Language and Identity in Diaspora Communities: The Case Of Bristalians

The doctoral thesis presented by Anna Gallo is a sociolinguistic analysis carried out on a small group of British Italian migrants settled in Bristol. Scholarly research has so far concentrated on Italian migrants in the USA, Canada and Australia, but has overlooked investigation of British-Italian varieties in the UK, with particular reference to the south-west of England. The high density of Italian migrants in Bristol (as compared with other migrant communities from Asia and Africa) has been one of the compelling reasons for this doctoral dissertation, especially given the lack of recent studies on their language behaviours as well as their sociocultural identity. Moreover, sociolinguistic studies on Italian migrants in English-speaking countries have mostly been focused on the code-mixing of English and standard Italian, while this doctoral dissertation also takes into account the use of dialects and fully acknowledges their sociocultural significance in speakers’ exchanges.