On Friday, 7 July 2023 at 5.30 p.m. in Viale Ottavio Mai, the University of Turin will launch a citizen science project with the aim of mapping which languages – besides Italian – are spoken in Turin. All citizens are invited to take part in a real research project to define – through photographs of road signs, store signs and writings in public places, the linguistic landscape of Turin.
The visual testimonies provided by the participants and shared on Firstlife web platform, https://unightlls.firstlife.org/wall developed by the Computer Science Department of the University of Turin, will enable us to outline the linguistic and
cultural profile of our city.
How many and which languages are used in Turin, and in which particular area? Which areas are monolingual and which multilingual? A scientific committee, consisting of professors at the University of Turin, will subsequently analyse the data collected from various points of view – sociolinguistic, socio-political, educational, geographical, economic – and will present the results during the next European Researchers’ Night on 29 and 30 September 2023 at the Giardini Reali.
The initiative is part of the UNIGHT project involving Turin – for the second year, during Europe's largest research event – as well as Covilhã, Pau, Chambery and Timisoara, and their respective UNITA Alliance partner universities.
The European Researchers’ Night has always promoted society’s participation in the research process: during the event there are many activities proposed by the University of Turin and Politecnico di Torino as well as by local research centres that focus on the scientific contribution that people can make. In particular, citizen science projects rely on the collaboration with citizens to collect data for a mutual
exchange of knowledge.
This event is part of the Luigi Einaudi Campus’ 10-year anniversary celebrations.