Le lingue delle Chiese Valdesi e Metodiste in Italia

In the last decades, the evangelical churches in Italy have been deeply transformed by the
arrival of foreign believers coming from several countries and speaking different mother
tongues. In the context of a larger sociological national research, data on the linguistic uses
and plurilingual practices in Methodist and Waldensian communities have been collected.
The analysis of the functional distribution of the linguistic codes during the Sunday celebrations
confirmed the existence of different models of linguistic repertoires. A comparison between
two interesting cases of churches, both pertaining to the “Italian/multilingual” model,
was carried out by means of interviewing the pastors. The different nature of plurilingual
dynamics in these two communities was examined and described, in the light of enhanced
socio-contextual information.