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Publication Intonation in Liguria and Tuscany: checking for similarities across a traditional isogloss boundary(Associazione Italiana Scienze della Voce (AISV) and Officinaventuno, 2018) Gili Fivela, Barbara; Nicora, FrancescaThe present work investigates the intonation systems of two varieties of Italian spoken in Liguria, namely in La Spezia and Imperia, with the aims of 1) extending the existing knowledge on the intonation systems of varieties of Italian, and 2) checking if it is possible to detect similarities/differences in systems found in relatively close areas which belong to either the same (e.g., in Liguria itself ) or different isoglosses (e.g., in Tuscany). The second goal, in particular, corresponds to a different perspective in comparison to the more frequent attempt to identify patterns that characterise specific areas. The analysis of La Spezia and Imperia Italian and the comparison of their intonation systems with those of the varieties of Italian spoken in Genova, Pisa and Florence allow us to extend the geographical reach of phonological analyses of Italian intonation; furthermore, as for the second goal, results show that, at least as far as yes/no questions are concerned, even though varieties show different “preferred” melodic contours, it is possible to identify similar patterns that occur with different frequency in towns across different isoglosses.Publication La resistenza dei tratti intonativi nell acquisizione dell italiano da parte di parlanti anglo celti(Associazione Italiana di Linguistica Applicata (AItLA) and Officinaventuno, 2019) Nicora, Francesca; McLoughlin, Laura; Gili Fivela, BarbaraAlthough research on intonational phonology plays a crucial role in second language acquisition, scientific contributions investigating prosodic features in a contrastive perspective are scarce. This study aims at investigating the effects of a prosodic-pragmatic training on HibernoEnglish learners of Italian. Preliminary results indicate that learners modify prosodic features of broad focus declaratives and information-seeking yes/no questions, improving both lexical stress position and intonational pattern in terms of phonological composition.Publication Audiovisual translation in language teaching and learning(Routledge, 2018-09-06) Laura Incalcaterra McLoughlin; Incalcaterra McLoughlin, LauraThis chapter explores the use of AVT in language teaching and learning. It begins with a historical overview exploring the benefits of presenting language students with subtitled video material, and experimenting with different subtitle types. It then moves on to focus on recent qauntitative and qualitative studies of active AVT tasks by learners, including dubbing and other modalities.Publication The Italian Risorgimento and the Irish Papal Brigade(University College Dublin Press, 2013-12-03) O'Connor, AnneIn 1847, with the news of Daniel O’Connell’s death in Genoa, Italians responded with an outpouring of tributes to the Irishman. Hailed for his leadership qualities, Italians sympathised with the Irish over the loss of such a great man. There were orations, processions, commemorations and general celebrations of O’Connell’s achievements. Thirteen years later, during the Papal Wars of 1860, Irishmen came to fight and die on Italian soil, yet these men were greeted by ridicule and disgust. They had gone to Italy with high hopes for glory and victory, but were met with little support or sympathy in Italy for their attempt to defend the Papal States from the forces of the Risorgimento. In those 13 years, the nationalist movements in Ireland and in Italy had drifted apart, with the Italians finally seeing their ambitions for unity turned into reality, and the Irish coming increasingly under the influence of the Catholic Church.1 And so by 1860, when Irishmen volunteered to fight in a Papal Army, the relationship between the two countries operated in a completely altered landscape to the one experienced by O’Connell.Publication War, virtue and mobilization in the Risorgimento: Massimo d’Azeglio’s Niccolò de’ Lapi(Firenze University Press, 2015) O'Connor, Anne[No abstract available]Publication An Italian inferno in Ireland: Alessandro Gavazzi and religious debate in the nineteenth century(Palgrave Macmillan, 2015) O'Connor, AnneAlessandro Gavazzi (1809-1889), the ‘warrior-priest’1 is a well-known figure in the history of the Risorgimento, famed for his patriotic oratory, his tireless support of the Italian nationalist cause, and – after Pope Pius IX’s repudiation of Italian nationalism in 1848 – his virulent anti-Catholicism. Following the collapse of the 1848-9 revolutions in Italy, the former Barnabite monk spent much of his life abroad preaching on Italian and anti-papal themes, first and principally in the United Kingdom, but also in North America. Gavazzi’s lecture tours in England, Scotland, the United States and Canada have all been subject to scholarly scrutiny, particularly in relation to the ‘Gavazzi riots’ in Quebec and Montreal in 1853. 