‘Immigrant words’: a lexical renewal in Italian?

About thirty years since its birth, Italian Literature of Migration still offers many unexplored ways of research, particularly on the language of immigrant writers. A common feature is their plurilinguism: Italian and (various) mother-tongues coexist in their works. Migration does not cancel memories and images from the motherland, so Italian readers can find foreign words - probably never read before – about food, religion, culture, clothing. Do these words live beyond books? Do they truly circulate and are they truly used in Italian? Do these words represent a real lexical innovation due to the presence of millions of immigrants from all over the word? In case of affirmative answers, we have to consider these ‘immigrant words’ as important keys of Italian lexical renewal. We find ‘immigrant words’ in the works of Italian Literature of Migration, but also reading newspapers and magazines, shifting through online archives and databases. The Linguistic Landscape is also an important resource: the LL tells us how visible ‘immigrant words’ are, and visibility shows their vitality in Italian cities.