The paper offers an overview of language policies recently adopted in Italy, with particular reference to the ones directed at migrants settling in or moving through the country. It considers the country’s language policy and planning regarding Italian and immigrant languages as well. To analyze this, the paper examines a number of phenomena relating to the management of linguistic diversity that characterize the education system, the workplace and Italian society in general, showing the most evidently critical areas. Finally, the paper considers the possibility of viewing language planning not just in terms of top-down governmental decision making, but also as something involving local, individual, educational and community action.
The aim of the paper is to show how in Italy – where the weakness and/or poor application of language policies is having, as will be explained below, fairly serious effects in various social contexts – the emphasis is on the Italian language alone, as a result of an exclusively monolingual attitude. What is more, this attitude is at odds with the linguistic composition of the country, historically characterized by contact between various languages and cultures. It took a long time for Italian to become established as the language spoken by all Italians, and it continues today to coexist together with dialects, regional varieties and the languages of historical minorities (De Mauro 1963, De Mauro 2006).
To understand the reasons for this policy, in which linguistic and cultural diversity is not recognized, let alone valued, treated in a wholly instrumental way and therefore totally denied, the paper will refer to a number of examples of medium- and long-term projects regarding migrants living in Italy which have been implemented in recent years. In addition, we will speculate on possible future scenarios for Italy, which, like other European nations, is affected by the presence of refugees fleeing from events such as war and violence, and asylum seekers.
