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This paper presents a synthesis of the most significant paths and problems of research in Italy, in the second half of the twentieth Century, seen through an autobiographical testimony. We speak of internal changes, due to the evolution of methodologies: the renewal of tools and methods, after the autarchic parenthesis of the first half of the Century; the intrusion of information technology into the organization and analysis of linguistic data; the openness to the problems of a rapidly changing society, with the sociolinguistic approach; the contrasts and mediations between structuralism and historicism. But we also speak, at the same time, of the brakes and conditioning to research by external factors, mainly attributable to a strong management of power and the consequent downsizing of the role of free research, accompanied by the deleterious subordination of research to logic of the market. Finally, the autobiographical perspective highlights the central role of Tullio De Mauro in the renewal of linguistics studies in Italy and in the stubborn persistence of a democratic and inclusive vision even in times of democratic crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the early decades of the twentieth century, the affirmation of children's literature as a kind of popular entertainment was facilitated in Italy both through books that enjoyed a wide readership and through stories and novels published in episodes in magazines of the time. My paper, by means of significant examples, offers some reflections on the use of recurrent personal names and common onomastic strategies in various authors, also in the light of the great inspiring models of the late-nineteenth-century fantasy-adventure genre. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the second half of the nineteenth century, the famous American dwarf, Charles Stratton, called Tom Thumb, toured Europe with the theatrical show organized for him by Phineas Barnum, enjoying international success and fame. His name, changed to Tom Pouce, became synonymous in Italy with a 'very small person or thing': a frequently repeated antonomasia, with phonetic and graphic adaptations of the nickname. This paper aims to show the significance and repeated testimonies of this artistic name in the newspapers and books of the time, until its definitive lexicographic attestation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]