Code-switching between Italian and Neapolitan in Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend (2011) and The Story of the New Name (2012)
International Perspectives on Multilingual Literatures from Translingualism to Language Mixing, eds. Katie Jones, Julian Preece, Aled Rees, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2021, 70-85 Peer reviewed
Abstract
This chapter explores the dynamic interplay between Standard Italian and Neapolitan dialect in My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante, highlighting how language use reflects the sociocultural realities of 1950s and 1960s Italy.
Through Ferrante’s nuanced narrative, the reader witnesses how shifts between dialect and standard language are never incidental but deeply tied to questions of identity, class, and especially gender. Women in the novel, in particular, navigate a world where linguistic choice becomes a marker of power, education, and aspiration—or conversely, exclusion and marginalization.
Ferrante masterfully illustrates how language functions as both a tool and a barrier, showing how her female characters assert or lose agency through their linguistic positioning.
This analysis sheds light on the broader sociolinguistic landscape of postwar Italy and the often invisible struggles women faced in seeking empowerment through language.