Una nuova vita per il dialetto il dialetto in letteratura e l’allargamento del repertorio

The position of dialect (it would be more correct to talk of geographical ‘dialects’) in the Italian linguistic repertoire is one of the most relevant questions raised by contemporary sociolinguistics. Its importance is proved by its non-denotative use in literature, poetry, music, cinema, theatre. In the present paper, we discuss the role of dialect, its linguistic possibilities, and the problems involved, starting from the use of dialect in a Calabrian writer, Domenico Dara, in his novel Breve trattato sulle coincidenze. The article’s main theme is that dialect, in contemporary Italy, -as well as special languages and jargon,- represents a useful opportunity for enlarging the linguistic repertoire, given the persisting inadequacy of Italian from the expressive point of view. ‘Common Italian’, as a matter of fact, is not yet sufficiently ‘familiar’ in order to fulfill all creative requirements. This general assumption, in the case of the Italian situation, needs to be expanded, considering that the extremely fragmentary nature of its dialect groups corresponds to dialect’s different roles and importance in the repertoire, which accordingly requires a specific analysis case by case. It represents further reflection on the language history of contemporary Italy.