Amélia Beviláqua que era mulher de verdade: a memória construída da esposa de Clóvis Beviláqua

Based on Clovis Bevilaqua’s four biographies which present three stigmas of the character - being the son of a priest, engaged in a large grammatical legal controversy with Rui Barbosa in making the Civil Code of 1917 and married to a wife of exotic modes - we discuss the built memory of Amelia Carolina Freitas Bevilaqua, who is marked as a pioneer of the feminist movement in Brazil and also upstart writer who aspired to join the Brazilian Academy of Letters. Among other negative adjectives, she was sloppy, not vain and misaligned in dress, futile or adulterous.

O único luxo de um santo laico: fotografias em biografias de Clóvis Beviláqua

The jurist Clovis Bevilaqua (1859-1944) was a privileged member of a political and intellectual elite in the context of the transition from the nineteenth to the early decades of the twentieth century in this country, having been a professor at the Faculdade de Direito de Recife, author of the Civil Code of 1917, consultant for the Ministério das Relações Exteriores and jurist of international prestige, and literary critic and author of law, philosophy and history.Their biographies emphasize the breadth of his legal knowledge, the merits of civil codification which was author and lifestyle humble and generous earning him the nickname "secular saint". However, the lawyer had the habit of collecting photos of himself and of his family and this behavior is characterized as a single vanity for his biographers. From four biographies of Clovis Bevilaqua, written by Lauro Romero (1956), Raimundo de Menezes and Ubaldino de Azevedo (1959), Noemia Paes Barreto Brandão (1989) and Silvio Meira (1990), we intend to discuss how these images are used to illustrate the trajectory of the jurist and corroborate the distinct narratives models.

A cultura afro-brasileira na sala de aula: uma proposta de trabalho pedagógio com obras que dialogam com o livro 'Três anjos mulatos do Brasil ', de Rui de Oliveira

The theme of African-Brazilian culture is still little explored in the school environment, in spite of the 10.639/03 law which prescribes its mandatory teaching as well as that of African-Brazilian history and African culture in all schools, public and private, from the Elementary School level to High School. Moreover, this law emphasizes the importance that these cultures had in the formation of Brazilian society. Considering this issue, this paper aims to analyze the work Três anjos mulatos do Brasil (2011), by Rui de Oliveira, which brings together three sensitive and touching biographies, followed by beautiful and artistic pictures. hese narratives address the genius of three great artists –Aleijadinho, Mestre Valentim and Father José Maurício–, their styles, their creations and struggle for recognition, as well as the sufering they experienced, primarily caused by racial discrimination. Also, we intend to present in this text a suggested pedagogical use of the work by Oliveira, by applying the “Recepcional” method, as it was deined by Bordini and Aguiar (1993).

Análise de biografias de Einstein em dois livros de divulgação científica

In this paper we analyzed and compared two Albert Einstein’s biographies. The first one was “Albert Einstein and his inflatable universe”, written by Mike Goldsmith. The second biography was “Einstein – his life and universe”, written by Walter Isaacson. The intention of this comparison was to identify convergent and divergent points between two books, beyond verifying the possible neglected important points of Einstein’s life suppressed by Goldsmith to facilitate the comprehension of the text. Such details are those that we consider important to Albert Einstein’s intellectual development, and may have significantly contributed to the development of his theories. For this, our analysis was grounded in Douglas Allchin’s perspective, whose work presents aspects in the rhetoric of the text that contribute to the Science and scientist mystification.

Biografia e história: panteonização e iconoclastia em narrativas de Raimundo Magalhães Junior

Pós-graduação em História - FCLAS

Rimbaud, Molière e Sade lidos pelos brasileiros: aspectos da representação literária dos escritores franceses homenageados na coleção Literatura ou Morte

