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This is a contribution from Token: A Journal of English Linguistics
Volume 13/2021.
Edited by John G. Newman, Marina Dossena and Sylwester Łodej.
© 2021 Jan Kochanowski University Press.
Jan Kochanowski University Press
DOI: 10.25951/4823
“Santa mozzarella!”: The construction of Italianness
in Luca (Disney and Pixar, 2021)
Davide Passa
Sapienza University of Rome/University of Silesia
ABSTRACT
Eighty-one years after Pinocchio (1940), Walt Disney and Pixar are back with a new
animated film set entirely in Italy, Luca (2021). It is a coming-of-age story based on
a deep friendship between two sea monster boys and a human girl from Portorosso, an
imaginary sea coastal town in the Cinque Terre (Liguria), in the nostalgic mid-1950s. This
study intends to investigate the construction of Italianness in the film on the visual and
acoustic levels. First, this article will briefly examine the visual representation of Italian
people, objects and traditions that contribute to the overall construction of fictional
Italianness in the film. Then, the fictional language used to characterise the inhabitants
of Portorosso to distinguish them from the sea monsters will be examined in more
detail; this will be done by analysing code-switching instances, where Italianisms will
be included in four different categories. Unlike Pinocchio, Luca’s producers have created
an artificial code that is of particular interest to researchers in the field of Sociolinguistics
and Audiovisual Studies. This study will mainly focus on the construction of identity and
Kozloff’s functions of film dialogues. In the final sections of the article, which will analyse
code-switching, Brown and Levinson’s impoliteness theory will also be addressed.
Keywords: sociolinguistics, English linguistics, film studies, characterisation, fictional
language.
1. Introduction
Despite the repetition of common stereotypes typical of audiovisual products
(Lippi-Green 2012), Luca can be considered a tribute to Italian culture. It is an
American fantasy film which was produced by Pixar Animation Studios and
distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures in June 2021. It is the
Token: A Journal of English Linguistics 13, 2021
DaviDe Passa
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second full-length Pixar film after Soul that, due to Covid-19, has not been
released in theatres but exclusively on Disney+. The film is directed by the
Genoese Enrico Casarosa, written by Jesse Andrews and Mike Jones, and
produced by Andrea Warren. It is set on the Italian Riviera, in the fictional
coastal village of Portorosso (the name is a blend of those of the Italian
villages of Portovenere and Monterosso), inspired by the Cinque Terre in
Liguria, in northwest Italy. The setting and soundtrack are inspired by
Italian society of the mid-1950s, “a golden age that feels timeless” (Nemiroff
2021), giving the film a touch of Italian nostalgia that is often stereotypically
used in audiovisual products. The film centres on Luca, an adorable 13-year-
old sea monster boy who lives with his species under the water’s surface.
The sea monsters have the ability to assume human form on land, unless
water touches their body, which causes them to revert to sea monster form.
In a reverse perspective, however, the audience sympathises with the sea
creatures and sees humans as a threat to them. The people of Portorosso,
especially the fishermen sailing distant waters, occasionally spot them and
put the sea monsters’ lives at risk. The barriers between humans and sea
monsters are broken down at the end of the film when the two species finally
coexist in the town of Portorosso and several minor characters – especially
lovely old Italian women – reveal their true nature as sea monsters. In the
style of a coming-of-age story, Luca meets Alberto, another sea monster boy,
who encourages the protagonist to venture out of the sea for the first time
and shows him his ability to look human when dry, which had been kept
secret by his family. The film can be interpreted on several levels, and the
messages that it conveys are equally diverse – deep friendship, inclusion,
exaltation of differences, love. As the producer Andrea Warren explains, “we
always liked the idea that the metaphor of being a sea monster can apply
to so many different things. There is a theme of openness, showing oneself
and self-acceptance, as well as community acceptance” (Jefferson 2021). In
an over-interpretive mood, Luca has been seen as the story of a homosexual
relationship between Luca and Alberto, who, in order to be accepted by
society, hide their true sea monster identity; others have interpreted the film
as a metaphor for refugees and immigrants. The director welcomed all these
interpretations, but admitted that it was all unintentional (Style 2021). In
a nostalgic vein, however, Luca is primarily a tribute to Italy in its depiction of
a typical 1950s-1960s Italian summer by the sea, “the summers of our youth
– those formative years when you’re finding yourself ” (Jefferson 2021). In
preparation for the film, Disney and Pixar sent some of the film’s artists on
a research trip to the Cinque Terre, where they took photos of the region’s
“Santa mozzarella!”: The construction of Italianness in Luca 121
landscape and people. For many of them, the trip to Italy meant visiting the
places their ancestors came from, and their emotional engagement is evident
in the film. The portrayal of the landscape and the people is meticulous, if
often clichéd.
2. Aim and methodology
This article will analyse how Italianness is constructed in Luca. After watching
the film several times in the original language – i.e. in English – I have
noted a variety of elements used to portray fictional Italian people, culture
and society. Since this work aims to contribute to the existing literature on
linguistic issues, it will only briefly touch on non-linguistic elements and
will focus on the fictional language used to represent Italian characters. The
analysis will mainly deal with:
(a) Giulia Marcovaldo, an Italian girl who loves adventure and the
entire universe. She studies in Genoa, the city of great opportunities,
but returns to Portorosso in the summer to live with her father
– a fisherman; she helps him deliver fish to people’s houses in
Portorosso. She befriends Luca and Alberto and tries to help them win
the Portorosso Cup.
