Cultural products, passing fashions, and linguistic changes. A view from the Italian pragmatic marker ma vieni

This study explores the emergence and conventionalization of the Italian pragmatic marker ma vieni ‘hooray’ (lit. ‘but come’) in the short microdiachrony of the past thirty years, considering both extra-linguistic and systemic factors. We show that a number of audio-visual media helped trigger the emergence of this marker, which first conventionalized as a sort of catchphrase for young people in the 1990s, and also helped constrain its social embedding. Through an analysis of audio-visual media and data collected using a socio-pragmatic questionnaire, we investigate the spread of ma vieni in its development up to recent years. The chapter thus offers a detailed micro-analysis of a recent pragmatic innovation, drawing considerably on the theoretical and methodological underpinnings provided by the analytical construct of apparent time as used in sociolinguistic research to study language change in progress; it also explores the impact of linguistic modes and cultural tendencies on language, by investigating the intriguing intersection between entertainment products, passing fashions, and linguistic changes.