Multilingualism and Migrants: The Case of Latin American Linguistic Landscape in Italy

Recent migratory phenomena affecting Italy have significantly modified its linguistic landscape (LL), especially in areas with greater concentrations of immigration, such as some northern and central cities. These transformations have been studied as signs of a new multilingualism and variation in the Italian linguistic space, reflecting the presence of communities with different linguistic and cultural backgrounds. After a brief overview of existing research, this chapter focuses on the Latin American LL in Milan, characterized by linguistic hybridization and the prominence of identity values, mainly involving food and music, with which migrants contribute to the symbolic construction of the social space. A model for the classification of multilingual units in the LL of migratory contexts will also be proposed.