(untitled) (Comparatismi, 2020)
Potrebbe essere sorprendente l’accostamento tra linguistica e fanfiction, in quanto questi sembrerebbero due fenomeni lontani, ma tale confronto risulta interessante poiché rivela inaspettate analogie e differenze. Entrambi, cosa che li rende simili, sono infatti eminentemente sociali. Inoltre, fino alla fanfiction degli anni Novanta, quando non era ancora diffusa Internet, i due fenomeni erano accomunati dalle difficoltà che si incontravano, per studiarli, per via del cosiddetto paradosso dell’osservatore, che modificava il proprio oggetto di indagine nel momento in cui lo osservava. Partendo da tale assunto, questo articolo cerca di individuare i momenti in cui tale problema era ancora presente, prendendo in esame tre testi fondativi relativi alla fanfiction scritti negli anni Novanta da Henry Jenkins, Camille Bacon-Smith e Constance Penley. Studia poi il fanwriting su web dove questo problema si presenta in modo molto più sfumato e quasi scompare, a differenza dello studio di una lingua, in cui ancora esso è ben vivo. Nella terza parte il saggio si occupa dei rapporti tra linguistica e fanfictionsu web, riprendendo Labov e la linguista e pedagogista Rebecca W. Black, che esamina il fanwriting in special modo come ausilio per i discenti dell’inglese come seconda lingua (English-language learners). Qui si osserverà come già con la Black il paradosso dell’osservatore sia quasi del tutto scomparso, e come le nuove frontiere proposte dalla linguistica applicata divergano da quelle di Labov, coincidendo sostanzialmente con quelle della fanfiction su web, come peraltro osservato anche da Patricia Friedrich, che studia le nuove frontiere che essa può aprire al campo della linguistica applicata. __ It could be considered surprising to juxtapose linguistics and fanfiction as they seem to be two distinctly different phenomena, but such a comparison offers interesting outcomes since it reveals unexpected analogies and differences. Both are largely social factors, which makes them similar. Furthermore, up until the fanfiction of the 90’s, before the Internet, the two phenomena were connected by the difficulties confronted when studying them because of the so-called observer’s paradox that modified the object observed at the same time as it was being observed. On this assumption, this article tries to individuate the moments in which this problem was still present by examining three founder texts written by fanfictionwriters in the 90’s, Henry Jenkins, Camille Bacon-Smith and Constance Penley. My article studies fanwriting on the web where this problem appears much more blurred and almost disappears, differently from the study of a language, where it is very much alive. The third part of the dissertation is taken up with a discussion about the relationship between linguistics andfanfiction on the web, following in the footsteps of Labov and the educationalist Rebecca W. Black who examines fanwritingin such a way as to help English- language learners as a second language. Here we will already see that with Black theobserver’s paradox has almost disappeared entirely and the new frontiers proposed by applied linguistics have diverged from those of Labov, coinciding to a greater extent with those of fanfiction on the web, as observed by Patricia Freidrich who studies the new frontiers that can be opened up in the field of applied linguistics.