(b) Massimo Marcovaldo, Giulia’s father. Despite his size and skill with
a knife, he has a soft heart, especially for his daughter.
(c) Ercole Visconti is the local bully of Portorosso, a repeat winner of the
Portorosso Cup race. He has two henchmen, Ciccio and Guido, ready
to do his bidding. Ercole Visconti embodies the Italian guy who loves
fashion, wears expensive clothes and loafers and bullies other kids
who do not wear fashionable and expensive clothes.
(d) People on the street.
This study is mainly concerned with the construction of identity – primarily
through language – and Kozloff’s functions of film dialogue; Brown and
Levinson’s impoliteness theory will be applied in the final sections of the
study, where instances of code-switching are examined and Italianisms are
presented in four different categories. The originality of this paper lies in
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the fact that it provides a detailed description of the visual and especially
acoustic strategies used to construct fictional Italian characters in a 2021
Disney and Pixar film. Eighty-one years after the release of Pinocchio (1940),
Disney and Pixar are back with another film set entirely in Italy. However, as
will be discussed in the following sections, Luca differs from Pinocchio in the
way it portrays Italians linguistically.
3. Fictional voices
Voice is one of the means available to directors to give their characters their
own personality and identity. The quality of the voice changes depending
on various sociolinguistic variables such as age, social and geographical
origin, gender, and sex, but also on factors not directly related to society and
culture, such as the speaker’s emotional state, health condition, or distinctive
pronunciation (e.g. stuttering, sigmatism). The use of non-standard voices is
of particular importance in audiovisual products, where they are often used
to convey social and dialectal features of fictional speakers, and “especially
in contemporary fictional dialogue, build on a network of references and
allusions which are deeply embedded in a precise regional and social context”
(Montini – Ranzato 2021: 2). Although the term “voice” alludes more directly
to the articulatory nature of accents, it is often used to refer to both accent and
dialect. Nevertheless, worth noting is Trudgill’s (1994: 7) distinction between
the two terms, according to which accent “simply refers to pronunciation”
while dialect “has to do also with the grammatical forms that you use, as
well, perhaps, as any regional vocabulary that you employ.” Audiovisual
products “are particularly versatile to embed and exploit the potentialities of
the representation of accents and dialects: in a way which is arguably more
potent than on the written page, audiences are exposed to different modes
of speech, and this contributes to highlighting the relationship between
standard and non-standard English” (Montini – Ranzato 2021: 4).
Sarah Kozloff (2000: 33) has presented a taxonomy in which she lists as
many as nine functions of dialogue in audiovisual products. However, it is
beyond the scope of this article to discuss them all, as this study focuses only
on the functions that are actually used to characterise the fictional Italians
in Luca. Additionally, Ranzato (2021: 153) maintains that dialects “can be
thought of as having been devised by authors to achieve one or more of the
ends listed in (Kozloff’s) taxonomy which can thus be applied to the analysis
and interpretation of accented dialogue.” She explains that
“Santa mozzarella!”: The construction of Italianness in Luca 123
non-standard accents are used especially to […] provide the necessary
context for the character (anchorage of the diegesis): they can tell us
where the story is set and the origins of the character, their regional
and social milieu; and they are used to make dialogue sound more
realistic (adherence to the code of realism) and perhaps more relevant
to our current social, even political concerns. Dialects […] are used
sometimes in ways that are at the opposite end of realism, even
unnaturally, dissonantly, in a blatantly ‘fake’ way to construct an
idiolect which provides very often, but not always, a comic relief
(exploitation of the resources of language).
As will be explained in the following sections, only two of the functions listed
by Kozloff are exploited in Luca, namely “anchorage to the diegesis” and
“exploitation of the resources of language”; on the other hand, “adherence
to the code of realism” is consistently disregarded.
Nevertheless, audiovisual language must be treated with caution,
and any generalisation should be well considered. It departs from real
language because it is non-spontaneous and pre-fabricated; it is inauthentic
orality, a mere imitation of spontaneously spoken language (Pavesi et al.
2015: 7). Ferguson (1998) defines the study of fictional linguistic varieties
occurring in literature as ficto-linguistics, and Hodson (2014: 14) explains that
the designation “ficto-linguistics can be extended to include the study of
language varieties in all works of fiction, including narrative poetry, film
and television”. Audiovisual dialogue is an “inaccurate” imitation of natural
conversation that has been “scripted, written and rewritten, censored,
polished, rehearsed, and performed. The actual hesitations, repetitions,
digressions, grunts, interruptions, and mutterings of everyday speech have
either been pruned away, or, if not, deliberately included” (Kozloff 2000: 18).
