ABSTRACT
The Italian and Spanish contact is the result of the presence of a consistent Latin American immigrant population of different origins, particularly Peruvian and Ecuadorian, which makes Spanish one of the major languages of Italian immigration today. Situations of contact actually constitute the crossroads where a complex series of factors converge- language attitudes, sociolinguistic perceptions, prestige, and so forth. This analysis is, moreover, based on a nonessentialist view of identity from a theoretical framework that takes in social constructivism and studies on the relationship between language and identity. Space and time are the basic parameters of any system of representation, which must shift its object into spatial and temporal dimensions; thus, all identities are placed in a symbolic space and time. In keeping with the helpful role, in terms of integration, played by linguistic affinities, the contact between Spanish and Italian favors the learning of the second language and its use in many communicative situations.