Pós-graduação em Letras - FCLAS

L'a(rche)tipico Brian O'Nolan. Comico e riso dalla tradizione al post-

This study aims at analysing Brian O'Nolans literary production in the light of a reconsideration of the role played by his two most famous pseudonyms ,Flann Brien and Myles na Gopaleen, behind which he was active both as a novelist and as a journalist. We tried to establish a new kind of relationship between them and their empirical author following recent cultural and scientific surveys in the field of Humour Studies, Psychology, and Sociology: taking as a starting point the appreciation of the comic attitude in nature and in cultural history, we progressed through a short history of laughter and derision, followed by an overview on humour theories. After having established such a frame, we considered an integration of scientific studies in the field of laughter and humour as a base for our study scheme, in order to come to a definition of the comic author as a recognised, powerful and authoritative social figure who acts as a critic of conventions. The history of laughter and comic we briefly summarized, based on the one related by the French scholar Georges Minois in his work (Minois 2004), has been taken into account in the view that humorous attitude is one of man’s characteristic traits always present and witnessed throughout the ages, though subject in most cases to repression by cultural and political conservative power. This sort of Super-Ego notwithstanding, or perhaps because of that, comic impulse proved irreducible exactly in its influence on the current cultural debates. Basing mainly on Robert R. Provine’s (Provine 2001), Fabio Ceccarelli’s (Ceccarelli 1988), Arthur Koestler’s (Koestler 1975) and Peter L. Berger’s (Berger 1995) scientific essays on the actual occurrence of laughter and smile in complex social situations, we underlined the many evidences for how the use of comic, humour and wit (in a Freudian sense) could be best comprehended if seen as a common mind process designed for the improvement of knowledge, in which we traced a strict relation with the play-element the Dutch historian Huizinga highlighted in his famous essay, Homo Ludens (Huizinga 1955). We considered comic and humour/wit as different sides of the same coin, and showed how the demonstrations scientists provided on this particular subject are not conclusive, given that the mental processes could not still be irrefutably shown to be separated as regards graduations in comic expression and reception: in fact, different outputs in expressions might lead back to one and the same production process, following the general ‘Economy Rule’ of evolution; man is the only animal who lies, meaning with this that one feeling is not necessarily biuniquely associated with one and the same outward display, so human expressions are not validation proofs for feelings. Considering societies, we found that in nature they are all organized in more or less the same way, that is, in élites who govern over a community who, in turn, recognizes them as legitimate delegates for that task; we inferred from this the epistemological possibility for the existence of an added ruling figure alongside those political and religious: this figure being the comic, who is the person in charge of expressing true feelings towards given subjects of contention. Any community owns one, and his very peculiar status is validated by the fact that his place is within the community, living in it and speaking to it, but at the same time is outside it in the sense that his action focuses mainly on shedding light on ideas and objects placed out-side the boundaries of social convention: taboos, fears, sacred objects and finally culture are the favourite targets of the comic person’s arrow. This is the reason for the word a(rche)typical as applied to the comic figure in society: atypical in a sense, because unconventional and disrespectful of traditions, critical and never at ease with unblinkered respect of canons; archetypical, because the “village fool”, buffoon, jester or anyone in any kind of society who plays such roles, is an archetype in the Jungian sense, i.e. a personification of an irreducible side of human nature that everybody instinctively knows: a beginner of a tradition, the perfect type, what is most conventional of all and therefore the exact opposite of an atypical. There is an intrinsic necessity, we think, of such figures in societies, just like politicians and priests, who should play an elitist role in order to guide and rule not for their own benefit but for the good of the community. We are not naïve and do know that actual owners of power always tend to keep it indefinitely: the ‘social comic’ as a role of power has nonetheless the distinctive feature of being the only job whose tension is not towards stability. It has got in itself the rewarding permission of contradiction, for the very reason we exposed before that the comic must cast an eye both inside and outside society and his vision may be perforce not consistent, then it is satisfactory for the popularity that gives amongst readers and audience. Finally, the difference between governors, priests and comic figures is the seriousness of the first two (fundamentally monologic) and the merry contradiction of the third (essentially dialogic). MPs, mayors, bishops and pastors should always console, comfort and soothe popular mood in respect of the public convention; the comic has the opposite task of provoking, urging and irritating, accomplishing at the same time a sort of control of the soothing powers of society, keepers of the righteousness. In this view, the comic person assumes a paramount importance in the counterbalancing of power administration, whether in form of acting in public places or in written pieces which could circulate for private reading. At this point comes into question our Irish writer Brian O'Nolan(1911-1966), real name that stood behind the more famous masks of Flann O'Brien, novelist, author of At Swim-Two-Birds (1939), The Hard Life (1961), The Dalkey Archive (1964) and, posthumously, The Third Policeman (1967); and of Myles na Gopaleen, journalist, keeper for more than 25 years of the Cruiskeen Lawn column on The Irish Times (1940-1966), and author of the famous book-parody in Irish An Béal Bocht (1941), later translated in English as The Poor Mouth (1973). Brian O'Nolan, professional senior civil servant of the Republic, has never seen recognized his authorship in literary studies, since all of them concentrated on his alter egos Flann, Myles and some others he used for minor contributions. So far as we are concerned, we think this is the first study which places the real name in the title, this way acknowledging him an unity of intents that no-one before did. And this choice in titling is not a mere mark of distinction for the sake of it, but also a wilful sign of how his opus should now be reconsidered. In effect, the aim of this study is exactly that of demonstrating how