Therefore, many linguistic features that recur in the use of language in the
real world (e.g. hesitations, interruptions, ongoing corrections, etc.), and
which are mostly invisible and taken for granted due to the improvised
nature of spoken language, acquire their own meaning when they occur
in audiovisual language, which is not a spoken variety tout court, but rather
a written-to-be-spoken language; it is not un-prepared and spontaneous,
therefore each linguistic and paralinguistic feature contributes to the
construction of the speaker’s identity. For this reason, when writing film
dialogues, producers choose very carefully the linguistic features that
will characterise their fictional speakers. The characters’ identities are
thus constructed on the basis of what they do and the way they speak.
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In a poststructuralist vein, identity is not something that an individual is
born with, but rather a social and cultural construction that is also based
on language, as “the relationship between language and identity is rather
considered as constructive” (Motschenbacher 2011: 153). It is also through
language that speakers create and perform their identities, and it is also in
the language that one’s identities are reflected and to be found. It does not
follow that the language a speaker uses results from a particular identity;
rather, language is one of the ways that people have to shape their identities.
Identity is not something an individual has, but something an individual
does; “rather than have identities, people perform them” (McConnell-Ginet
2001: 8). The same is true for fictional people.
However, since fictional characters should be easily categorised and
recognised by the audience, they are usually endowed with a reduced number
of linguistic features that are reiterated in audiovisual and literary products.
This is directly related to the use of stereotypes, which is a common practice
in the process of media characterisation (Gross 1991: 26-27). Studies in the
field of sociolinguistics have showed that the media play an important role in
reinforcing linguistic stereotypes (Lippi-Green 2012), which are “uninformed
and frequently culturally-biased over generalisations about subgroups that
may or may not be based on a small degree of truth” (Swann et al. 2004: 298).
Hall (1997: 258) claims that “stereotypes get hold of the few simple, vivid,
memorable, easily grasped and widely recognized characteristics about
a person, reduce everything about the person to those traits, exaggerate and
simplify them, and fix them without change or development to eternity.”
The selective nature of stereotyping is highlighted by Ranzato and Zanotti
(2018: 1), who maintain that “[r]epresentation is always the result of an act
of selection of traits and features, both visual and verbal.”
As will be detailed below, Italianisms usually occur when code-
switching takes place, signalling that the transition from English to Italian
is due either to a sudden emotional shift (e.g. fear, surprise, anger) or to
a perceived intimacy, or both, mainly in the form of kinship terms (e.g. a boy
addresses his father as “papà”) and diminutives (“oh, piccolina mia”, said
by Ercole to his Vespa). As will be discussed more thoroughly, emotional
shift often leads to impoliteness, where, as Brown and Levinson (1987)
argue, linguistic Face Threatening Acts (FTAs) occur. People have an identity
face that they seek to preserve and promote in their social relationships.
Impoliteness occurs when at least one FTA is used to attack someone’s face,
i.e. when people’s desire to be acknowledged and not to be impeded in their
actions is deliberately disrespected.
“Santa mozzarella!”: The construction of Italianness in Luca 125
4. Analysis
In this section, the film Luca is analysed from two main perspectives: the
visual and the acoustic codes. The first includes all the visual elements that
contribute to the construction of Italianness, while the second includes
both the soundtrack and the fictional language spoken by the characters.
Both codes are examined in order to describe in detail how the producers
managed to construct Italianness in the film. It should be borne in mind that
this is an American production, which affects the way Italian elements are
portrayed.
4.1 Visual code
Two settings are shown in the film: Portorosso and the realm beneath the
water’s surface inhabited by sea monsters. The former is of particular
importance to this study and is shown right from the opening scene of the
film, which sets the story in an Italian seaside landscape, where the sleeping
town is depicted in the moonlight as Gelsomina, a small boat with its lampara, 1
cuts through the waves. Two fishermen wear a beret, a traditional hat usually
associated with men from the South – especially Sicily – but used here as
a form of generalisation to characterise two men from Liguria, in north-
western Italy. The location is made clear by a map written in Italian, showing
Mar Ligure and Liguria. In addition, the two fishermen enjoy opera music
played by an old gramophone, while nostalgically admiring the sea. The
landscape is typically Italian, with marvellous sun and water, rocks, sand,
Mediterranean maquis shrubland, olive trees, vines and seagulls. Posters, shop
signs, books, menus displayed outside restaurants, everything containing
the written language is in Italian. When Luca meets Alberto, the latter shows
him a poster depicting a boy on a Vespa 2 with the motto “Vespa è libertà” 3.
Other posters show Italian food and drinks (e.g. Chinotto, 4 ice-creams) and
artistic products (e.g. “Vacanze Romane”, 5 “La Strada”, 6 “Pinocchio”, the
Colosseum, Leonardo da Vinci’s flying machine). The boats have Italian
1 Fishing lamp used in the Mediterranean to attract fish.
2 An Italian scooter brand manufactured by Piaggio. The name means wasp in Italian.
3 “Vespa is freedom” (my translation)
4 A traditional Italian soft drink that tastes like Coke but has a bittersweet flavour and
is made from the juice of the fruit of the myrtle-leaved orange tree.
