Rhesis. International Journal of Linguistics, Philology and Literature

Gemini Advanced e ChatGPT 4o: sfide nella traduzione di un film di animazione dal portoghese brasiliano

Carla Valeria de Souza Faria — Thu, 27 Feb 2025 22:51:05 +0100

This paper aims to analyze the ability of Gemini Advanced and ChatGPT 4o to translate an animated film for children from Brazilian Portuguese into Italian, taking into account the target audience (children) and a language as close as possible to spontaneous Italian speech. The translations were also compared with those of students, mostly Italian speakers, of Portuguese as a foreign language at B1/B2 CEFR levels. The results show that although the two systems were able to produce good translations, they still produced incorrect, inaccurate or context-inappropriate translations requiring human intervention. Furthermore, the preliminary results of this research may serve as a guide for the teaching of Portuguese as a foreign language and pragmatic-discursive aspects in audiovisual translation from a contrastive perspective.

Le donne nelle confraternite di area italo-romanza tra Medioevo ed Età romanza: evidenze testuali e linguistiche

Immacolata Pinto — Sat, 05 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0200

After establishing some cultural-historical coordinates and clarifying some key concepts in the history of Christianity (see, first of all, the idea of salvation of the soul in exchange for donations, services or simply prayers), this paper examines the role of women in devotional confraternities between the late Middle Ages and the early Modern Age. In particular, the comparative analysis of about 40 statutes from the Italian-Romance area highlights the involvement of women, at different levels, in the management of charitable works that also had economic implications (see assistance to the dying, also in order to intercept possible legacies in favour of the Catholic Church). Moreover, from the perspective of historical sociolinguistics, the research shows how mixed and/or exclusively female devotional associations are likely to fall under the concept of "integrated communities of practice" (see the combination of some of the characteristics of communities of practice and discourse and many of those of text communities).

Different linguistic layers in Savvina Kniga

Andrea Di Manno — Thu, 10 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0200

This article examines the internal linguistic stratification of Savvina Kniga (Sav), a key text in the Cyrillo-Methodian tradition. By analyzing both archaic features and later innovations, the study identifies four distinct linguistic layers within the manuscript. The first layer contains elements shared with the oldest Gospel manuscripts, partly reflecting traces of the original Cyrillo-Methodian translation. The second layer corresponds to a relatively rare textual redaction, also found in the first part of the Vukan Gospel. A third layer reveals sporadic lexical changes associated with the so-called Preslav redaction, although the chronology of these changes remains uncertain. The fourth layer features unique amendments within Sav which possibly stem from deliberate modernization. Notably, two morphosyntactic features – the Genitive-Accusative of the anaphoric pronoun and the use of mi and si as adnominal datives – can likely be traced back to pop Sava himself.

Tra numeri e parole: alcune considerazioni sulle disuguaglianze educative nella scuola secondaria di secondo grado sarda

Igor Deiana — Mon, 30 Jun 2025 07:30:42 +0200

This paper provides a critical analysis of the Sardinian educational system, with a particular focus on upper secondary education, by examining trends, demographic shifts, and student performance data drawn from INVALSI assessments. The investigation reveals how a convergence of structural and contextual variables has, over time, contributed to the deepening of educational inequalities across the region. School dropout, both explicit and implicit, is identified as a salient indicator of such disparities. Within this context, the study argues for the necessity of transformative and systemic educational policies, moving beyond ad hoc interventions. Central to this vision is the role of comprehensive teacher training – initial and ongoing – conceived as essential for promoting inclusive, equitable, and high-quality language education, capable of addressing the complex linguistic, cultural, and social diversity characterizing Sardinian classrooms.

Medieval Legal Manuscripts as Scanian linguistic evidence

Lorenzo Lozzi Gallo — Tue, 29 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0200

After almost four centuries of Swedish assimilation policies, the former Danish province of Scania is losing the grip on its linguistic peculiarities, defined as East Danish, in an almost total absence of tools for the study of this linguistic variety. Such absence is even more regrettable, as the Scanian language was the first language of Scandinavia to be standardised and recorded in legal texts such as the Law of Scania and the Church Law of Scania.

