Francesco De Toni is an Honorary Research Fellow at The University of Western Australia, where he completed his PhD in European Languages and Studies at The University of Western in July 2019. His PhD project investigated the construction and expression of friendship networks in the correspondence of nineteenth-century missionaries in Australia. Adopting a linguistic perspective, his study described the interaction between the epistolary form, politeness and deference, and the expression of emotions. His research interests include the historical evolution of the linguistic expression of emotions in European languages, emotions and letter writing, the role of emotion language in religious contexts, and the history of emotions in zones of cultural and linguistic contact. As part of his research, he employs computational-linguistic methods to investigate large collections of historical texts.
In February 2021 Francesco commenced a Forrest Research Foundation Prospect Fellowship at The University of Western Australia. Francesco will be working on his project 'HEAL’D – Health Emotions in Australia: Language and Discourse' in collaboration with Professor John Kinder, School of Humanities; Professor Sandra Carr, School of Allied Health and Associate Professor Nahal Mavaddat, UWA Medical School.
Contact
francesco.detoni@uwa.edu.au
@FrancescoDeToni
Research
Constructing and Expressing Friendship in the Correspondence of Rosendo Salvado and his Epistolary Networks: A Corpus-Based Linguistic Analysis
Doctoral thesis
De Toni, F. 2019, Constructing and expressing friendship in the letters of Catholic missionaries: a linguistic analysis of the correspondence of New Norcia’s epistolary networks, 1850–1893, PhD Thesis, School of Humanities, The University of Western Australia.
Journal articles
De Toni, F. 2020, ‘Expressing friendship in letters: conventionality and sincerity in the multilingual correspondence of nineteenth-century Catholic churchmen’, Multilingua: Journal of Cross-Cultural and Interlanguage Communication (special issue). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/multi-2018-0133.
De Toni, F. 2016, ‘Constructing friendships with letters: some observations on friendship and its linguistic expression in the correspondence of Rosendo Salvado’s epistolary network’, in New Norcia Studies, vol. 23, pp. 93–108.
Book chapters
De Toni, F. 2021 (under contract), ‘Experience’, in S Pihlaja (ed.), Religious Discourse Analysis: an introduction, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
De Toni, F., and J. Kinder. ‘Il linguaggio emotivo nella prosa epistolare dell’Ottocento: un approccio funzionale’ [The language of emotion in nineteenth-century epistolary prose: a functional approach]’. In Pragmatica Storica Dell’italiano: Modelli e usi Comunicativi del Passato [Historical Pragmatics of Italian: Communication Models and Practices of the Past], edited by G. Alfieri, G. Alfonzetti and S. Sardo, pp. 51–57. Firenze: Franco Cesati Editore, 2020.
De Toni, F. 2018, ‘Lessico e semantica delle emozioni: testimonianze di evoluzione storica in dizionari ed enciclopedie sette-ottocenteschi’ [Lexicon and semantics of emotions: evidence of historical evolution in 18th- and 19th-century dictionaries and encyclopaedias], in L. Tomasin & L. D’Onghia (eds), Etimologia e storia delle parole [Etymology and history of the words], Cesati, Firenze, pp. 289–305. ISBN: 9788876677397.
Conference papers
De Toni, F. and J. Kinder, ‘Forme linguistiche e funzioni pragmatiche nell’italiano epistolare: l’espressione delle emozioni in chiave diacronica’ [Linguistic forms and pragmatic functions of Italian letter writing: the expression of emotions in a historical perspective]. Oral presentation at the 13th Biennial Conference of the Associazione per la Storia della Lingua Italiana [Association for the History of Italian Language], Catania, 29–31 October 2018.
De Toni, F. and F. Verdina, ‘Epistolary networks in Italian among Catholic missionaries in 19th-century Australia: distribution, social functions and linguistic traits’. Oral presentation at the conference Diaspore italiane: living transcultural spaces, Melbourne, 4–8 April 2018.
De Toni, F., ‘The sincerity of friendship: a historical-pragmatic analysis of sincerity and emotional self-disclosure in the correspondence of a 19th-century monastic network’. Oral presentation at the 15th Conference of the International Pragmatics Association, Belfast, UK, 16–21 July 2017.
De Toni, F. and V. Verdina, ‘Scrittura epistolare e reti sociali: un'analisi della corrispondenza di Rosendo Salvado, 1846-1900’ [Letter writing and social networks: analysis of Rosendo Salvado’s correspondence, 1846-1900]. Oral presentation at the 9th Biennial Conference of the Australasian Centre for Italian Studies, Prato, Italy, 4–7 July 2017.
De Toni, F., ‘Lessico e semantica delle emozioni: testimonianze di evoluzione storica in dizionari sette-ottocenteschi’ [Lexicon and semantics of emotions: evidence of historical evolution in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century dictionaries]. Oral presentation at the 12th Biennial Conference of the Associazione per la Storia della Lingua Italiana [Association for the History of Italian Language], Accademia della Crusca, Firenze, Italy, 3–5 November 2016.
De Toni, F. ‘Emotions and friendship in a 19th-century Western Australian mission: constructing friendship and managing emotions through letter writing in the Catholic mission of New Norcia’. Oral presentation at the conference Emotions: movement, cultural contact and exchange, 1100–1800, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany, 30 June–2 July 2016.
De Toni, F., ‘The negotiation of social relationships and the rhetorical expression of emotions in Italian Renaissance books of letters: the case of Pietro Aretino’s Lettere’. Oral presentation at the 10th Biennial Conference of the Australian & New Zealand Association for Medieval and Early Modern Studies, University of Queensland, 14–18 July 2015.
De Toni, F, ‘Overcoming distance in 19th-century Western Australia: the language of friendship in Canon Raffaele Martelli’s letters’. Oral presentation at the 8th Biennial Conference of the Australasian Centre for Italian Studies, Sydney, 1–4 July 2015.
Media
15 May 2017: Il Globo (Australian newspaper in Italian). Interview with Francesco de Toni by Pino Lamberti . ‘Il linguaggio epistolare dell’amicizia’ [The epistolary language of friendship], p. 31.
