Marianna Marcella Bolognesi

The instructor proposes topics for Bachelor’s theses in General Linguistics for students who have attended the General Linguistics course taught by the instructor. Thesis projects will preferably focus on issues in linguistic theory, with particular attention to implications for semantics and pragmatics, as well as to the relationship between verbal language and cognition. Bachelor’s theses supervised by the instructor are primarily literature-based, consisting of a critical review of the relevant scientific literature (articles, textbooks, and monographs in Italian and English), possibly complemented by elements of experimental analysis.

The instructor also proposes topics for Master’s theses in Linguistics, which necessarily include an experimental component involving the analysis of linguistic data. Such data may be collected from linguistic corpora (and analyzed using quantitative methods) or through empirical tools such as surveys, interviews, and behavioral tasks. The experimental component must be developed within a solid and well-defined theoretical framework. Adequate preparation in quantitative data analysis is therefore recommended, including prior familiarization with the main statistical significance tests.

General Research Areas and Thesis Topics

• Semantics and abstraction processes: investigation of the role of language in the formation, structuring, and organization of conceptual categories.

• Figurative language and meaning construction: analysis of framing phenomena in written, audiovisual, and multimodal communication.

• Production and comprehension of metaphorical language: examination of cross-linguistic and cross-cultural variation in first language (L1) and second/foreign language (L2/FL) contexts.

• Linguistic creativity: study of cognitive and discursive dynamics related to metaphor, analogy, and compositional processes, with particular attention to their communicative effects.