Conlangs as a Goal, Conlangs as a Mean. How to Do Linguistics Inventing Languages

Abstract

Made popular by highly successful cinematographic and television productions, in recent years conlangs have made their appearance also in formal linguistic pedagogy. Similar and mostly unrelated initiatives have surfaced around the world with the common aim to increase students’ interest and motivation in the study of linguistics and enhance their metalinguistic awareness and analytical skills. With those same objectives, from 2019 on the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures and Modern Cultures at the University of Turin offers an 18 hours workshop in Conlangs and Linguistics. We will present here the premises and the structure of the workshop, as well as what could be considered its first results, showing how such an approach can complement “traditional” introductory courses in linguistics.