The Department

PURPOSE

The Department promotes and coordinates research activities in theoretical, historical and applied linguistics and literary studies conducted in the field of foreign languages and cultures at the Milan, Brescia and Rome campuses of Università Cattolica.

BACKGROUND

Established in 1971, the first of Università Cattolica and ahead of State law, the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures has served for many years as a place of connection (and, in fact, of effective management of the complex educational reality) of the two different courses of Foreign Languages and Literatures of the Faculties of Education and Letters and Philosophy. The creation in 1990 of a separate Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, which took charge of the overall linguistic problems of the University by reabsorbing its structures, brought the Department back to its original and never neglected scientific vocation.

With Rector's Decree no. 375 of 31-3-2003, the new name Linguistic Sciences and Foreign Literatures proposed by the Department Council of 26-6-2002 was approved.

The meetings of the seminar on general linguistics, conceived by Prof. Eddo Rigotti in the early nineties, have contributed substantially to the scientific activity and training of the Department's young scholars. In addition, the close collaboration with the Faculty of Languages, in which, alongside the traditional philological-literary courses, profiles focused on languages and economics, political science and communication have been consolidated, has directed the Department's interest towards increasingly interdisciplinary research.

Today, studies are conducted on the languages, linguistics, cultures and literatures of seven languages (Arabic, Chinese, French, English, Russian, Spanish and German). In addition, research is active in the field of general linguistics, language teaching, Italian language and European civilization.