the empirical author Brian O'Nolan was the real Deus in machina, the master of puppets who skilfully directed all of his identities in planned directions, so as to completely fulfil the role of the comic figure we explained before. Flann O'Brien and Myles na Gopaleen were personae and not persons, but the impression one gets from the critical studies on them is the exact opposite. Literary consideration, that came only after O'Nolans death, began with Anne Clissmann’s work, Flann O'Brien: A Critical Introduction to His Writings (Clissmann 1975), while the most recent book is Keith Donohue’s The Irish Anatomist: A Study of Flann O'Brien (Donohue 2002); passing through M.Keith Booker’s Flann O'Brien, Bakhtin and Menippean Satire (Booker 1995), Keith Hopper’s Flann O'Brien: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Post-Modernist (Hopper 1995) and Monique Gallagher’s Flann O'Brien, Myles et les autres (Gallagher 1998). There have also been a couple of biographies, which incidentally somehow try to explain critical points his literary production, while many critical studies do the same on the opposite side, trying to found critical points of view on the author’s restless life and habits. At this stage, we attempted to merge into O'Nolan's corpus the journalistic articles he wrote, more than 4,200, for roughly two million words in the 26-year-old running of the column. To justify this, we appealed to several considerations about the figure O'Nolan used as writer: Myles na Gopaleen (later simplified in na Gopaleen), who was the equivalent of the street artist or storyteller, speaking to his imaginary public and trying to involve it in his stories, quarrels and debates of all kinds. First of all, he relied much on language for the reactions he would obtain, playing on, and with, words so as to ironically unmask untrue relationships between words and things. Secondly, he pushed to the limit the convention of addressing to spectators and listeners usually employed in live performing, stretching its role in the written discourse to come to a greater effect of involvement of readers. Lastly, he profited much from what we labelled his “specific weight”, i.e. the potential influence in society given by his recognised authority in determined matters, a position from which he could launch deeper attacks on conventional beliefs, so complying with the duty of a comic we hypothesised before: that of criticising society even in threat of losing the benefits the post guarantees. That seemingly masochistic tendency has its rationale. Every representative has many privileges on the assumption that he, or she, has great responsibilities in administrating. The higher those responsibilities are, the higher is the reward but also the severer is the punishment for the misfits done while in charge. But we all know that not everybody accepts the rules and many try to use their power for their personal benefit and do not want to undergo law’s penalties. The comic, showing in this case more civic sense than others, helped very much in this by the non-accessibility to the use of public force, finds in the role of the scapegoat the right accomplishment of his task, accepting the punishment when his breaking of the conventions is too stark to be forgiven. As Ceccarelli demonstrated, the role of the object of laughter (comic, ridicule) has its very own positive side: there is freedom of expression for the person, and at the same time integration in the society, even though at low levels. Then the banishment of a ‘social’ comic can never get to total extirpation from society, revealing how the scope of the comic lies on an entirely fictional layer, bearing no relation with facts, nor real consequences in terms of physical health. Myles na Gopaleen, mastering these three characteristics we postulated in the highest way, can be considered an author worth noting; and the oeuvre he wrote, the whole collection of Cruiskeen Lawn articles, is rightfully a novel because respects the canons of it especially regarding the authorial figure and his relationship with the readers. In addition, his work can be studied even if we cannot conduct our research on the whole of it, this proceeding being justified exactly because of the resemblances to the real figure of the storyteller: its ‘chapters’ —the daily articles— had a format that even the distracted reader could follow, even one who did not read each and every article before. So we can critically consider also a good part of them, as collected in the seven volumes published so far, with the addition of some others outside the collections, because completeness in this case is not at all a guarantee of a better precision in the assessment; on the contrary: examination of the totality of articles might let us consider him as a person and not a persona. Once cleared these points, we proceeded further in considering tout court the works of Brian O'Nolan as the works of a unique author, rather than complicating the references with many names which are none other than well-wrought sides of the same personality. By putting O'Nolan as the correct object of our research, empirical author of the works of the personae Flann O'Brien and Myles na Gopaleen, there comes out a clearer literary landscape: the comic author Brian O'Nolan, self-conscious of his paramount role in society as both a guide and a scourge, in a word as an a(rche)typical, intentionally chose to differentiate his personalities so as to create different perspectives in different fields of knowledge by using, in addition, different means of communication: novels and journalism. We finally compared the newly assessed author Brian O'Nolan with other great Irish comic writers in English, such as James Joyce (the one everybody named as the master in the field), Samuel Beckett, and Jonathan Swift. This comparison showed once more how O'Nolan is in no way inferior to these authors who, greatly celebrated by critics, have nonetheless failed to achieve that great public recognition O’Nolan received alias Myles, awarded by the daily audience he reached and influenced with his Cruiskeen Lawn column. For this reason, we believe him to be representative of the comic figure’s function as a social regulator and as a builder of solidarity, such as that Raymond Williams spoke of in his work (Williams 1982), with in mind the aim of building a ‘culture in common’. There is no way for a ‘culture in common’ to be acquired if we do not accept the fact that even the most functional society rests on conventions, and in a world more and more ‘connected’ we need someone to help everybody negotiate with different cultures and persons. The comic gives us a worldly perspective which is at the same time comfortable and distressing but in the end not harmful as the one furnished by politicians could be: he lets us peep into parallel worlds without moving too far from our armchair and, as a consequence, is the one who does his best for the improvement of our understanding of things.

