon disappear, and with them a piece of European culture. Observe furthermore that, as I said, these dialects are sister languages of Italian, and they derive directly from Latin. Hence, they are fully-fledged Romance languages, and constitute a vast set of additional data that offer an important testing ground for linguistic theories on Romance.

I have studied and worked in many different countries, such as Finland, Germany, Canada, the U.S.A. and England. Leiden is a very good university for a linguist because there are linguists here working on many languages and with different approaches, which I find both stimulating and enriching. The University Library also has a truly impressive collection of works.”