5 A 1953 American romantic comedy film set in Rome and produced by William Wyler.
6 A 1954 Italian film directed by Federico Fellini.
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names painted on their sides (Gelsomina, Elena, Focaccia). The people in
Portorosso have mainly dark hair and eyes and tanned skin, as is typical
of Italians. The women wear dresses and scarves on their heads (especially
old women), while the men wear berets. Some women carry baskets full of
laundry on their heads; laundry is hung outside of the buildings, directly
above people’s heads. The buildings are old and colourful, with beautiful
balconies and plants. Old men play “scopa”, a traditional Italian card game,
while old women comment on the passengers. Boys play football in the
square, where a white Fiat 500, a red Vespa and an Ape 7 are parked. People
drink espresso, eat watermelon, ice-cream, sandwiches and pasta (e.g.
trenette al pesto 8). The sea monsters visiting Portorosso enjoy Italian cuisine,
as is typical for foreign tourists. Street names are marked by picturesque
signs, as is typical of Italian tourist towns (but not only). Painted on the
buildings are shop signs like “Bar Pittaluga”, “Circolo Pescatori”, “Latteria
San Giorgio”, “Trattoria 9 da Marina”, “Bar Giotto”, “Focacceria”, “Pescheria”,
“Bar piccolo”, “Alimentari 10 Rispetto”. All the locals in Portorosso talk with
their hands and over-gesticulate as is customary (and stereotypical?) among
Italians. The price tag on a Vespa shows the amount in Lire, the old Italian
currency that was replaced by the Euro in 2002.
4.2 Acoustic code
The acoustic level is the main concern of this study. Two elements contribute
acoustically to the construction of Italianness in the original, English film:
the soundtrack and the fictional language spoken by the characters.
4.2.1 Soundtrack
Like the visual elements analysed in the previous section, the soundtrack
helps to place the story in time and create the Italian nostalgia of the mid-
1950s. Foreign audiences may not be able to place the story exactly in time,
as the chronological references are not explicit but rather implied by certain
songs or visual elements; nevertheless, the stereotypical image foreigners
have of Italy is very much in line with what Italy looked like some sixty
years ago. These culture-specific references (CSRs) situate the film in the
7 Ape is a three-wheeled light commercial vehicle, manufactured and marketed by
Piaggio.
8 It is a traditional Ligurian dish.
9 A trattoria is an Italian restaurant, usually less formal than a ristorante;
10 An alimentari is a typical Italian grocery shop.
“Santa mozzarella!”: The construction of Italianness in Luca 127
1950s-1960s. More specifically, the posters of “Vacanze Romane” and “La
Strada”, both films from 1953-1954, can be seen as references successfully
positioning the story in time. The songs and opera music included in the
soundtrack also help to revive the nostalgic mid-1950s. However, when the
scenery shifts to below the water’s surface, these Italian popular songs and
arias are replaced by unfamiliar celestial background sounds and songs,
but using musical instruments commonly associated with Italian folk music
(e.g. accordion). The film opens with “Un Bacio a Mezzanotte”, 11 which
immediately sets the story in place and time. In the opening scene, an old
gramophone plays “O Mio Babbino Caro”, 12 an aria used repeatedly in
Anglophone audiovisual products to give the scene a touch of Italianness
(e.g. in James Ivory’s 1985 A Room with a View; John Huston’s 1985 Prizzi’s
Honor; Steve Bendelack’s 2007 Mr. Bean’s Holiday; Olivier Dahan’s 2014
Grace of Monaco). Giulia’s father, Massimo Marcovaldo, sings “Largo al
Factotum”, 13 and whistles “La Donna è Mobile”, 14 and the cavatina “Una
Voce Poco Fa”. 15 The song “Il Gatto e la Volpe” 16 is used to portray the deep
friendship between Luca and Alberto. Although the song is anachronistic
– as it was composed in the 1970s – it is inspired by the Cat and the Fox,
two characters from the Italian novel The Adventures of Pinocchio (Collodi
1883), which has become one of the symbols of Italian culture in the world.
“Andavo a Cento All’ora” 17 is used to portray the so-called “Italian economic
miracle”, an expression used to refer to the long-lasting period of strong
economic growth in Italy, especially in the years 1958-1963. “Andavo a Cento
All’ora” (literally, I was driving 100 km/hr) refers to speed and new means
of transport such as the Vespa and Fiat 500; in the film, the song is played
by Ercole Visconti’s radio while he drives a loud red Vespa. Similarly, “Fatti
Mandare dalla Mamma” 18 is used to refer to the typical lifestyle of the 1960s,
as is “Viva la Pappa al Pomodoro”, 19 which is played in a scene involving
food. The credits are accompanied by “Città Vuota”, an iconic song released
in 1963 by the most famous Italian female singer of all time, Mina. However,
11 A very famous Italian song by Quartetto Cetra, released in 1952.
12 A soprano aria from the opera Gianni Schicchi by Giacomo Puccini (1918).
13 An aria from The Barber of Seville” by Gioacchino Rossini (1775).
14 An aria from Giuseppe Verdi’s “Rigoletto” (1851).
15 An aria from The Barber of Seville” by Gioacchino Rossini (1775).
16 A song composed by Edoardo Bennato in 1977.
17 A song released by Gianni Morandi in his first album, in 1963.
18 A song released by Gianni Morandi in 1962.
19 A song by Rita Pavone, released in 1965, when Il giornalino di Gian Burrasca by Vamba
was adapted into a popular RAI TV-series starring Rita Pavone in the title role. “Pappa
al pomodoro” is a traditional dish from Tuscany, including bread and tomato.
