Membri

ITEA Members

Founding Members of ITEA

Douglas Mark Ponton is an Associate Professor of English Language and Translation at the University of Catania, Department of Political and Social Sciences. His research focuses on ecolinguistics, critical discourse analysis, and the language of politics, with particular attention to environmental narratives, sustainability discourse, and public communication. He has participated in and coordinated several research projects, including the national PRIN Ecofrizioni dell’Antropocene. Sostenibilità e patrimonializzazione nei processi di riconversione industriale, as well as earlier studies on political rhetoric and linguistic identity. He has been Visiting Professor at the People’s Friendship University of Russia (2015, 2017) and at Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University in Japan (2018, 2020), and he regularly collaborates with international research networks in discourse studies and ecolinguistics. His recent publications include the monograph Exploring Ecolinguistics. Ecological Principles and Narrative Practices (Bloomsbury, 2024), which consolidates his long-standing engagement with the analysis of language, narrative, and the environment. Other works address global tourism and sustainability narratives, right-wing populist discourse and intercultural pragmatics. He is Associate Editor of Russian Journal of Linguistics and a member of several international research networks in discourse studies and ecolinguistics.

Lucia Abbamonte is an Associate Professor of English Language and Translation at the University of Naples “Parthenope.” She was awarded habilitation to full professorship in 2018 and has participated in several funded national and international research projects, including PRIN initiatives and the European project Sea-EU: Promoting Multilingualism and a Common SEA-EU Language Policy. Her research focuses on pragmatics, multimodal discourse analysis, ecolinguistics, English for Special Purposes, and cross-cultural studies of legal and specialized language. She is a member of the PhD programme in Studi linguistici, terminologici e interculturali, of the I-Land and CLAVIER research centres, and serves as reviewer for international journals. She is the author of five books and over ninety essays and articles, including Integrated Methodology for Emotion Talk in Socio-legal Exchanges (2012) and ‘Black Lives Matter’: Cross-Media Resonance and the Iconic Turn of Language (2018); “The ‘sustainable’ video-narratives of Greenpeace – an ecolinguistic investigation” (Forum for Modern Language Studies – Oxford Journals -2021); and with F. Cavaliere, “Going Green with… Communication. A comparative analysis between opposing campaigns” (2022 Iperstoria), and “Adaptively Evolving Ecosystems: Green-Speaking at Tesco” (Worlds of Words 2019).

Flavia Cavaliere is an Associate Professor of English Linguistics and Translation at the University of Naples “Federico II” and currently a Fulbright Distinguished Scholar at the University of Pittsburgh (PA, USA). She also serves as Vice President of the Centre for Translation Studies at the University’s Language Centre (CLA). Her research spans Multimodal Critical Discourse Studies, Translation Studies – with a focus on media translation, language and media – and Ecolinguistics. Within this framework, her recent work investigates how sustainability-oriented discourses frame environmental issues and how such framings are amplified across media and institutional communication. She has published extensively in national and international journals and edited volumes, and is a frequent speaker at conferences worldwide. Her contributions include analyses of corporate and award-related green narratives (see, among others, Abbamonte & Cavaliere 2017, 2019, 2022, in press), offering comparative insights into ecological discourse and multimodal meaning-making. In the field of Translation Studies, she explores the interplay between language, culture, and identity, assessing how the cultural semiosphere and sociolinguistic context of recipients may reshape perceptions of source texts. She is currently involved in several interdisciplinary projects on translation, ecolinguistics, and the relationship between language and identity.

Eleonora Federici is Full Professor of English Language and Translation at the University of Ferrara. She is Director of the University Language Centre (CLA), Chair of the University’s Gender Equality Council (2025–27), and the Rector’s Delegate for the enhancement of teaching in foreign languages. Her research focuses on translation theory and practice, translation and gender, critical discourse analysis, and languages for specific purposes—especially tourism and advertising – alongside ecolinguistics and ecofeminism. She has led and participated in national and international projects and serves on several editorial and scientific boards. She directs the TRANSITIONS series (Morlacchi University Press). Publications include the monograph Translation Theory and Practice: Cultural Differences in Tourism and Advertising, Loffredo editore, Napoli,2018 and the most recent edited volumes: 2021 E. Federici, J. Santaemilia, Gender and Translation: New Perspectives and New voices for Transnational Dialogues, London, Routledge 2021, and E. Federici, S. Maci eds. Gender Issues. Translating and Mediating Languages, Cultures and Societies, Bern, Peter Lang 2021. She has published articles on ecofeminism “Why Ecofeminism Matters: narrating/translating ecofeminism(s) around the world” in “Changing the Cultural Climate with Ecocriticism and Ecolinguistics” special issue of Iperstoria 2022 vol. 20 and ecotourism “Translating the ‘Other’ for the Western World for more than a Decade: Incredible India! Campaigns” in “Mind the Gap in Tourism Discourse: traduzione, mediazione, inclusione” Altre Modernità vol. 21, pp. 124-139.