2 In contrast, nothing has been written on Gavazzi’s Irish tours, despite their frequency – Gavazzi came to Ireland on at least seventeen occasions; a single tour could contain upwards of a dozen lectures at venues across the country (see Appendix 1) – and his considerable impact on mid-century Irish sectarian relations and debates regarding the ‘Italian Question’. Biographers of Gavazzi mention these visits only in passing. 3 Historians of nineteenth-century Ireland meanwhile rarely and only briefly mention the Italian, without fully comprehending the scope and range of his influence. 4 This essay seeks to fill that lacuna.Publication Travel literature and traveling Irishness: An Italian case study(Palgrave Macmillan, 2017) O'Connor, AnneThis chapter looks at the important societal, cultural, and historical issues relating to Irish travel to Europe in the nineteenth century. Using the case study of Julia Kavanagh’s travel book on Italy, A Summer and Winter in the Two Sicilies (1858), it identifies how travel to a European country could introduce dialogues about religion, gender, politics, and alterity. Although the field of travel out of Ireland to continental Europe has been relatively neglected, this chapter focuses on the potentialities of such research to understand how “Irishness” functioned in the world of intercultural interactions inherent in travel.Publication Letters to Italy: translation and religion in nineteenth-century Ireland(Palgrave Macmillan, 2016) O'Connor, AnneThe analysis of translation activity in particular societies and contexts can often focus on published texts and literary works. In nineteenth-century Ireland, such an approach would only capture a proportion of translation activity since, in this period, religious translations greatly outnumbered literary works and influential elements of translation were contained not just in publications but also in private correspondence. Indeed, religion was a forceful propeller behind translation activity in Ireland in the nineteenth century and constituted a major translation output for the country. Recent research has shown the dominance of religious translation in Ireland in the French context (Milan 2013), and it is thus important to study the function of translation and its effect on religious and societal developments in Ireland. Nineteenth-century Ireland experienced huge religious upheavals including increasingly bitter divisions between Protestants and Catholics and the ‘Romanisation’ of the Irish Catholic Church. It was a period of religious fervour which has been dubbed the ‘devotional revolution’ and the seeds were sown at this time for many subsequent years of sectarian tensions (Larkin 1972; Larkin 1980, 1987). This paper examines how translation was used to promote certain religious worldviews in Ireland in the nineteenth century and in particular, it will look at how an ultramontane form of Catholicism was progressed by means of translation.Publication The Metastasio moment: language, music and translation(Palermo University Press, 2018) O'Connor, AnneThe production, circulation and reception of translations are deeply embedded in the historical circumstances of the society that chooses to translate such texts. According to Lawrence Venuti, changing interpretations of foreign cultures lead to changes in the selection of foreign texts for translation (Venuti 2005). Two languages and cultures are brought into contact through translation and this relationship can evolve and diverge due to varying historical and cultural circumstances. This chapter studies the convergences and divergences in the relationship between Ireland and Italy from the eighteenth to the mid-nineteenth century as seen through the prism of translations of the works of the Italian librettist Metastasio. The ‘Metastasio Moment’ in Ireland is charted in order to understand how Italian culture was variously embraced or rejected, as evidenced in the translation, circulation and reception of the Italian’s works. In these discussions, the strong associations and links between Italian language, culture and music emerge as crucial mediating factors in the Irish-Italian interchange. As a central fi gure in the multilingual and intercultural world of music, Metastasio is an important case study to understand the interaction of music, language and translation and the cross-fertilisation of cultural contacts in Europe. The popularity and eventual rejection of Metastasio and the Italianate fashion demonstrate the ebbs and flows of translation choices and the historical variations in cultural interactions.