Word games and a website part of goal to promote Italian

Round-table discussion with Editor-in-Chief Paola Bernardini, Profs. Mollica and Danesi

Today, it is a daily newspaper that practices an independent, civilized style of journalism, is open to dialogue with all generations of Italian-Canadians, and is strongly tied to Italy and its cultural values. Since its inception in 1954, Corriere Canadese has been the ideal bridge – a reference point and voice of the Italian community in Toronto and across Canada for over 50 years.
In the past, if Corriere was a valuable instrument for helping our community integrate and a faithful reflection of the values of two generations of immigrants who had to battle prejudices and stereotypes, today, now that “Italianità” has proudly entrenched itself, our daily intends to strengthen the dialogue with the new generations and create a connection between the “old” and “new” worlds.
A round table on future projects by our daily and its weekend English edition, Tandem, was held at the Italian Cultural Institute in Toronto on the occasion of the ninth edition of the 9th annual week of Italian language in the world (Settimana della lingua italiana nel mondo).
Participating were Corriere Canadese/Tandem Editor-in-Chief Paola Bernardini, Prof. Anthony Mollica, and Prof. Marcel Danesi.
“We decided to dedicate an evening to Corriere Canadese,” said institute director Martin Stiglio, “for being one of our language’s most effective promotional tools and a favoured vehicle of communication with the Italian community.”
“Italian is in a continuous state of expansion,” said Bernardini, “because it is the language of art, of music, of cinema, of fashion, and of culture, and it is studied not only to connect with the language of Dante or the scientific research of Galilei, but also for its social expediency in daily and professional life. We wanted to attest to this desire for 'Italianità' – a commonly felt desire – in our papers and Internet sites.”
The aim of future Corriere Canadese/Tandem editorial projects is to strengthen ties with the third generation of Italian-Canadians – those who are most in danger of losing their ties to our language.
“We want to grow and renew ourselves through the Internet and to compare the three generations of our community,” explained Bernardini. “This is why we came up with ‘Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow’ as a slogan. The Corriere Canadese/Tandem (corriere.com and corrieretandem.com) will be our relay point between the culture of antiquity, of memory, and that of today, so as to create a top-quality mass-media newspaper that is also able to provide a synthesis of the day’s news.”
The new online projects are “Italianità,” “Sport,” and “i-Cult.” The first was created in collaboration with the Italian Consulate in Toronto and was inaugurated with a letter by Consul General Gianni Bardini to the Italian community to stimulate debate on the future. It is a section dedicated to the extensive reality that is “associazionismo” (our culture’s group-forming propensity), and one that is also open to the new generations that represent the future of Italian-ness in Canada with its link to AGIC, the Associazione Giovani Italo-Canadese (an Italian-Canadian youth association).
“Other projects in the works,” explained our Editor-in-Chief, “include a site dedicated to sport, with a focus on the Raptors, Maple Leafs, Toronto FC, Vancouver 2010, and next summer’s World Cup soccer tournament.”
iCult, on the other hand, will be a site dedicated to culture, art, cinema, science, and technology.
“It will be our flagship,” said Bernadini, “with columns by writers, researchers, archeologists, directors, and artists. It’s an ambitious project that is also to be developed in paper format: Corriere Canadese/Tandem will publish, both in Italian and in English, four pages per week dedicated to culture that will be also used by some Departments of Italian Studies at Canadian universities, and at schools where English is taught as a second language.”
One of these sections will be created by Anthony Mollica, professor emeritus of second-language education at Brock University in St. Catharines, who has granted to Corriere Canadese and Tandem use of his publication “Giochiamo con le parole” (“Play on Words”).
And during the round table at at the Italian Cultural Institute in Toronto, professor Mollica literally had the public playing games – with the rebuses, crosswords, anagrams, and puzzles that will be published in our two papers.
“They’re not just word games; working with a language by tapping into creativity is one of the most effective ways of learning it,” specified the professor who, for his tireless work in promoting the Italian language, became the first recipient of the “Una vita per l’italiano” award in Venice in 2003.
This kind of education is known as ludo-didactic – a serious but fun teaching approach.
To conclude, Prof. Mollica, continuing in the semi-serious vein that characterized his speech, paraphrased from the book Promessi Sposi (The Betrothed).
“This word-game column is going to be a lot of work,” he said, taking on the character of newlywed Don Abbondio (a cowardly, lazy main character in the book), and our Editor-in-Chief Paola Bernardini became one of the Bravi.
Then, being both serious and facetious, he apologized to Alessandro Manzoni (author of The Betrothed).
Marcel Danesi, professor of Semiotics and Communication Theory at the University of Toronto since 1974, kept his discussion on linguistics light-hearted as he spoke of his personal language instruction experiences, and emphasized the importance of disseminating our language through mass media.
“I’ve written many books, but few have read them. I appeared on one Omni TV program and I became famous,” professor Danesi told a laughing audience. Joking aside, however, he too reaffirmed the importance of creativity, both as a form of expression and as a teaching and learning tool.
“Ultimately I think we’re more ‘homus ludens’ than ‘homo sapiens,’ ” said Danesi, reflecting on the future of language.
“At times I ask myself if Italian will still exist in 200 years, or if it’ll be substituted by a new language, maybe a cyber-language like the kind that arise online, even though real space – reality – is offline. However, I have huge faith in human creativity and I hope that with the spirit of play, that we can avoid this danger and preserve our language.”

Publication Date: 2009-11-01
Story Location: http://www.tandemnews.com/viewstory.php?storyid=9538