Denise Milizia is Associate Professor at the University of Bari Aldo Moro, at the Department of Political Science. Her research and her main publications include ESP, Applied Linguistics, Corpus Linguistics, political phraseology in American, British and Italian cultures, and phraseology in Legal English, in particular in European documents. In her most recent conferences, she has investigated the study of metaphors in relation to climate change, Brexit, and COVID-19, as well as the spread of populism in Europe and beyond. In her most recent seminars she has presented the following talks: Julius Caesar and Donald Trump: Make America Rome Again and How do we save democracy? Addressing crucial issues with Political and Social Sciences students, and in her most recent conferences she has talked about the climate change threat in “There has to be some fairness in the air”. Climate transparency in the U.S. and The language of threat or the gentle nudge in climate change communication?  

Anna Raimo is a Research Fellow at the University of Salerno, where she works on chatbot technologies and AI applications to develop innovative strategies for environmental education and the promotion of cultural heritage. She holds a PhD in Culture Letterarie e Filologiche from the University of Bologna. Her research interests include ecolinguistics, political and media discourse, second language acquisition in multilingual contexts, and the works of Dino Buzzati. Author of the monograph Lettere a un soldato. L’italiano dei semicolti nella corrispondenza di Antonio Acquavivola (Mephite, 2020), she has published extensively on ecolinguistics, discourse analysis, and Italian language variation. Recent works address environmental rhetoric, the representation of sustainability in tourism discourse, and metaphorical framing in Italian political communication. She is also contributing to forthcoming volumes with Routledge and Bloomsbury on ecolinguistics and positive discourse analysis. Her research has been presented at numerous national and international conferences, including the AIA 32nd Conference – Human, Humane, Humanities. Voices from the Anglosphere (University of Turin, 2025), where she delivered the paper Framing the Climate with Algorithms: Political Discourse and the Risks of AI Amplification, and the XIV International Conference on Iconicity in Language and Literature (University of Catania, 2024). Her current research applies ecolinguistic and AI-based perspectives to language education, exploring how discourse can foster ecological awareness and social responsibility.

 

Members of ITEA

Eleonora Ravizza is an Associate Professor of English Language and Translation at the University of Milan (Department of Languages, Literatures, Cultures and Mediations). She earned her PhD in Literary and Cultural Studies/Letterature Euroamericane in cotutelle between Justus-Liebig-University Giessen and the University of Bergamo (2012), where she was also a member of the International Graduate Centre for the Study of Culture (GCSC) and the International PhD Net in Literary and Cultural Studies. She has taught English literature, language, and language pedagogy at the Universities of Giessen, Bergamo, and Milan. Her current research interests include historical linguistics, the history of English language pedagogy, discourse analysis, ecolinguistics, and intersemiotic translation. She is presently working on a project on linguistics and transcultural memory, and has also published on contemporary poetry, social media discourse, and issues of cultural identity in Caribbean, Canadian, and Black-British literature.

Vivian M. De La Cruz teaches English Language and Translation in the Department of Classical Studies, Languages, and Education at the University Kore of Enna. With a background in the philosophy of language, her interdisciplinary research explores empathic discourse across ecolinguistics, translation studies, and human-machine communication. She has also worked on the translation of hybrid languages and identities, focusing on how language navigates cultural and linguistic borderlands. Her current research explores how emotionally framed ecological narratives are generated by large language models, drawing on ecolinguistics and critical AI discourse to investigate how language technologies shape ecological worldviews and relational ethics.