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foreign audiences may not understand the song lyrics nor have enough
Italian CSRs; nevertheless, the purpose of culture-specific elements in Luca
is not to provide the foreign audience with content they should understand,
but rather to provide formal elements that match the foreign audience’s
expectation of what it means to live in Italy and to be Italian. The soundtrack
and visual elements (e.g. objects, food, buildings, people) do not reflect the
real, contemporary Italy that is gradually losing its peculiar characteristics,
as is common in many countries and especially in touristic areas. CSRs are
used to create an emotional response to certain sounds and images that tend
to repeat stereotypes about Italians that are used over and over again in
audiovisual products. Luca, in fact, offers no unexpected representation of
Italianness, and everything fits into the stereotypical portrayal of Italians in
fiction.
4.2.2 Language
Italianness is a feature that characterises above all the inhabitants in
Portorosso. Nevertheless, not only are the proper names of the inhabitants
of Portorosso Italian, but also those of the sea monsters, whose surnames are
often translations of fish species into Italian. The surnames of the protagonists,
Paguro and Scorfano, mean “hermit crab” and “rockfish” respectively. Other
sea monsters are Mr Branzino and Bianca Branzino (seabass) and Mrs
Aragosta (lobster). Additional names include Caterina, Giuseppe, Enrico,
Daniela, Uncle Ugo, and Mona Lisa, the last name being a reference to the
painting by Leonardo da Vinci. The CSRs to the fish species in Italian will be
fully understood only by Italians, who are undoubtedly those who enjoy the
film the most. Nevertheless, as with the soundtrack and visual elements, the
formal level of these CSRs – i.e. the exotic sound of the surnames – will help
to create the mental image of Italians in the foreign audience.
The language used by the characters in the original English version is
a hot topic in recent articles discussing the film. 20 It seems to me that there
is a big linguistic difference between the inhabitants under the water’s
surface and the locals in Portorosso. The former tend to use standard North-
American English, while the people of Portorosso tend to adopt a kind of
Italian English that, in line with Kozloff’s function of “adherence to the
diegesis”, is responsible for creating the fictional world of the narrative. This
Italian English variety is completely unrealistic and deviates from the norm in
pronunciation and the use of Italianisms. What strikes the viewer, however, is
20 See, for example, Clarke (2021); Hogarty (2021); NPR (2021).
“Santa mozzarella!”: The construction of Italianness in Luca 129
the portrayal of Italians speaking English – a language different from Italian.
The opening scene not only sets the spatial and temporal framework for the
story – as already described – but also establishes the linguistic variety that
the viewer will experience throughout the film. The fishermen Tommaso
and Giacomo speak English with a strong Italian accent, which is strange
as there seems to be no reason why two old, Italian fishermen in Liguria
would do so. The variety used by the people of Portorosso, referred to in this
article as Italian English, does not aim to realistically reflect the way people
would speak in the Cinque Terre in the mid-1950s. Kozloff’s function of
“adherence to the code of realism”, which aims to make the dialogues sound
realistic, despite being perfectly adaptable to accented voices, as suggested
by Ranzato (2021), is rather disregarded in Luca.
The Italian English variety certainly aims to anchor the characters in
the diegesis, but the function of film dialogues that is most used in Luca is
“exploitation of the resources of language”, where the audiovisual language
is anything but realistic, being rather an artificial variety that creates a comic
effect. The way inlanders pronounce English is certainly comical for English
speakers, and the same goes for Italians when it comes to Italianisms, which
are often mispronounced or creatively invented as if the characters were
foreigners and not from Liguria. Both the varieties (i.e. the standard North-
American English used by the sea monsters and the Italian English used
by the people of Portorosso) are rather informal and colloquial as well as
anachronistic, since the English slang words used in the film do not fully
correspond to the years in which the story is set. Moreover, it is not surprising
that the two protagonists of the film belong to the underwater world, where
the standard language is spoken; as a matter of fact, Italian English is mainly
used to portray minor characters (who are, however, consistently shown on
screen), such as Ercole Visconti, Massimo Marcovaldo, and other passengers
like a priest, a policewoman, fishermen, and old men and women on the
street. They play a more or less secondary role in the film, with the exception
of Giulia Marcovaldo, who could be considered a co-protagonist. Despite
the use of Italianisms and typical features of Italian English, Giulia’s accent
is less strong than the others’, perhaps due to her more central role in the
film, or her stay in Genoa for her studies. Had the protagonists spoken
this fake English variety full of Italianisms all the time, it might have been
more difficult to follow the story and the audience would have struggled
to empathise with these characters; the reason for this is what is known as
“reader resistance”, which is perfectly adaptable to audiovisual texts – caused
by “rendered speech that departs to any appreciable degree from standard
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colloquial speech” (Toolan 1992: 34). Surprisingly, there is no evidence of