For the history of the Scanian language, younger manuscripts of these legal texts may give some information on how the language evolved (and preserved some peculiarities) up to the Swedish invasion, when a violent assimilation process was enforced. This result can be obtained examining the changes both in spelling and in wording that occurred to make the ancient text intelligible through time.

Il repertorio toponimico dei gonnosnoesi: aspetti formali e sociolinguistici

Andrea Picchedda — Tue, 29 Jul 2025 21:40:36 +0200

This paper analyses the oral place names of the community of Gonnosnò (a small village in Oristano province), from a structural and socio-onomastic point of view. As regards the structural aspects, the corpus (617 toponyms) exhibits all the main characteristics of oral toponymic systems highlighted by the most recent studies, for example, the recycling of toponymic and anthroponymic elements for the creation of new toponyms and the high rate of semantic transparency of the toponymic repertoire. From a socio-onomastic point of view, it was observed that the referential toponymic skills of the sample are higher in older informants and decrease as the age of the informants decreases; it was also noted that there are various degrees of circulation of place names ranging, from those universally shared by the sample (mainly names of urban buildings) to gradually arrive at more restricted onymic traditions (sometimes testified by individual informants).

«Tempus fugit»: l’eredità dei proverbi latini nell’italiano contemporaneo. L’indagine su CORIS e i risultati di un questionario

Manfredi Maria Tuttoilmondo — Wed, 10 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0200

This study examines the use and features of Latin proverbs in contemporary Italian, focusing on their semantic and formal evolution as well as their integration into the syntactic contexts of the Italian language. Beginning with a definition of the concept of a proverb and its core characteristics, the research analyzes data from the CORIS corpus to explore the frequency of Latin proverb usage – both in absolute terms and in relation to different textual genres within the corpus and the historical period. Close attention is given to the strategies employed for incorporating Latin proverbs into Italian sentences, as well as any modifications made to the original formulations of the proverbs. Additionally, a questionnaire investigates Italian speakers’ familiarity with Latin proverbs, distinguishing between written and spoken contexts while considering the respondents’ level of proficiency in Latin. The findings highlight the relevance and adaptability of Latin proverbs, which continue to serve as valuable tools for narrating and reflecting on diverse experiences of everyday life.

Peaceful Alliances: The Collocative Policy of friþ- in Old Germanic Poetry

Veronka Szoke — Wed, 17 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0200

This article examines the collocative behaviour of the Old English term friþ- ‘peace’, ‘protection’, and its Old Saxon and Old Norse cognates across the poetic traditions preserved in these languages. Building on the methodological framework established by Maria Elena Ruggerini, the study identifies and analyses the co-occurring words (collocates) structured around FRITH-, mapping their alliterative, semantic, and phonological features across time and corpora. Particular attention is given to the role of homophony, paronomasia, and formal patterning in shaping inherited pairings and enabling context-specific innovations.

The article also explores the thematic range of these collocations, which encompass notions of peace, protection, and divine favour, as well as their absence, and demonstrates how such terms were reconfigured within different cultural, theological, and poetic frameworks.

Through a comparative analysis of Old English, Old Saxon, and Old Norse material, the study offers insights into the combinatorial logic underlying Germanic versification and affirms the value of collocative inquiry as a means of tracing both continuity and transformation in the early Germanic poetic lexicon.

Rare Hispanisms in the Vocabolario Storico della Lingua Italiana della Gastronomia (VoSLIG)

Giovanni Urraci — Mon, 20 Oct 2025 12:28:42 +0200

This contribution is part of the PRIN 2017 AtLiTeG (Atlante della lingua e dei testi della cultura gastronomica italiana dall’età medievale all’Unità), a project that aims to document the language of food through a multidisciplinary approach integrating a digital corpus, lexicographic tools, and a geo-textual atlas. The study examines the influence of the Spanish language on Italian culinary vocabulary between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, a period marked by intense linguistic and cultural contact. Specifically, it analyzes several short-lived and sparsely attested loanwords (almivere, buglios, and mantegata), whose history, semantics, and etymology are reconstructed. Particular attention is also given to the highly successful compound oglia podrida, with a focus on the processes of metonymy, nominalization of the modifier, and semantic expansion that have shaped its history.