Goranka Rocco is a Professor of German Language, Translation, and Linguistics in the Department of Humanities at the University of Ferrara. She has taught at the Universities of Ferrara, Trieste, Bologna, Duisburg-Essen, and Düsseldorf, where she also earned her PhD. She was awarded the Ladislao Mittner Prize in Translation Studies (Scienze della traduzione/ Translationswissenschaft) and is the author of numerous scholarly articles published in top-tier (Class A) international and national journals, as well as in edited volumes. Her research interests include discourse linguistics and contrastive discourse linguistics, contrastive textology, specialized communication in scientific and economic contexts, specialist languages, sociolinguistics, language attitudes, the international status of the German language, translation studies, language mediation and teaching, linguistic simplification (Leichte Sprache, Einfache Sprache), and the categories of gender and number from both morphosyntactic and functional perspectives. She is a founding member of the international network Network Comparative Discourse Studies and is currently involved in the international OSCARS project entitled Making Open Research Data Suitable for Comparative Discourse Analysis. Since 2014, she has authored studies focusing on sustainability discourse across different text types, including corporate sustainability reports, municipal sustainability reports, and political and media discourse on energy and linguistic sustainability. She has explored concepts such as greenwashing, pinkwashing, youthwashing, among others, and was the initiator and coordinator of the international conference held at Villa Vigoni, titled Metadiscorsi e controdiscorsi sull’ “x-washing” nel contesto dello sviluppo sostenibile Potenzialità metodologiche della linguistica applicata al testo e al discorso (with Nina Janich and Janja Polajnar, 2025). She has also delivered public lectures (UTEF) focusing on ecolinguistics, linguistic sustainability, and metadiscourses on greenwashing.

Dario Del Fante is Junior Assistant Professor (RTD-A) of English, Linguistics and Translation at the University of Ferrara. His research interests range from computational linguistics and corpus linguistics to discourse analysis and cognitive linguistics. He is particularly interested in studying language from a multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary perspective, using a mixed qualitative-quantitative methodology. He teaches courses on discourse analysis and English language and linguistics. His research has been published in journals such as Metaphorik.de, Meta, and Umanistica Digitale. His first monograph, published by Peter Lang, is titled Migrating across times and cultures. He has recently curated an edited collection entitled Critical Approaches to Polycrisis: Discourses of Conflict, Migration, Risk, and Climate, published by Palgrave. Among his publications Parnell, T., Van Hout, T., & Del Fante, D. (2025). Critical Approaches to Polycrisis: Discourses of conflict, migration, risk. PALGRAVE MACMILLAN.

Valerio Furneri is Junior Assistant Professor (RTD-A) at the University of Ferrara. He studied Foreign Languages and Literatures at the University of Bergamo, specializing in German and Russian Languages and Literatures. Subsequently, he obtained a PhD in Modern Foreign Languages and Literatures, with a curriculum in German Studies, from the University of Pavia. His main research interests include metaphors, translation from a diachronic perspective, comparative studies of specialized languages, and the eristic structures of both German and Italian. He currently teaches German language and German language didactics at the University of Ferrara.

Ilaria Iori is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Ferrara where she is currently working on a research project of national interest on English tourism communication in Italy. She holds a PhD in Human Sciences from the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia. Her research interests comprise metaphor, critical discourse analysis and tourism discourse with a specific focus on corpus-based methodologies. More recently, she has investigated media representations of climate debates, focusing on how metaphorical patterns and narrative framings contribute to the construction of responsibility, agency, and sustainability in public discourse. She is also exploring sustainable tourism communication, considering how natural and mountain landscapes are narrated in different text types. Among her publications (Forthcoming, 2025). “The Giant with Clay Feet”: Metaphors and myths in tourism discourse of the Emilia-Romagna Apennines over time. Cultus, 18(1), “Metaphorical patterns in news discourse on COP27: Negotiating responsibility and commitment to climate change. Language and Dialogue, 2025, 15(1), 134–155. https://doi.org/10.1075/ld.00190.ior; WAR Metaphors and Agency: The Case of the COP27 News Coverage. Lingue Culture Mediazioni, 11(2), 35-54. https://doi.org/10.7358/lcm- 2024-002-iori; Diani, Giuliana & Iori, Ilaria (2024). Environmental Communication and Metaphors: The Case of Italian Blogs. In M. Conoscenti, A. Contini, R. Druetta, E. Gola, A. Orlandi, P.Paissa, I. Rizzato, M. Rossi, & D. F. Virdis (Eds.), Quaderni del CIRM (29–50).

