Carolina Sol Buffoni: Enacting the Italian test for foreigners: language imposition as a political act

The following article is based on a paper that I wrote in June 2011 when I was attending a trimester at Venice International University (VIU). Professor Luciana Fellin from Duke University was giving a really involving course called «Identity, language and communicative practices in contemporary Italy», and she invited us to submit a final paper about a contemporary issue connected with her lessons. At the time I was volunteering in an Italian school for foreign people («Fuoriclasse» – Scuola d’Italiano per il mondo) that offers free lessons to immigrants and proposes many multicultural activities to enrich and reinforce relations between different cultures. The paper is focused on the starting point of the Italian text for strangers that is mandatory for those who want to acquire a long overstay permit.

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