Abstract

The language of new political élites has often been described as characterized by a preference for a sub-standard variety of language, full of vulgarisms and "swear words". In this contribution the authors propose two innovative ways to investigate it: in the first section, through a cognitive and quantitative approach to the lexicon of anti-politic movements in Italy, the analysis shows a historical connection which crosses the partition between First and Second Republic; in the second section, a similarity to the more recent past is shown to reside in the tendentious use of linguistic implicits in order to bypass the critical vigilance of most addressees, and smuggle doubtful contents into their set of beliefs.