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Grammar and Historical Materialism: Linguistic Education in Italian Communist Party Schools (1947-1977)
Tonelli, Anna
2019
Abstract
The Italian Communist Party organised and founded a well-established system of party
schools to train its cadres, with the famous Frattocchie School representing its most
important institute. One of the cornerstones of the teaching provided to students from
the popular classes (mainly workers and peasants) concerned study methods aimed at
reading, understanding and using the concepts of classic Marxist writings. Students at
these schools would have to engage in written work to show their understanding of the theories of historical materialism and comprehension of the usefulness of the party
school. The subjects taught also included grammar, logic and linguistics, since future
cadres would need to be able to write and to speak correctly in public. This article reconstructs the different stages of linguistic teaching for political purposes over a timescale
ranging from the post-war period to the mid-1970s, highlighting the persistence and
splits in method and content.
Journal
Studi di Storia
Publisher
EUT Edizioni Università di Trieste
Source
Anna Tonelli, "Grammar and Historical Materialism: Linguistic Education in Italian Communist Party Schools (1947-1977)" in: "Words of Power, the Power of Words. The Twentieth-Century Communist Discourse in International Perspective", Trieste, EUT Edizioni Università di Trieste, 2019, 57-74
Languages
en
Rights
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 Internazionale
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