Storie di vita e rivoluzione. Biografie e autobiografie di comunardi (1871-1886)

Nell'ambito di un'indagine sull'identità del rivoluzionario nel XIX secolo, calata tra gli attivisti coinvolti nella Comune di Parigi, si è trattato di selezionare quelle autobiografie scritte e pubblicate da comunardi come parte integrante della loro attività politica, e così porre il problema del rapporto tra pratica autobiografica e rivoluzione, ovvero chiarire le condizioni del passage au récit, la scelta autobiografica e insieme la mise en intrigue tra esperienze individuali e rivoluzione. Questa ricerca si presenta dunque come un lavoro sulle pratiche autobiografiche all'interno delle pratiche di attivismo politico, ovvero più specificamente sulla relazione tra autobiografia e rivoluzione. In altri termini si analizza il modo in cui i rivoluzionari narravano la loro identità in pubblico, perché lo avessero fatto e cosa veicolavo in termini di stili di vita e convinzioni particolari. In quanto rivoluzionari, l'autobiografia diviene fonte e parte di ciò che essi reputavano in quel momento la propria traiettoria rivoluzionaria, la narrazione di quella che in quel momento ritenevano comunicare al pubblico come propria identità narrativa. La ricerca si articola in tre momenti. Nel primo capitolo analizzo le biografie, o meglio un piccolo gruppo tra la massa di biografie di comunardi edite all'indomani della Comune da parte della pubblicistica tanto ostile quanto partigiana della Comune. Queste narrazioni biografiche diffuse nei mesi successivi alla repressione della rivoluzione comunalista consentono di affrontare una delle condizioni fondamentali del passage au récit autobiografico che si manifesterà solo posteriormente. Il secondo e il terzo capitolo sono dedicati a due progetti autobiografici di diversa natura: la trilogia autobiografica di Jules Vallès (1879, 1881, 1886) e le Mémoires di Louise Michel (1886).

