Accent matters: Material consequences of sounding local in northern Italy

In this article, I discuss accents as signs of 'things in the world,' social practices whose forms and functions matter. I move beyond the common tendency to analyze accents as just indexes of identity or phonological variables, and treat them as verbal symbols that circulate in everyday conversation and in the mass media, bridging the symbolic and the material. Focusing on the accent of Bergamo, a town in northern Italy, I look at semiotic ideologies of accent in local and national contexts, illustrating Bergamascos' views of their own and others' accents in the process. Drawing on Goffman, I treat accents as phonological representations of sociogeographical characterological figures and the qualities associated with such figures, linked to the Italian social hierarchy of place.