“The Neapolitan language and the mass media between folklorism and indigenism: problems and resistance”

In this conference, we discussed the Neapolitan language in the mass media in Italy, as well as the problems affecting this vulnerable language (UNESCO code “ISO 639-3 nap, Moseley, 2010) spoken – without considering the diaspora (immigrated communities outside Naples and Italy) – by approximately 7,500,000 people in Campania, Lucania (Basilicata), Abruzzi (Abruzzo), Molise, northern Calabria, northern and central Apulia (Puglia), southern Lazio and Marche, as well as the easternmost regions of Umbria.

Furthermore, the tireless struggle of cultural and social resistance by the Accademia Napoletana against the discriminatory reproduction of this language and its speakers in the cinema and by the Italian mass media.

The clichés and stereotypes of a certain ideology in Italy towards Neapolitan, promoted by Marco Ezechia Lombroso (Verona, 6 November 1835 – Turin, 19 October 1909), criminologist, phrenologist, physician, and founder of the Italian School of Positivist Criminology, according to which southern Italians were racially predisposed to violent and criminal behavior because of their more prominent ‘atavistic’ inclinations.

An ideology that is still very powerful in Italy, supported also by a certain Neapolitan bourgeoisie, especially belonging to the so-called “radical-chic left” (sinistra radical chic in Italian), which is why Neapolitan is represented as the language of the “noble savage”, of the mafia or in any case of cultural or social unrest. Examples and reflections are given in all international cooperation of the Academy with other minority communities.