Acknowledgements

This volume draws on a 15-year-old research idea that was born after my MA thesis viva whilst spending a stimulating academic year at the Katholieke Universiteit of Leuven. I am grateful to my mentor, Barbara Turchetta, who first suggested me to study the sociolinguistic implications of the translation process at the European Commission, and to the scholars and translators I discussed this topic with at that time.

It was only in 2010, as a Lecturer in the Faculty of Interpreting and Translation of LUSPIO (now UNINT) University that I had the opportunity to breathe new life into the hypothesis of the existence of Eurolects, when I met passionate colleagues who are specialists in foreign languages and translation and became involved in this research project.

Synchronicity contributed to bringing us together and starting this observation of variational dynamics in legislative languages. Thanks to the insightful discussions and the enthusiastic support received from Lorenzo Blini, Fabrizio Megale, Fabio Proia and Annalisa Sandrelli, a research group (Osservatorio sull’euroletto) was set up with the aim of investigating Eurolects in many languages. In 2013 funding from the UNINT Research Fund gave us the opportunity to create a large corpus collection that enabled us to begin the first phase of the Eurolect Observatory Project (2013–2016).

Over the following years other scholars got involved in the project and joined our research group, bringing in new suggestions to work towards common goals, sharing competences and knowledge from a varied international background, in a friendly atmosphere of mutual exchange. I am grateful for their participation in the project, their contributions in this final volume and for their trust in me as project coordinator.

Our research activity also benefited from the fruitful exchange we had with EU officials working in the linguistic services of the EU institutions, in particular during two Translating Europe Workshops (2015 and 2017) funded by the Directorate General of Translation (European Commission) which gave us the opportunity to discuss our preliminary findings and interpretations with EU professionals themselves. I am personally grateful to the then Director Filip Majcen, who believed in the project’s potential since my 2014 presentation and supported us throughout its duration. Thanks to his involvement, the research group could benefit from the operational support provided by Ingemar Strandvik (Quality Manager, European Commission’s Directorate-General for Translation).

I wish to thank the twenty-six revisors who were involved in the double blind review process, our colleagues and friends who contributed generously with their advice at different stages, the Series Editor Ute Römer for her accurate revision, Laylan Saadaldin for her careful language copy-editing and Kees Vaes who welcomed my proposal at John Benjamins two years ago.

My heartfelt thanks to Lorenzo for his closeness and constructive comments during this experience, and not only. This book is dedicated to our son Leonardo, born in 2013, who has grown up with Eurolect, travelling to conferences, listening to family conversations on this topic and multilingual discussions and phone calls with colleagues and friends. His enthusiasm and curiosity in observing life have driven me and supported me in this challenge until now.