Edward F. Tuttle
Professor Emeritus
Edward F. Tuttle (Ph.D., UC Berkeley) is Professor Emeriti and continues to offer graduate seminars in the Department of Italian at UCLA. The Italian language and dialect group have long formed his preferred prism for analyzing the prime socio-structural forces driving language change more generally. He believes Italy’s rich literary record affords a unique resource for tracing and documenting the processes of change. Thus he has cultivated Medieval and Renaissance philology to good effect and it has and continues to inform his teaching significantly. Professor Tuttle has served as a Visiting Professor to Padova, Trent, Pavia, Pisa (Scuola Normale) and also Oxford, England; and was honored by election to Italy’s national language academy, Accademia della Crusca.
Education
U.C., Berkeley ’67-’71 Ph.D., Romance Philology (dir. Yakov Malkiel)
U.C.L.A. ’65-7 M.A., Italian Literature; ’62-5 B.A., English Literature
Central L.A. public schools (John Marshall H.S. ’59, Thos. Starr King J.H.S)
Teaching Experience
Professor, Italian/Romance Linguistics (’70 till present).
Chair, Romance Linguistics & Lit. Program (1976-79, 1999-2003)
Chair, Dept. of Italian (’82-4, ’88-91).
Visiting Professor at Oxford (’84), U. of Pavia (’87), U. of Padua (’91), U. of Naples (’94), and Scuola Normale Superiore (’94), U. of Pisa, U. of Perugia (’98), U. of Trent (’07).
Professional Activities
Co-Editor, Romance Philology, Berkeley, 1983 till present. U.C.L.A. Acad. Senate, Committee on Committees (twice elected), Faculty Executive Committee, Graduate Council, repr. to U.C. Legisl. Assembly. Participated in organizing local U.C.L.A. conferences (e.g., Boccaccio: secoli di vita, Los Angeles & Ravenna, 1977, Friedrich Diez Centennial Lectures, Berkeley & Los Angeles, 1976). On advisory boards of Archivio glottologico italiano (Florence/Pisa/Rome), Bollettino Ling. Campano (Naples), Estudis Romànics (Barcelona), L’Italia dialettale (Pisa), Rivista di Linguistica (Scuola Normale Sup., Pisa), Repertorium Columbianum (UCLA, Cent. Medieval & Ren. Studies). Referee for Bollettino dell’Atlante linguistico italiano ( Turin), cineca/C.N.R. ( Rome), Indiana Univ. Press, Journal of Int’l. Phonetic Ass’n., Univ. of California Press, Cambridge U.P., Routledge, etc. Member Società italiana di linguistica (1987-1990 = Vice-Pres. three terms); Società italiana di glottologia, Centro di studi filologici e linguistici siciliani (Palermo-advisory board), Société de linguistique romane (chr. for 3-day sections at triennial meetings (Trier, Zürich, Palermo, Catania, Pisa); elected corresponding member of Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti; only American corresponding member of Accademia della Crusca, Linguistic Soc. of Amer. [since 1966-Life Member], etc. “Distinguished Humanist” award/lecture at Univ. Wisconsin, Madison (April ’95 = “A Countercurrent Model for Language Change: Endocentrism and Linguistic Antagonism in Italy”), Pisa (April ’96), and Padua (Oct. ’96 “Minor Patterns and Micro-variation”), Perugia/Pisa (1998 “Comunità chiuse e grammatiche complesse: correlazioni tipologiche dedotte da alcuni dialetti italo-romanzi”), Heidelberg, and Milan (1998 “Correlating Endocentric Communities with favored Types of Language Change, and thence with their comparatively Elaborate Grammars (observed in Italian Dialects”).