Research

I am a very curious person, so I am interested in many different aspects of language.

I have a real passion for language acquisition and development, and I worked with Prof. Roberto Peroni (Dpt. of Linguistics and former Director of the Interdepartmental Linguistic Centre of the University of Pisa) on the acquisition of Italian L2 both as an undergraduate and as a graduate student. I found this area of research particularly fascinating because it can help unveil the mysteries of the way in which the language faculty works.

Over the past few years, I have developed an ever increasing interest in English linguistics. At present, my main research areas are lexical semantics and pragmatics. The fact that, despite the millions of different ways in which each and everyone of us conceives the world in his or her own mind, we can still manage to understand each other in such an efficient way, never ceases to astonish me.

I am also interested in translation and in contrastive analysis of the Italian and English linguistic systems.

As a PhD student at the Dpt. of English Studies of the University of Pisa, I was “taken under the caring wing” of Prof. Marcella Bertuccelli Papi, which I have not left as yet (and I am not planning to!). She guided me through the hard years of my PhD research. The many useful hints of Prof. Lavinia Merlini Barbaresi were priceless too, and still are.

I carried out a lexical semantic study of the intricate semantic domain of English verbs of cognitive attitude, with the purpose of creating a “map” of the conceptual dimensions lexicalised by these verbs. I am presently writing a book building on my PhD thesis results where I apply the theory of Lexical Complexity (Bertuccelli Papi 2005, Merlini Barbaresi 2003, 2005) to this semantic domain.

I am also very interested in the Relevance-theoretic approach to word meaning and, in particular, the conceptual-procedural distinction.

I have presented papers about the semantics and pragmatics of verbs of cognitive attitude at conferences in Italy and abroad.

Prof. Bertuccelli Papi still puts up with my “unsettled mind” and my (too) many interests on a daily basis, and so does Prof. Silvia Bruti and most of my colleagues who are with me in the photo.

Over the past few years, I have been working on ESP. My first book came out in October 2006: Sun, Sea, Sex and the Unspoilt Countryside. How the English Language makes Tourists out of Readers (Pari Publishing) - a study of the way in which English is used across genres in tourism discourse in order to depict locations in such a way as to attract different types of tourists. I am planning to continue investigating several linguistic phenomena of the language of tourism.

I have been a member of the Pisan research team in several National Research Projects, among which the co-financed MIUR “Online Language and Translation” Project. (National Project Manager: Prof. Carol Taylor Torsello. Resp. Pisa Research Unit Manager: Prof. Lavinia Merlini Barbaresi) and the co-financed MIUR project called “Glossari, Dizionari, Corpora: Lessicologia e Lessicografia delle Lingue Europee” (National Project Manager: Prof. Giovanni Iamartino, Pisa Research Unit Manager: Prof.Marcella Bertuccelli Papi).

A collection of articles on the theory of Lexical Complexity and translation edited by Prof. Bertuccelli Papi, Dr. Silvia Masi and myself has just been published by Plus, Pisa University Press (Bertuccelli Papi Marcella, Cappelli Gloria, Masi Silvia (eds.) (2007), Lexical complexity: theoretical assessment and translational perspectives, Pisa: Plus Pisa University Press, ISBN: 88-8492-431-6). The volume includes contributions by Juliane House, Christiane Nord, Marcella Bertuccelli Papi, Alessandro Lenci, Marina Bondi, Annalisa Baicchi, Silvia Bruti, Carla Dente, Mario Curreli and Ilide Carmignani, among others.

In 2007, I have published a book on the semantics and pragmatics of English verbs of cognitive attitude: “I reckon I know how Leonardo da Vinci must have felt…” Epistemicity, evidentiality and English verbs of cognitive attitude, Pari: Pari Publishing (see page on the publisher’s site).

In 2009, I have translated David Crystal’s English as a Global Language in Italian (see page here). I was very honoured to have Prof. Crystal’s original preface to the Italian edition.