Alessandro Duranti
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Alessandro Duranti was trained in linguistics at the Sapienza University of Rome (laurea, 1974), where he studied general linguistics and ethnolinguistics with Giorgio Raimondo Cardona 1943–1988), and at the University of Southern California (PhD, 1981), where he specialized in Bantu languages under Larry Hyman while working with Elinor Ochs on the conversational foundations of Italian word order patterns.His dissertation, The Fono: A Samoan Speech Event, based on 13 months of fieldwork in Falefā, on the island of 'Upolu in Samoa, focused on the language and social organization of the meeting of the local 'council' (fono) that he analyzed by extending Dell Hymes' Speech Event Model to include speechmaking across speakers and situations.
Alessandro Duranti joins the Paris IAS in September 2025 for a one-month writing residency.
Research topics
Linguistic anthropology ; agency in language; intersubjectivity and cooperation; intersubjectivity and improvisation.
Kinds of We: Linguistic evidence for differentiated collectivities
The research project is investigating the role of natural languages in the constitution of the “we” by examining the use of personal pronouns in a language, Samoan, that distinguishes between inclusive and exclusive “we” as well as between dual and plural we and does not have a generic or default “we” like English or French. The investigation is based on a corpus of transcripts of spontaneous interactions across a number of contexts, from the most informal conversations among friends or relative to the most formal discussions among community leaders.
Key Publications
Alessandro Duranti, Rethinking Politeness with Henri Bergson, Oxford University Press, 2022.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197637852.001.0001
Alessandro Duranti, The anthropology of intentions, Cambridge University Press, 2015.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139207706
Alessandro Duranti, From grammar to politics, University of California Press, 1994.
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