Cittadinanza e alterità.

In this article we would like to outline the research lines of the PRIN project ‘Migrants, Institutions, Translations. Easy-read law’. Our analysis will delve on the issues related to the comprehension and correct interpretation of a specific text that the migrant has to fill out in order to have access to the Italian territory: the ‘residency permit’. This particular type of document implies an analysis at different levels: linguistic, legal and pragmatic level. The nature of the research is multidisciplinary and needs the contribution of linguistic, semiotic and legal disciplines. We consider the residency permit kit as the initial ‘model’ object of study (by ‘model’ we also consider the practices generated by it: relations with institutions, with employers, with homeowners, etc.). The ‘communicative’level analyses the actual and real knowledge of the rights that migrants acquire once they enter Italian territory. The ‘legal’ level asks how this ‘knowledge’ can be ‘translated’ into actual legal facts. The ‘pragmatic’ level considers the question of the asymmetrical relationship established between the migrant and the host society. The theoretical implications are manifold: the normative sign is an indexical-deductive sign: its acceptance as a premise has consequences that cannot be denied or avoided. The relationship established between legal norm and legal fact is deductive: if A, then B. However, every fact is also implied by inductive inferences, which refer to the symbolic reality, to conventions, to habits, to stereotypes. Of course, every legal fact should also be considered under its abductive aspect, that of being a unique and concrete case. This aspect concerns the relationship between law and otherness.