Silvia Bonavero
University of Verona, Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures
Member of: WG4
FEATURED NEOLOGISM:
I believe that one of my favourite neologisms is the noun “rizz”, with the meaning of “romantic appeal or charm”. It has started to become more and more popular in the last years and it has been classified as the “World of the Year” by the Oxford Dictionary in 2023 – and by the article in the Oxford University Press we can read: “the word is often associated with younger generations, especially teenagers, and emerged from gaming and internet culture. The American YouTube and Twitch streamer Kai Cenat is widely credited online with popularizing the word in 2022, offering advice to people on how to have rizz” (https://corp.oup.com/news/rizz-crowned-oxford-word-of-the-year-2023/). The reason why I chose this neologism, among many others, is the simple fact that it shows how social media and socio-cultural contexts strongly shape our daily talks.
Silvia Bonavero is a first-year PhD candidate in Foreign Languages and Translation at the University of Verona, Italy. Her research primarily focuses on translation theory, particularly exploring the role of AI tools in narrative and legal translations. She specialises in the translation of neologisms and realia from French into Italian. Silvia also has a keen interest in the French Quebecois language, a field she became deeply engaged with during her MA studies, and which led to the publication of her first translation with novel Documento 1 by the Quebecois author François Blais in April 2024, supported by the French Quebecois Translation Grant. Currently, she is investigating the impact of AI-driven translations on the readability of narrative texts.
As a member of the ENEOLI group, she works in Working Group 4 (WG4), which focuses on developing a methodology for teaching neologisms to linguistic experts. Considering her area of expertise in translation and her previous professional experience, Silvia is contributing to the task with ideas concerning didactic insights to the translators.
Here’s the link to her website: https://www.dlls.univr.it/?ent=persona&id=39582&lang=en.