Valentina Di Francesco is a post-doc research fellow in English Language,Translation and Linguistics (angl-01/c) at the University of Ferrara, Humanities Department. She is currently working on the project “IN-CLA – Didattica inclusiva per l’apprendimento dell’inglese L2 attraverso tecnologie audiovisive e linguaggi specialistici” (Inclusive Teaching for English as L2 through audiovisual technologies and specialised languages); her previous research grant was within the DIETALY PRIN project on tourism communication. She obtained a PhD in Translating, Interpreting and Interculturality at the Department of Interpreting and Translation in Forlì (University of Bologna), with the thesis Audience Attitudes towards the Simil Sync Technique: a Pilot Study. Her interests are Audiovisual Translation, Perception and Reception Studies, Tourism Studies and Media Studies. She is also focusing on the intersection between ESP and AVT resources to raise climate awareness.

Daniela Giordano is a PhD student in Linguistic, Terminological and Intercultural Studies at Parthenope University of Naples and holds second-level university Masters in English and Italian language teaching. She serves as Teaching Assistant for Scientific English at the Medical Departments of the University of Campania “Luigi Vanvitelli,” where she has also worked as lecturer in English for Specific Purposes. Her research interests include metadiscourse, medical discourse popularisation and its didactic applications, as well as ecolinguistics. She is the author of the article “Linguistic Insights into Crime Drama as a Popularising Genre” (in Tessuto, Ashcroft & Bhatia, eds., Professional Discourse across Medicine, Law, and Other Disciplines: Issues and Perspectives, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2023) and co-author, with A. Laudisio, of the English for Healthcare Professionals teaching manual (Giappichelli, 2022, 2023, 2025). She has presented her research at several international conferences, including the AIA 32nd Conference – Human, Humane, Humanities. Voices from the Anglosphere (University of Turin, 2025), with a paper on The Role of AI Discourse in Ecolinguistics and the Language of Coffee in Italian Heritage, and STEcoMed2024 – 1st International Congress for Sustainable Ecosystems in the Mediterranean Area (University of Split, 2024), with a presentation on Coffee and Climate: Metadiscourse Analysis of Research Articles. Her current work explores how ecolinguistic perspectives can inform disciplinary discourse studies and sustainability-oriented teaching practices.

Caterina Giachino is a PhD student at the Department of Molecular Medicine and Medical Biotechnology, University of Naples “Federico II.” With a background in bioinformatics, she has published on biomedical topics, including the article Integrated Bioinformatics Analysis Reveals Novel miRNA as Biomarkers Associated with Preeclampsia. Her current research extends to artificial intelligence and digital humanities, focusing on ecological metaphors, environmental narratives, and computational modelling using Python and R. She collaborates on interdisciplinary projects that integrate critical discourse and frame analysis with quantitative methods. Her work was presented at the AIA 32nd Conference – Human, Humane, Humanities. Voices from the Anglosphere (University of Turin, 2025), where she delivered the paper Framing the Climate with Algorithms: Political Discourse and the Risks of AI Amplification.

Martina Russo is a PhD candidate in Translation, Interpreting and Intercultural Studies at the University of Bologna. She also works as a teaching assistant in English at the University “G. D’Annunzio” of Chieti-Pescara, Department of Foreign Languages, Literature and Modern Cultures. She was a Visiting PhD student at the University of Gloucestershire under the supervision of Professor Arran Stibbe. Her research focuses on Ecolinguistics, Critical Discourse Analysis and Corpus-Assisted Discourse Studies, with particular interest in new and alternative discourses that foster a more conscious relationship with the more-than-human world. She collaborates with The H4rmony Project and has presented her work at international conferences and symposia on ecolinguistics

Jorge Vallego is a Data and AI Engineering Consultant and Project Lead with over forty years of professional experience in Information Technology. He combines his consulting work with academic research, focusing on the integration of ecolinguistics and artificial intelligence, particularly on the development of large language models informed by ecological awareness. He has published extensively on the relationship between AI and ecolinguistics, including the series Ecolinguistics and AI and recent essays such as “The Imitation Game Level 2” and “Why AI Matters for Ecologists” in Medium Review. His work was presented at the AIA 32nd Conference – Human, Humane, Humanities. Voices from the Anglosphere (University of Turin, 2025), where he delivered a paper on the H4rmony Project.