Acceso usuarios
Riccardo Regis
This paper deals with folk etymology from the vantage point of sociolinguistics. After a critical overview of the concepts of «parole-Volksetymologie» and «langue-Volksetymologie» (Heike Olschansky), a new dichotomy based on the Coserian couple of habla (‘speech’; It. discorso) and norma (‘norm’) is proposed, with the aim of depicting the social diffusion of folk etymology. The categories of «paretimologia di discorso» (‘speech folk etymology’) and «paretimologia di norma» (‘norm folk etymology’) are thus coined and discussed, the examples being taken mainly from Italian and the Italoromance dialects.
