The Speakers. As mentioned above, the corpus is based on a number of videos uploaded on YouTube, which show two persons which are well-known to the general public in Italy: the chef Xxxxx Xxxx and the former model Xxx Xxxxx. These two speakers have been chosen because they have the same L1, a similar biography and a comparable production as far as agreement is concerned. The biographical notes available online tell us that Xxxxx Xxxx („EK‟; born 1963) is a chef and confectioner from Southern Germany. He moved to Italy in 1989, when he was 26 years old. He lives in Milan, is married to an Italian woman and has four children. He became famous in Italy because he took part to various TV-shows dedicated to bakery. Xxx Xxxxx („EW‟; born 1966) is three years younger than Knam. She is also Southern German, and she also had international experiences when she worked as a model; in 1988 she moved to Italy. She is married to an Italian man and has no children. Although we do not have any specific information, both EK and EW allegedly acquired Italian spontaneously, in contact with native speakers: their professions require a strong commitment and a conspicuous time investment, while knowledge of Italian is not a fundamental skill – since they both work(ed) in international environments, they could probably use English to communicate at work.
The Speakers. 4.1 LINKS Since their very first beginning, the seminars held by DITEN were based on the contribution of professionals, which had been students in the same University. Those which did not have this background were however deeply linked with the same university. The organization of the lectures was always carried out by activating a network of contacts, which dated back to the time when the perspective lecturers were students, or contacting other professionals that had been met in various circumstances and were considered for one reason of the other “suitable for the scope”. This aspect is not to be underestimated, because it is a clear example of the most valuable tool the young student has to learn to use entering in the industry, which is networking. It was a motto of xxxx. Xxxxxxx, for decades the iconic figure of the Naval Architecture department, that a good engineer has not to presume to know everything, but has to know where finding the proper answers. In the modern world, in which the specialization is more and more preeminent, this suggestion is often to be mutuated in the need of knowing the proper person, to which route the question, looking for a qualified and reliable reply. The scenario given by the seminars, in which it is obvious the interconnection existing between the different speakers, and in some cases their professional rivalry, is in our opinion the first glance of the students to the real world in which they will have to move, where quite often knowing the right phone number will be more advantageous than solving a second-degree equation.
