Fabula Nubeculata Historiarum Anatopolis Latine Disco

The chapter presents a TBLT teaching unit for beginners studying Latin in secondary schools. The teaching proposal is based on the comic book Donaldus Anas atque Nox Saraceni, the first Disney story translated into Latin. Through a serie of tasks in sequence, students are guided in exploring the text actively developing both reading-comprehension skills and metalinguistic awareness. The neologisms in the comic book encourage a reflection on the criteria for the creation of new labels to designate referents belonging to Disney ducks world, or to the contemporary society. The understanding of each new word works as a detection process based on the shared knowledge among the translator and the reader. The neologisms in the comic book are sometimes created ex novo by genuine Latin linguistic elements; in such cases they are formed by derivation (e.g. birota “bicycle”) or by composition (e.g. autoraeda “car”; aer commoda ventilatione “air conditioning”), reproducing the Italian model. Otherwise the proposed neologisms are special loanwords from Latin to Latin, passing through an intermediate step in a contemporary language, thus gaining a new signification (e.g. iactum “jet”). The process of recognizing Latin elements and Word Formation Rules helps the students in developing comprehension skills, as well as the skill to compare Italian and Latin linguistic structures. Last not least, while observing the peculiar selection of diminutive forms with morpho-pragmatic functions, the students approach the analysis of politeness strategies.