Italian dialects or non-standard Italian accents in the English film, which is
unexpected given the chronological and social setting (i.e. mainly working-
class fishermen in the 1950s). It is hard to believe that mainly old people
in a small town in Italy in the mid-1950s would speak standard Italian and
not non-standard dialects. The Italian lexicon used in Luca is not dialectal,
but rather belongs to what Sobrero – Miglietta (2011: 99) call “italiano
popolare”, 21 “quell’insieme di usi frequentemente ricorrenti nel parlare
e (quando sia il caso) nello scrivere di persone non istruite e che per lo più
nella vita quotidiana usano il dialetto, caratterizzati da numerose devianze
rispetto a quanto previsto dall’italiano standard normativo.” 22
The Italian English variety is characterised by the following
phonological and prosodic features, partly adapted from Mammen – Sonkin
(1936) and used throughout to represent the Portorosso people in Luca. In
particular:
(a) Vowels
•Because Italian has fewer vowels than English does (7 compared to
20), and certain vowel substitutions occur here, this variety shows
areductioninthenumberofvowelsused,thus[i:]for[i:]and[ı],[u:]
for [u:] and [ʊ], etc.; moreover, speakers of Italian pronounce some
English vowels with greater quantity (length);
•Certain diphthongs show monophthongization of [eɪ] to [e:], and [ou]
to [ɔ:];
•Occasional paragoge of the vowel schwa [ə] results in the addition of
this vowel to the ends of consonant-final English words, since Italian
words are regularly vowel-final;
(b) Consonants
•[r] is pronounced and trilled in all positions, especially inter-vocalic
ones;
•[Ɵ] and [ð] are pronounced as [t] and [d];
•The plosives [p] and [k] can be dentalised and unaspirated;
•In initial, prevocalic position, [h] is dropped, as in Italian;
21 Popular Italian.
22 Linguistic uses that are typical of the spoken and (sometimes) written language,
common among uneducated people who mainly use dialect in daily life, and
characterised by numerous deviations from standard Italian. (author’s translation)
“Santa mozzarella!”: The construction of Italianness in Luca 131
(c) Prosody
•Intonation exhibits a pitch range which is wider than it is in English;
•Suprasegmental patterns differ from those of English, and syllable
timing, regular in Italian, can replace stress timing, which results in
increased stress on syllables receiving secondary or tertiary stress in
English.
From a lexical perspective, code-switching is consistent throughout the film.
Code-switching “refers to instances when speakers switch between codes
(languages, or language varieties) in the course of a conversation. Switches
may involve different amounts of speech and different linguistic units – from
several consecutive utterances to individual words and morphemes” (Swann
et al. 2004: 40). Code-switching in Luca occurs mainly inter-sententially, i.e.
a switch occurs at the end of a sentence/clause-level unit and marks the
unit that follows. However, there are also cases of intra-sentential code-
switching – also known as code-mixing – which “involves the embedding or
mixing of various linguistic units […] from two distinct grammatical systems
or subsystems within the same sentence and the same speech situation”
(Tay 1989: 408). Inter- and intra-sentential code-switching thus signal the
different identities with which a speaker is endowed and which are reflected
in (or rather constructed by) the different codes s/he uses. In Luca, however,
this does not seem to be the case. Code-switching does not signal that the
people of Portorosso can speak both English and Italian, but is a fictional
construction to convey the idea that the people of Portorosso are Italian
and, in a strange agreement between the producers and the audience, must
restrict their Italian to certain situations and use English more extensively
in order to be understood by the English-speaking audience. The use of
English is only functional for understanding, and the true identity of the
people of Portorosso is revealed when they speak Italian – their “real”
language. Code-switching does not occur randomly, and many situational
variables and grammatical rules influence the frequency and position of
code-switching. In Luca’s case, for instance, code-switching seems to occur
more frequently when the speaker experiences an emotional shift, often
but not necessarily for face attacking purposes. The expression “emotional
shift” has been adapted from Hodson’s “emotional style-shifting”, which,
in contrast to code-switching, refers to a change between speech styles
within a single language (my emphasis) caused by a sudden change in the
speaker’s emotional state. Emotional style-shifting occurs when characters
are surprised, upset or disturbed from their normal emotional state; the
DaviDe Passa
132
same is true of code-switching, which, unlike style-shifting, is an inter-
linguistic phenomenon that occurs when characters switch from one code
to another. Through “emotional” code-switching, speakers show their true
nature, because speech styles expressed when people are under emotional
pressure seem to be more authentic (Hodson 2014: 174-175).
The Italianisms in Luca have four main functions, which are quite well
balanced, as can be seen in Figure 1.
11
12
11
8
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
Italian CSRs Exclamations Exhortations Insults
Figure 1. Italianisms in Luca
They occur more frequently in
exclamations (29%), which generally
express a sudden emotional shift.
As can be seen in Table 1, most
exclamations do not exist in Italian
and are constructed on the basis
of typical Italian food (“per mille
sardine”, “per mille cavoli”, “santa
mozzarella”, “santa ricotta”, “santo
pecorino”, “santo gorgonzola”). They
replace common Italian expressions
that contain religious elements that
would not be understood by the
English-speaking audience (e.g.
