Terza missione universitaria nelle discipline umanistiche: il ruolo dei dipartimenti di italianistica all'estero

The paper deals with an innovative field of investigation on Italian language abroad which addresses the relationship between language, culture, society and economy by focus- ing on strategies of the so-called ‘third mission’ of universities and departments of Italian studies abroad. Our aim is to explore which strategies, specifically of community engage- ment of the universities with their local communities, have emerged in the context of Italian departments abroad towards communities of Italian origin and students of Italian abroad. The work develops a framework to analyze the community engagement of Italian departments abroad starting from three factors: i) the institutional strategies of the university towards the third mission, ii) the Italian language teaching strategies of Italian departments, and iii) the role of communities of Italian origin in the place where the university is locat- ed. The framework is adopted in order to analyze three cases of universities, Manchester, Sydney and Toronto, located in cities that both have been the object of strong immigration by Italians throughout history and are home to renowned departments of Italian Studies. The framework has been developed around the case of Italian language abroad, but can lend itself to other linguistic contexts as well.