Le lettere di Gio Francesco Di Negro tra linguaggio tecnico e registro confidenziale

Familial expressions and technical language in the Letters of Gio Francesco di Negro

Abstract

This contribution shows the first results of a lexicological analysis on a portion of autograph letters from Gio Francesco di Negro, a Genoese merchant who lived and traded in Genoa in the Sixteenth century.  The first outcomes of the lexical analysis are focused on the different lexical tunes that the merchant uses in his relationships: according to the social position and/or of the familiar relation he has  with the receiver, the content and the quality of the message, always contextualised within business subjects,  changes. This is not so obvious, as most of Gio Francesco’s  trade agents,  spread in different cities in Italy and Europe, are indeed his relatives and very often Gio Francesco joins in the letters both technical-commercial communications and personal complaining or concerned subjects, revealing a double aspect of his merchant mentality.