In Italian Ways (2014), the English writer Tim Parks points out how important it is in Italy to address someone with a title in ordinary conversations:
The barman in the small street bar has the privileged feeling of being at the centre of a community. He loves to know all his customers’ names and, better still, their jobs. He loves to give you a flattering title as you walk through the door, and to call it out loud right across the bar so that everybody will hear. ‘Salve, Professore!’ all three barmen cry when I walk into the bar near the university. In this way everybody present knows who they are rubbing elbows with. ‘Buon giorno, Prof’, says the quieter barman on Via Gustavo Modena near where I sometimes stay the night. How he knows I’m a professor I have no idea. They call to other customers, too. ‘Buon giorno, Dottore! Salve, Ragioniere! Ciao Capo!’ Someone is filling in his lottery card, ‘Play eleven, Dottore’ calls the barman. ‘The number of the month of the dead always brings good luck’. ‘Not for a cardiologist!’ the man replies. Everybody laughs. ‘Sciocchezze, Dottore!’ Their voices are a pleasant mix of respect and light irony.
(Italian Ways, 2014:54-55)
Similarly, in The Italians (2015) John Hooper provides a general account of Italian titles which could help cultural outsiders get a good idea of how these nouns are used and of their socio-cultural functions:
Other cultures, of course, have their way of marking social boundaries. […] But Italy, like Germany, is also keen on placing additional signposts along these boundaries, in the form of titles. These are not just for use on business cards. An ingegnere, avvocato or architetto will expect to be addressed as such by all and sundry. But the same is also true of a ragioniere orgeometra, even though a university degree is not required for entry into either of their professions. Anyone who has a degree qualifies to be addressed as Dottore – a term that is used scrupulously for journalists, medical doctors and, more surprisingly perhaps, senior police officers. If you are not a graduate, and neither a ragioniere or geometra, you can always aspire to one day being addressed as Presidente. […] So, if you think of yourself as belonging to the professional classes, chair the parent-teacher association or at least make a habit of wearing a collar and tie, you will start to feel slightly offended if, after the first few visits, the staff at your local bar continue to address you as merely Signore or Signora. […] Once firmly established as a dottore or dottoressa, you will be in position for the next big leap. Every so often when the need arises for you to be flattered, you may be elevated temporarily to the rank of professore or professoressa.”
(The Italians, 2015:188-189, emphasis added)
In this extract Hooper describes Italian titles as “markers of social boundaries”. The suggestion that Italian titles somehow reflect the social differences characteristic of Italian
society echoes the observations of some scholars and clashes with those of others. Barański and West (2001 eds.), for example, talked about the “hierarchical” nature of Italian society during the Fascist years:
The idea of doing away with parliamentary mediation and compromise, of creating a strong authoritarian state bent on imposing national unity through a hierarchical and highly disciplined society […] had become increasingly appealing to some sectors of the establishment. Fascism then became the successful solution to Italy’s post-war crisis. (51)
By contrast, Caprara et al. (2011:39) write that “Italian culture emphasises egalitarianism and intellectual autonomy, but not hierarchy and dependence-affiliation” (my translation). Along similar lines, Moliterno (2002:170) writes that “deference towards the powerful is always conservative, demeaning and anti-egalitarian”, although later in the book he adds that “[in Italy] during the expansion of the 1980s income distribution deteriorated, thereby ending a thirty-year period of slow but steady movement towards a more egalitarian society” (269).
Such divergent opinions indicate that the question of whether Italian culture is more “hierarchical” or more “egalitarian” is still open to debate. A different question is whether or not Italian titles are linguistic devices used by speakers to mark social differences in discourse. Alinei (2002) suggested that the proliferation of titles in Italian is related to the anti-bourgeoisie polemic during the Fascist era which represented the hallmark of the cultural revolution which took place in Italy during those years and had implications for language use. In his view, the imposed new class distinctions implied that people from different social classes had to speak differently, and this favoured the ubiquitous use of titles (5-6). He also suggested that the idea of “simulation” underlies the use of titles in Italy, i.e. an excessive importance is given to the façade and social etiquette rather than to one’s real essence (10).
Taking Alinei’s observations into account, the idea that in Italian titles are an example of linguistic expression of class distinctions, it could be suggested that the way titles are used now is different from the way they were used seventy years ago, given that society has changed a
lot ever since. However, in my view a change from a society which encourages social differences to a society which discourages them, as suggested by Caprara and Moliterno, would have caused the disappearance of some titles as forms of address. On the contrary, over the years only a few titles have fallen out of use, whereas the large majority of them is not only still used very frequently, but is also obligatory and expected in specific exchanges. Generally speaking, the large repertoire of titles used as forms of address in Italian suggests that there is a cultural assumption whereby it is important to differentiate between people in many ways, for example on the basis of their job, position or social class, and this is done by addressing people with a title. This point will be discussed in detail in Chapter 11.
Finally, it is worth spending a few words on the predominance of the masculine form among Italian professional titles.21 Dottoressa, Professoressa, Maestra and infermiera are the only feminine forms of address used, whereas *Ingegnera or *Avvocatessa are not used as forms of address. The fact that for most professions a masculine form of address is used gender-neutrally (e.g. Avvocato, Preside, Presidente, Capitano) suggests that Italian society is still predominatly man-oriented. The very few well-established feminine forms of address reflect a stereotyped view of professions like nurse or teacher which in Italy are typically exercised by women. It is possible that new feminine forms of address will begin to be used as the social rise of women occupying important positions continues. In this respect, the recent cases of Sindaca and Ministra discussed in 6.4.1 are very interesting as they reflect an on-going cultural change with implications for language use. Speakers are still uncertain as to how to address a female minister or mayor; some are resistant to change and insist that the masculine form continue to be used gender-neutrally, whereas others have already started to use these new forms consistently (e.g. journalists and opinionists). In general, the fact that speakers feel the need to
21 There are, of course, other feminine forms of address like Suora/Sorella, Madre, Contessa, Marchesa, Duchessa,
Principessa.
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use the most appropriate form of address does anything but confirm the cultural salience of titles in Italy, which is unlikely to decrease in the future.
6.7Conclusion
To sum up, the aim of the analysis made in this chapter was twofold: to propose a precise categorisation of Italian titles based on strictly semantic criteria and to analyse the interactional meaning expressed by three different categories of titles in Italian by pinpointing the speaker’s professed way of thinking about the addressee. It is necessary to categorise the many other titles available in Italian following the same semantic criteria, so that other titles can be added to the categories already identified and new categories may need to be posited.
Furthermore, the analysis presented in this chapter is based on one specific approach and is focused on an area which still requires further investigation. While so far I have found no counter-evidence disconfirming any of the proposed semantic components, further analysis may lead to new and different hypotheses about the interactional meaning of Italian titles, and the explications may need to be adjusted. In general, the analysis has stressed the importance of titles as major linguistic and cultural tools in Italy. Such a large and diverse repertoire suggests that there are a number of different cultural scripts guiding Italian speakers in their interactions with different people in different contexts. These cultural scripts will be discussed in Chapter 11.