Hospitalité et hostilité : le multilinguisme à l’épreuve du « bien-écrire »

Abstract

Multilingualism may represent a threat to the borders of each discrete language. In order not to be invaded, languages dictate their rules. Even after Gadda, and in a country like Italy, where dialects have always existed and where it has been difficult to establish the norms for a steady national language, publishers through proof-readers, critics, translators and writers may tend to “normalize” a text in order to make it intelligible, that is “well written”. Dolores Prato’s Giù la piazza non c’è nessuno and Beppe Fenoglio’s Ur-Partigiano Johnny are two peculiar examples of how a very original and personal style can be modified if an external hand (a proofreader, a curator or a translator) tries to make it respond to linguistic standards by violating its “impure” multilingual idiolect.