Exploring Anglicisms in the Digital Transformation: Lexical Evolution in Italian

The digital transformation has changed the way of communicating. Particularly, digital tools such as ICT, social media and the Internet have channeled new vocabulary of English-based adaptations into everyday Italian (Bombi 2017; Gualdo 2019). English has been the main donor language for Italian since the 1950s (Pulcini 2017), and Italy’s younger generations now appear inclined to adopt web-related lexical Anglicisms. In the light of this, the present paper provides fresh insights into the socio-linguistic dimensions of Anglicisms welcomed by young Italians, discussing how digital tools influence the language of 35 university students (aged 19-25) of intermediate English level. Through questionnaires, interviews and English/Italian translation tasks, the research focuses on loan patterns, frequencies, and participants’ attitudes. We investigate how, why and where Anglicisms are used, so as to identify current trends in the lexical evolution of Italian – which have implications for language teaching. The students’ repertoire includes both well-integrated lexical hybrids (chattare) and pure forms (feedback) (Furiassi and Gottlieb 2015), and features mainly entries that are related to ICT and computer-mediated communication (email, web), hobbies and leisure (happy hour, selfie), daily routines and feelings (comfort, mood). This can be accounted for in terms of feelings of modernity and fashion, cultural prestige, structural features (brevity, phonic effect, word-formation flexibility), lack of L1 equivalents.