Daniello Bartoli, Il Giappone, Edizione critica

La tesi di ricerca ha portato alla realizzazione di un’edizione critica del Giappone di Daniello Bartoli (1660): per la prima volta la «seconda parte» dell’Asia trova, in questo lavoro, una trascrizione integrale condotta con moderni criteri filologi. Quanto all’esegesi la ricerca ha visto la compilazione di tre «Schedari»: un «Indice dei nomi», che vede l’identificazione dei personaggi storici citati esplicitamente nell’opera, ne traccia un rapido profilo biografico e ne fornisce precisa e aggiornata bibliografia. Per quanto riguarda i missionari evocati dall’autore nel testo, questa sezione indica se (e dove) si tratta di personaggio o di fonte (registrando, nel caso, il luogo o i luoghi in cui Bartoli ricorre a tale testimonianza); un «Indice dei luoghi», che dà l’indicazione moderna del luogo citato e ne fornisce il riscontro con i repertori più aggiornati; un «Lessico» riservato ai termini giapponesi presenti nel testo che vengono spiegati e, là dove possibile, studiati nella loro storia, nella loro presenza nella coeva letteratura di viaggio e corredati di utili riferimenti bibliografici. Le pagine introduttive inquadrano l’opera di Bartoli sia nell’orizzonte biografico dell’autore sia nel milieu gesuitico barocco, fornendo puntuali coordinate storiche grazie alle quali recuperare il più ampio contesto delle missioni gesuitiche nell’Estremo Oriente tra Cinque e Seicento. Particolare attenzione è stata riservata al modo di intendere il compito dello storico da parte di Bartoli: una storiografia la sua che s’intreccia in modi affatto peculiari alle diverse forme stilistiche e dinamiche retoriche richieste dalle altre due grandi attività a cui egli dedicò impegno e passione: l’insegnamento e la predicazione.

Negoziazioni intergenerazionali dell'autonomia abitativa in contesti di working class

Nell’ambito della riflessione sui processi di riproduzione e trasmissione intergenerazionale delle disuguaglianze sociali, la presente tesi dottorale propone un’analisi in prospettiva intersezionale dei percorsi verso l’indipendenza abitativa dei giovani bolognesi di origine popolare, e il ruolo svolto dalle loro famiglie in questi percorsi. Nell’approfondimento teorico si offre una ricostruzione del dibattito sociologico nazionale e internazionale sul tema delle disuguaglianze sociali e abitative delle giovani generazioni, nonché dello studio della classe sociale e i principali approcci presenti in letteratura. La ricerca sul campo si concentra, in particolare, sui modi in cui le famiglie appartenenti ad una determinata classe sociale, intesa nel senso conferito al termine da Bourdieu, negoziano e sostengono la transizione all’indipendenza abitativa dei loro figli. L’approfondimento empirico consiste in una ricerca qualitativa longitudinale retrospettiva, condotta nel bolognese nel 2013-2014 su un campione di famiglie working class. Ai giovani-adulti coinvolti e ai loro genitori è stato chiesto di ricostruire le loro biografie attraverso lo strumento delle life histories. La ricerca evidenzia il delinearsi di “micro sistemi economici” familiari specifici e creativi. Le molteplici forme di sostegno genitoriale nei percorsi di autonomizzazione dei figli, individuate nel corso dell’analisi del materiale raccolto, si innestano quindi all’interno di un più ampio sistema di supporto intergenerazionale, che continua anche dopo l’uscita dalla famiglia di origine, a conferma dello stretto legame che caratterizza le famiglie italiane. Nello studio una particolare attenzione viene rivolta alle logiche di legittimazione del sostegno genitoriale, adottate dalle famiglie per orientare i propri interventi di aiuto. Infine, mettendo a confronto la concezione di indipendenza dei giovani adulti con quella dei loro genitori, l’indagine rileva l’esistenza di una apparente contraddizione tra le rappresentazioni dell’indipendenza e dell’autonomia abitativa e i comportamenti attuati nella vita quotidiana, contraddizione che trova una risoluzione nella negoziazione, tra le due diverse generazioni, del concetto stesso di indipendenza.

The James Lind Library: explaining and illustrating the evolution of fair tests of medical treatments

The James Lind Library (www.jameslindlibrary.org) has been established to improve public and professional general knowledge about fair tests of treatments in healthcare and their history. Its foundation was laid ten years ago at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, and its administrative centre is in the College's Sibbald Library, one of the most important collections of historic medical manuscripts, papers and books in the world. The James Lind Library is a website that introduces visitors to the principles of fair tests of treatments, with a series of short, illustrated essays, which are currently available in English, Arabic, Chinese, French, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish. A 100-page book-- Testing Treatments--is now available free through the website, both in English and in Arabic and Spanish translations. To illustrate the evolution of ideas related to fair tests of treatments from 2000 BC to the present, the James Lind Library contains key passages and images from manuscripts, books and journal articles, many of them accompanied by commentaries, biographies, portraits and other relevant documents and images, including audio and video files. New material is being added to the website continuously, as relevant new records are identified and as methods for testing treatments evolve. A multinational, multilingual editorial team oversees the development of the website, which currently receives tens of thousands of visitors every month.

