Politeness and ideological manipulation: Italian Lei during Fascism

At the beginning of the 20th century, the Italian address system features a series of nominal forms and a tripartite pronominal system with tu ‘you.SG’, lei ‘she.SG’ and voi ‘you.PL’. While tu and voi are inherited from Latin, lei is the result of anaphoric agreement to several nominal allocutive forms such as Vostra Signoria ‘Your Lordship’. These phrases have abstract female names as head nouns and trigger agreement with the third person, which gives the pronoun of reverence ella/lei. Although its grammatical origin is rather straightforward, from the 16th century conduct manuals (and other sources) spread the unsubstantiated theory that the lei form was attributable to Spanish influence. Fascism considers the lei form an enemy to its ideals (pure race, pure language, masculinity) and therefore decides to fight lei in its language policy. The attempt to abolish the use of lei has no lasting success, as demonstrated by original materials (administrative documents, newspapers and schoolbooks) and metalinguistic papers discussed in this study. This article shows how manipulating politeness rules can also be part of a rhetoric of power, and how address systems can be shaped and modified according to ideological perspectives and political needs.