The Diplomat
Riccardo Guariglia, the Italian Ambassador, yesterday inaugurated the 3rd International Convention of the Spanish Association of Italian Language and Translation (ASELIT), which is being held in virtual format from Valencia, in collaboration with the Italian Institute of Culture in Barcelona, until tomorrow, 5 March.
This year’s edition, in which several prestigious Italianists are taking part, is dedicated to the study of lexis and contrastive grammar between Italian and Spanish. In his speech, the ambassador stressed that “translation is the first form of cultural mediation, since knowledge of the other, through an understanding of its linguistic heritage and civilisation, is at the basis of what we can define today as cultural diplomacy and of diplomacy itself, quite simply”. In Spain alone, Guariglia recalled, Italy supports around twenty Italian chairs in as many local universities, where more than 5,000 students studied Italian in the 2019/2020 academic year.
Finally, the Italian ambassador recalled the celebration, in 2021, of the 700th anniversary of the death of Dante Alighieri, with the extensive programme of events already planned in Spain, and invited all the participants in the Congress to work to commemorate the illustrious poet with more activities and specific projects.