The Life and Times of Bills

Time is one of the scarcest resources in modern parliaments. In parliamentary systems of government the control of time in the chamber is a significant power resource enjoyed – to varying degrees – by parliamentary majorities and the governments they support. Minorities may not be able to muster enough votes to stop bills, but they may have – varying degrees of – delaying powers enabling them to extract concessions from majorities attempting to get on with their overall legislative programme. This paper provides a comparative analysis of the dynamics of the legislative process in 17 West European parliaments from the formal initiation of bills to their promulgation. The ‘biographies’ of a sample of bills are examined using techniques of event-history analysis (a) charting the dynamics of the legislative process both across the life-times of individual bills and different political systems and (b) examining whether, and to what extent, parliamentary rules and some general regime attributes influence the dynamics of this process, speeding up or delaying the passage of legislation. Using a veto-points framework and transaction cost politics as a theoretical framework, the quantitative analyses suggest a number of counter-intuitive findings (e.g., the efficiency of powerful committees) and cast doubt on some of the claims made by Tsebelis in his veto-player model.

Adaptation to Changes in the Coffee Value Chain and the Price of Coiffee among Coffee Producers in Two Villages in Kilimanjaro, Tanzania

Market liberalization in Tanzania has eroded the monopoly of the cooperative unions by allowing private coffee buyers (PCBs) to compete with them on equal footing. Similarly, farmers groups and primary societies are now allowed to sell coffee at auction. Thus, farmers have various options for selling their coffee. Similarly, the coffee industry has experienced large fluctuations in prices and stagnation in production. How do farmers react to these changes? Can and do farmers profit from different market conditions and sell to different traders at the lower end of the value chain, or do they remain with cooperatives or farmers groups? This study was conducted in Mruwia and Mshiri villages in Moshi Rural district. Whereas Mshiri village remains attached to the Kilimanjaro Native Cooperative Union (KNCU), Mruwia has detached from this organization and sells coffee independently. The sample (103) was randomly selected from the coffee farmers in the two villages. Data were collected through surveys, focus group discussions (FGDs), and socio-anthropological methods (participant-observation, biographies, and thematic interviews). Results indicate that the selection of whom to sell coffee depends largely on farmers’ dependence on coffee and prices, other benefits accrued, and whether the initial costs are covered by buyers. Additionally, most respondents did not sell coffee to PCBs. Thus, prices, the institutional infrastructure, and the structure of local communities were important when making decisions about how and with whom to trade.

Retirement as a “language related major life event” and its consequences on the multilingualism of migrants

The present study investigates life stories of established Italian workforce migrants living in the city of Berne, Switzerland, in regard to “language related major life events” (De Bot, 2007). These events are important in terms of changes happening in the linguistic setting during the life span and influence language development. In this sense, during the process of retirement, a new phase of life begins, which, amongst other things, has to be reorganized in relation to social contact and language use. One of my main questions is how the subjects handle the changes happening within and after the process of retirement in respect to the use of different languages and how this “language related major life event” is constructed and described by the migrants. One of these changes happens due to the fact that, after retirement, the social network at the workplace (the primary source of language input) can get (partially) lost and with it, the use of the local language. The fact that migrants living in Berne are confronted with diglossia (Standard German and Swissgerman), that the Canton of Berne is bilingual (German and French) and that the migrants' mother tongue (Italian) is one of the Swiss national languages, makes this question even more interesting. A second question will consider the influence of the fact that most of the subjects in question lived with the idea of return migration, but as shown in a previous study (Alter/Vieillesse/Anziani, NFP 32, 1999), only a third returned back while another third remained in the host country and the final third chose the commuting option. I will first examine these processes, changes and influences by using quantitative questionnaires in order to obtain general information on demographic data, the social situation, and a self-assessment of linguistic skills. Secondly, I will use qualitative interviews to get in-depth information of the subjects’ life stories and language biographies. The results of this project are meant to deliver insight into different aspects that have not been looked at in detail to this point: which factors of the life stories of Italian workforce migrants, who decided to remain in Switzerland after retirement, influence the linguistic changes in general and the ones happening around retirement in particular.