GUELFO CIVININI AND THE ITALIAN LANGUAGE OF NEWSPAPERS: AN EXAMPLE OF A REPORTAGE FROM BELGRADE IN 1914

Abstract

The contribution presents the figure of the journalist and writer Guelfo Civinini in relation to the evolution of the Italian language of daily newspapers in the first decades of the Twentieth century. To demonstrate Civinini's greater adherence to a more understandable and less literary linguistic style, two reports from Belgrade written in the summer of 1914 are compared; the first belongs to the Tuscan author and was published in the “Corriere della Sera”, while the second is signed by Eugenio Vaina De'Pava for "Stampa" of Turin. The comparison is based on the choices regarding the use of verbal tenses, the construction of sentences, the use of words, the presence or absence of elements of emphasis. The choice of the reportage is due by the fact that it is in this type of article that Civinini best expresses his skills as a journalist, while the selection of the historical period is justified by the greater development of the figure of the war correspondent recorded during the Great War and which therefore makes it possible to fully appreciate the writing characteristics of the two authors. The originality of the work also lies in this, because in the studies dedicated to Civinini as a reporter it is customary to take into consideration the articles from the Libyan campaign of 1911. The contribution is also accompanied by an introduction regarding the context in which the writer from Livorno begins his experience as a journalist.

Keywords: The Great War; Civinini; Italian language of daily newspapers; XX century; Vaina.