Setting a New Standard

In her sociolinguistic analysis of Italian author Andrea Camilleri's prose in the collection of short stories "Un mese con Montalbano (A Month with Montalbano)," Traci Andrighetti examines the specific lexical items that comprise the author's depiction of the regional Italian of Sicily, the socio-economic features of the characters who speak regional Italian, and the contexts of use of this variety. Her findings indicate that Camilleri relies on a mixture of both authentic and inauthentic lexemes to depict Sicilian Italian, which is spoken by male and female characters who represent a broad range of ages and occupations. She further determines that the regionalisms used in the text exaggerate the criminal aspects of Sicilian society as well as the expressive quality of this variety, while emphasizing the multicultural makeup of Italy and the intangible facet of Italianness. Andrighetti concludes that regional Italian is a complex variety that may enjoy a wider usage in contemporary Italy than the traditional dialects.