A new standard Italian: survey on the academic writing of students of the universities of Palermo and Messina

In the mid-1980s, Sabatini and Berruto theorised the need to support the Italian standard via non-standard varieties (“average use,” or neo-standard) towards which the norm’s barycentre progressively had shifted. Thirty years later, and in light of the dynamism that the uses of speakers have impressed on the system, the issue has become a central one yet again.
This paper investigates the main features of university students’ written language. The corpus consists of 300 e-mails sent to professors and 150 drafts of degree dissertations, produced by students of the degree courses in Humanities, Foreign Languages, Education, and Communication of the Universities of Palermo and Messina.
Despite lacking any quantitative relevance, the results of this research allow us to identify which features of neo-standard Italian are now accepted by speakers in their language uses at the level of (semi-)formal writing, such as academic writing, and to propose a new reflection on the need to redefine the norm of contemporary Italian.

Richard Rorty postulates that we relinquish relying on the “Platonic” idea of something common to us all, something uniting us with others, and cease the search for both universal justifications and truths. Rorty fears, and backs his fears with examples from history, that referring to something uniting us may serve those who shall state that there is some right, true model of living, of collective cooperation, and that only one form of social and political organization is right for us. Because if there is a truth about human beings, about relations with others, then in accordance with the traditional way of thinking, we should act on it, and any opposing action, freethinking, should not take place. Each and every human being should act according to fixed – uncovered – standards, and those who disobey should be directed onto the right path. In short, one of Rorty’s firm beliefs is that the idea of human being, of truth, particular perspectives determine our choices – perhaps this is how Rorty’s intuition may be expressed within one sentence. But is such an opinion justified? In the hereby article I shall say it is not; whether we are universalists or constructivists, our choices may be of the same kind. At the same time, having the same metaphysical or constructivist beliefs, we may arrive at quite different choices.

Contraceptives are methods used to prevent unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. It is used by both males and females that are sexually active. This study aimed at examining the awareness and use of contraceptives among female undergraduates in Federal University Oye Ekiti, Nigeria. It examined the age of sexual debut as well as frequency of contraceptives use. The study adopted the Theory of Planned Behavior (Ajzen & Fishbein, 1980) as its theoretical framework. It was a survey carried out among female undergraduates in the six faculties of the university at Oye, Ekiti. The sample size was 200 respondents randomly selected from females in the faculties. Questionnaire was the main instrument of data collection while books and academic journals were used as supporting sources. Data collected was coded and analyzed with SPSS version 2.0. The study concluded that female undergraduates of FUOYE were mostly between 16–25 years (85.5%), majority (69%) had their first sexual intercourse between 16 and 18 years, 100% of the respondents were aware of and (58%) use contraceptives frequently to prevent unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. Majority got to know about contraceptives through their friends (45.5%) and 20% equally (boyfriends and Google). Majority (76.5%) had only one sexual partner and (58%) had sex frequently. Therefore, the study recommended that the government should encourage female undergraduates with monthly stipends aimed at encouraging them to focus on their education and maintain academic stability instead of having multiple sexual partners that will distract them from reaching their goals.