“santo cielo”, “santi numi”, “santa
madre”) with typical Italian food that
is well-known abroad and in most of
the cases cannot be translated into
Table 1. Exclamations
Exclamations
“Per mille sardine!”
“Mannaggia, here we go!”
“Mannaggia, not a great catch
today!”
“Santa mozzarella, we did it!”
“Santo pecorino, that’s the best
idea ever!”
“Porca paletta, what was that?”
“Per mille cavoli, Guido!”
“Mamma mia!”
“Oh mamma mia, please no more
ravving!”
“La mia bambina! Oh mamma mia!”
“Santa ricotta!”
“Oh santo gorgonzola, I need to
pack for school!”
“Santa mozzarella!”: The construction of Italianness in Luca 133
English (e.g. mozzarella, pecorino, ricotta, gorgonzola). These exclamations
are mainly used to express surprise (e.g. a fisherman shouts “per mille
sardine!” after seeing sea monsters; Luca exclaims “santa mozzarella!” after
riding a bike for the first time; Giulia exclaims “santa ricotta!” after finding
out that Luca and Alberto are sea monsters), which is also expressed with
the exclamation “porca paletta!”. The interjection “mannaggia”, 23 which
also occurs in Italian, is used to express bother (as in “mannaggia, here
we go!” exclaimed by a policewoman when she hears Ercole’s noisy Vespa
approaching) and regret (“mannaggia, not a great catch today!”, exclaimed
by Massimo Marcovaldo). Fear is expressed above all with “mamma mia”,
when Ercole is afraid of the sea monsters or his sparkling Vespa falls down.
“Mamma mia” also expresses exhaustion as in “mamma mia, please, no
more raving!”.
Italianisms are also used for Italian culture-specific references (CSRs,
26%, see Table 2), i.e. “words or composed locutions typical of a geographical
environment, of a culture, of the material life or of historical-social
peculiarities of a people, nation, country, or tribe and which, thus, carry
a national, local or historical colouring and do not have precise equivalents
in other languages” (Ranzato 2015: 67). In Luca, Italianisms are used to
express mainly ethnographic references, 24 more specifically objects of daily
life (pescheria, 25 trenette al pesto,
pasta, fusilli, trofie, cannelloni,
lasagne, espresso, olio d’oliva 26).
There is a case of socio-political
CSR (Maggiore 27), which refers to
institutions and functions. Most
CSRs refer to typical Italian food
and drinks that are well known all
over the world. CSRs borrowed
from a foreign language are
useful for constructing an exotic
environment, as they convey an
air of foreignness.
23 Damn!
24 For a classification of CSRs, see Díaz Cintas – Remael (2007: 201).
25 Fishmonger.
26 Olive oil.
27 Major.
Table 2. Italian culture-specific references
Italian culture-specific references
“It smells like behind the pescheria”
“Maggiore, another sighting, in the
harbour this time”
“Dinner’s ready. Trenette al pesto”
“Every year they change the pasta.
You have to be ready for everything.
Could be cannelloni, penne, fusilli, trofie,
even lasagne”
“Espresso!”
“Ciccio, hold still. Olio d’oliva”
DaviDe Passa
134
Exhortations and orders, as
shown in Table 3 (26%), imply an
emotional and power imbalance,
where speaker A imposes his/
her decision on speaker B. They
are examples of intentional FTAs
directed at speaker B’s negative
face. Brown and Levinson (1987)
claim that FTAs addressed to
the speakers’ negative face (i.e.
the desire not to be hindered in
one’s actions) take the form of
an order, a request. This is the
case with imperatives such as
“andiamo!”, 28 “mangiamo!”, 29
“via, via!”, 30 “a casa!” 31 (in this last
example, the verb “andiamo” is omitted), but also of the interjection “basta!”, 32
with which an old woman rebukes a group of noisy boys. The interjection
“forza!” 33 is used instead to support the listener – not the opposite. “Silenzio,
Bruno!” 34 is an FTA against Bruno’s negative face, an imaginary voice in Luca
and Alberto’s heads – a kind
of conscience – that clips their
wings; for this reason, it should
be silenced.
Furthermore, Italianisms
are used to express insults
(Table 4, 19%), which, unlike
exhortations, are FTAs against
people’s positive face, i.e. the
desire to be recognised. The
insults are mainly voiced by
Giulia and Ercole, both very loud
characters (Giulia complains
28 Let’s go!
29 Let’s eat!
30 Go away!
31 Go home!
32 Enough!
33 Come on!
34 Silence, Bruno!
Table 4. Insults
Insults
“What’s wrong with you, stupido!”
“’sto imbecille thinks he can be a jerk”
“Imbecille!”
“You can’t swim, you can barely wide
a bike. Siete un disastro!”
“Ma sei scemo, Ercole!?”
“Disgraziati!”
“Ah, idioti, you let it get away!”
“Eat, idiota, più veloce!”
Table 3. Exhortations
Exhortations
“Andiamooooo!”
“Stop crying and tag Guido. Andiamo!”
