The presence of the Italian language in the linguistic landscapes of Moscow

Though Moscow is a multicultural and multilingual city, Russian language plays a dominant role in its public space. In all public signs and billboards we notice the presence of Russian. This role is mostly determined by language policy, but in commercial advertising English language, anglicisms and loanwords are very common. By the way in the linguistic landscape of Moscow Italian language is more and more evident. It is also very popular as language of instruction and it is very common both in public schools and in private courses. The reason is probably due to the important commercial and culture relations existing between Russian Federation and Italy. Italian language is used in some particular fields: cuisine, fashion, design, music. The meaning of Italian culture, conveyed through language, is often associated to stereotypes and cliché (pasta, pizza, Italian food in general and mafia), but in most cases it reflects positive values, as beauty, elegance and creativity. Most Italian words we found in social and commercial communication are symbols of a positive and healthy way of life, of a prestigious culture and tradition, of a productive world. As noticed in the mapping geo-linguistic work, conducted all over the world by Carla Bagna and Monica Barni and the Linguistic Observatory of the Centre of Excellence at the University of Siena, and presented in some important works about Italian language in public and social communication, “in the global market of languages each idiom is present as a system of language-culture-society and economy and therefore its role can be measured on the base of the cultural forms it produces.” (Bagna, Barni 2007). Though my work is much more limited in corpus and research materials, it is very interesting to notice that it reaches the same conclusions.