SAIS Award to Francesca Saltamacchia
Institutional Communication Service
5 July 2021
Dr Francesca Saltamacchia, assistant at USI Faculty of Communication, Culture and Society, has been awarded the SAIS award in the field of human, social, political and legal sciences for her PhD thesis "Melchiorre Gioja e le ragioni di una nuova cortesia. Analisi argomentativa e storia testuale del Nuovo Galateo" (Argumentative analysis and textual history of Nuovo Galateo).
In recent months, the Italian Society of Academics in Switzerland (SAIS) has launched a call for three awards for the best PhD theses at Swiss universities. The three best theses in the STEM field (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) were awarded.
The jury, composed of SAIS members including Cesare Alippi, Professor at the Faculty of Informatics at USI, awarded the prestigious recognition in the STEM field to Dr Francesca Saltamacchia for her PhD thesis focused on the study and analysis of the arguments justifying the model of etiquette presented in the Nuovo Galateo by Melchiorre Gioja. In writing her thesis, Dr Saltamacchia used a distinctly interdisciplinary method, combining philology, argumentation, pragmatics, and informatics for the linguistic analysis of the works.
"Receiving an award of this calibre," says Francesca Saltamacchia, "heightens awareness of the value of one's work and gives an extra incentive to carry on".
The prize, which consists of a check for 1,000 CHF, a diploma and a medal, is sponsored by the Italian Embassy in Bern and was presented to the winners in Lausanne by the Italian Ambassador in recent days.