Conclusions

Abstract

This chapter brings into dialogue the findings of the analysis of code-switching in Melfi, Ricci and Paci’s texts with some considerations about the meaning of diaspora presented in Chapter 1. Diaspora represents an ideal point of departure to connect all the elements discussed in the book, as it invokes the idea of dispersion and reattachments that characterise translation and returns. Through the concept of diaspora, this chapter also shows how the same elements referring to an idea of return found in the source texts were also recurring in the translations and in the narratives surrounding the translations, although in different combinations. This points at the circularity between emigrants and non-emigrants, and between emigration and immigration in Italy, a circularity stressed by translators and publishers alike who invoke the need of reclaiming back the migrant’s perspective from a distance in order to cope better with their lives.

The translation from Italian or other languages into English of code-switched terms, statements by translators, publishers and scholars, book blurbs, prefaces and website reviews or other information is by the author of the present book (unless otherwise stated).