Il carteggio tra Francesco Torti e Lodovico Antonio Muratori. Note sul lessico medico settecentesco

The linguistic studies on scientific texts recently started to bear important fruits, in fact demonstrating the historical importance of the contribution of special languages to the national language. In this study I intend to provide a picture of eighteenth-century medical language in an informal context. Starting from the correspondence between Lodovico Antonio Muratori and his friend Francesco Torti, who was a doctor in the city of Modena, this paper examines the medical lexicon, his frequency and hystorical evolution. The glossary will also provide accurate data of the individual entries, together with some general reflections on the language and composition of the lexicon itself. In this epistolary context the medical terminology shows the presence of an informal linguistic register, probably due to private type of communication. Examples like this are an important documentation to delineate the actual characteristics of a complex vocabulary. Torti in fact is able to use both terms with a high level of specialization both allotropes of popular origin. What became known through the analysis of the lexical phenomena is that the registers of special languages were not consisting only of opposite ends (formal-specialized vs. colloquial-dialect), but that there was a middle register far more important, and that it was based on the Italian language. Therefore the contribution given by the study of special languages and their use of everyday communication, purchasing an important value in the composition of the italian national lexicon. So the contribution given by the study of special languages and their use in everyday communication becomes more valuable in the composition of the Italian national lexicon.