Corpora e universali della traduzione in ambito sociologico: il caso degli anglicismi nella rivista “Lavoro Sociale”

Contacts between languages have always led to mutual influence. Today, the position of authority of the English language affects Italian in many ways, especially in the scientific and technical fields. When new studies conceived in the English-speaking world reach the Italian public, we are faced not only with the translation of texts, but most importantly the rendition of theoretical constructs that do not always have a suitable rendering in the target language. That is why we often find anglicisms in Italian texts. This work aims to show their frequency in a specific field, underlying how and when they are used, and sometimes preferred to the Italian corresponding word. This dissertation looks at a sample of essays from the specialised magazine “Lavoro Sociale”, published by Edizioni Centro Studi Erickson, searching for borrowings from English and discussing their use in order to make hypotheses on the reasons of this phenomenon, against the wider background of translation studies and translation universals research. What I am more interested in is the understanding of the similarities and differences in the use of anglicisms by authors of Italian texts and translators from English into Italian, so that I can figure out what the main dynamics and tendencies are. The whole paper is has four parts. Chapter 1 briefly explains the theoretical background on translation studies, and introduces and discusses the notion of translation universals. After that, the research methodology and theoretical background on linguistic borrowings (especially anglicisms) in Italian are summarized. Chapter 2 presents the study, explaining the organisation of the material, the methodology used and the object of interest. Chapter 3 is the core of the dissertation because it contains the qualitative and quantitative data taken from the texts and the examination of the dynamics of the use of anglicisms. Finally, Chapter 4 compares the conclusions drawn from the previous chapter with the opinions of authors, translators and proof-readers, whom I asked to answer a questionnaire written specifically to investigate the mechanisms and choices behind their use of anglicisms.

Airport Security: Passenger's Perception and Design Issues

The main goal of this thesis is to report patterns of perceived safety in the context of airport infrastructure, taking the airport of Bologna as reference. Many personal and environmental attributes are investigated to paint the profile of the sensitive passenger and to understand why precise factors of the transit environment are so impactful on the individual. The main analyses are based on a 2014-2015 passengers’ survey, involving almost six thousand of incoming and outgoing passengers. Other reports are used to implement and support the resource. The analysis is carried out by using a combination of Chi-square tests and binary logistic regressions. Findings shows that passengers result to be particularly affected by the perception of airport’s environment (e.g., state and maintenance of facilities, clarity and efficacy of information system, functionality of elevators and escalators), but also by the way how the passenger reaches the airport and the quality of security checks. In relation to such results, several suggestions are provided for the improvement of passenger satisfaction with safety. The attention is then focused on security checkpoints and related operations, described on a theoretical and technical ground. We present an example of how to realize a proper model of the security checks area of Bologna’s airport, with the aim to assess present performances of the system and consequences of potential variations. After a brief introduction to Arena, a widespread simulation software, the existing model is described, pointing out flaws and limitations. Such model is finally updated and changed in order to make it more reliable and more representative of the reality. Different scenarios are tested and results are compared using graphs and tables.