Ganzi o residuali? Esibire la dialettalità nella Toscana “senza dialetto”

A “public” representation of local linguistic specificity is increasingly taking place even in Tuscany. Due to the specific continuity of the local linguistic repertoire, this representation takes place by selecting traits characterized by a remarkable distance from the “standard”. Starting from this consideration, the paper focuses on the functions fulfilled by the public display of linguistic recognition. Accordingly, two fundamental perspectives are identified. On the one hand, the proposal of the traits deviating from Italian reflects the function of the dialect as a code of immediacy, which, in Tuscany as elsewhere, is recognized to the code historically protagonist of the dimension of orality; on the other hand, the selection of vernacular traits promotes a sense of identification based on the perceived connection between “dialect” and a previous socio-environmental context. Different types of linguistic landscape items will be taken into account: advertising, wall writings, “vernacular posters”, Facebook pages. The areas of origin of the testimonies are Florence and Leghorn.