Distinctive features of orality in a microlanguage: the Italian language in the plenary sessions of the European parliament. Some preliminary observations

The aim of this observational study is to examine which distinctive features of orality can be found in a particularly interesting microlanguage (Serianni 2004; Marzocchi 1998): the Italian spoken by the members of the European Parliament (EP) in the plenary sessions. To detect these phenomena, a micro-corpus of original Italian speeches delivered at the EP was built; this data collection phase was followed by the analysis of the most significant features of orality, with particular reference to unmodified loanwords, the use of acronyms or procedural routines and formulas used (Marzocchi 2005), as well as all those lexical and syntactic elements putting a strain on oral language (Bakti 2009, Tissi 2000). The observation of the distinctive features of oral language is ultimately aimed at using these data in the teaching of interpreting, a discipline that cannot ignore a fundamental paradigm: a quality interpreted speech is necessarily linked to a deep knowledge of the typical oral features of the source (micro)language.