“Silenzio, Bruno!”
“E basta!”
“Hey, Ercole, basta!”
“Mangiamo!”
“Forza, Luca!”
“Forza, Giulietta!”
“Buongiorno, andiamo dai!”
“A casa!”
“Out of the way, via, via!”
“Santa mozzarella!”: The construction of Italianness in Luca 135
that people think she is “too much”). Giulia’s insults are mainly directed
at Ercole’s positive face (“imbecille”, 35 “scemo” 36), while Ercole’s insults are
directed at his supporters Ciccio and Guido (“disgraziati”, 37 “idioti” 38).
It is interesting to note that the use of Italian is often associated with
impoliteness. This is because most Italian characters in Luca are portrayed as
extremely dynamic, sociable and passionate people who tend to talk a lot,
loudly and expressively. However, the use of impolite Italianisms should be
seen as a natural consequence of a change in the emotional status of the
passionate Italian characters, who switch to the language “of the heart” when
they feel the need to express something heartfelt. This is common among
people who speak more than one language, one of which (or more) tends
to have affective connotations and is considered “better” for expressing
a person’s emotional status.
5. Conclusions
In 1940, Walt Disney Productions released Pinocchio, an American
animated musical fantasy film based on the 1883 Italian children’s novel
The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi. This was the second animated
film produced by Disney (after Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, 1937), and
the first (and last) film set entirely in an Italian village (in Tuscany) and
featuring only Italian characters. Most of the characters’ names are Italian
(e.g. Geppetto, Pinocchio, Figaro, Cleo, Stromboli). However, only one of
the characters, Stromboli, speaks English with a strong Italian accent. He
is a cruel puppet-maker who forces Pinocchio to perform in his theatre to
earn money and uses him as firewood when he grows old. He exemplifies
Disney’s dishonest villain. Despite his Italian accent, there is no sign of
Italianisms in the language used to portray Stromboli. When emotional
shifts occur (especially when he gets angry), he speaks slurred words with
a typical Italian prosody and sounds. The construction of Italianness in
Pinocchio is thus minimal compared to that in Luca. This could be due to
the different trends in the representation of foreign characters in the two
eras in which these products were released – i.e. the 1940s and the 2020s,
respectively.
35 Imbecile.
36 Fool.
37 Rotten.
38 Idiot.
DaviDe Passa
136
Eighty-one years after Pinocchio, Disney and Pixar are back with
a new animated film set entirely in Italy. Unlike Pinocchio, Luca is a tribute
to Italy and its culture. The visual representation of a small coastal town in
the Cinque Terre in the mid-1950s is meticulous, and the language adopted
is worth studying. The producers put extensive effort into creating an
artificial language that would convey the idea of exoticism in both time and
space. As mentioned earlier, it is an English-based variety that differs from
standard North-American English in both its pronunciation and lexicon.
The Italian accent is used to characterise only the inhabitants of Portorosso
and to distinguish them from the sea monsters living under the water’s
surface. The accent is stronger in Ercole Visconti, who embodies the loud
and boastful Italian bully, who is rich and ostentatious, and weaker in Giulia
Marcovaldo, who lives in Genoa, where she goes to school, and only returns
to Portorosso in the summer, thus losing some of the “rusticity” of Portorosso
locals. Unlike in Pinocchio, where Stromboli stammers, confusing Italian
sounds that are incomprehensible to both English-speaking audiences and
Italians, the people of Portorosso wrap up their sentences either with real
Italianisms or with creative expressions that do not exist in Italian, but are
perfectly understandable to both English-speakers and Italian-speakers.
These expressions make consistent use of typical Italian food, well-known
all over the world. As described in previous sections, characters switch
to Italian mainly in response to emotional outbursts, as evidenced by the
high frequency of Italianisms in exclamations, exhortations and insults. In
addition, Italianisms are also used for CSRs, especially to refer to food and
drink. Italian expressions are standard but belong to a low register (Italiano
popolare), characterised by colourful expressions, vernacular imprecations
(“mannaggia”), and apheresis, as in “‘sto imbecille”, where the adjective
“questo” (this) is reduced to “‘sto”. Interestingly, no Italian dialects appear,
which could be explained by commercial reasons behind the American
production of the film. Paradoxically, the effort made by Luca’s producers
to distinguish the language of the sea monsters from that of the people of
Portorosso is unfortunately lost in the Italian dubbing, where dialects could
be used for characterisation. Nevertheless, all the characters speak standard
Italian indistinctly and the funny moments created by the use of Italianisms
in the original are eliminated. While it is true that the portrayal of people of
Portorosso is more authentic in the Italian dubbed version, since they are
Italians who actually speak Italian, perhaps the Italian dubbing could have
used accents and dialects from Liguria to distinguish the inland characters
from those who live underwater, as is done mutatis mutandis in the original
version.
“Santa mozzarella!”: The construction of Italianness in Luca 137
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Address: DaviDe Passa, Sapienza Università di Roma, Dipartimento di Studi
Europei, Americani e Interculturali, Piazzale Aldo Moro 5, 00185 Roma, Italy.
ORCID code: orcid.org/0000-0003-3327-2101
