Il catalano nella Corte Aragonese di Napoli, riflesso in documenti bilingui della cancelleria di Ferrante. Uno studio storico-sociale

Abstract

This article is devoted to the phenomenon of code switching, related to a sociohistoricalperspective. Particularly, we focuse on five bilingual documents of the Codice Aragonese, a codex fromthe chancellery of the Aragonese Crown at Naples in the 15th century. We analyze the historicaland social context in which the letters have been written, in order to outline the motivation tochange the linguistic code, this is, from the Catalan or Castilian language to the Neapolitan one, orvice versa. At the same time, we like to demonstrate the tendency of writing in Catalan in emotionalsituations or under strong political tension, but also in familiary contexts to create proximity andintimacy.

Keywords

• catalan
• Neapolitan
• sociolinguistics
• Catalan-Aragonese Crown
• Bilingualism
• Code switching