Senior Lecturer of French & Italian

Adriana Borra received her M.A. in 1994 from the University of Freiburg, Germany. Before coming to the University of Vermont she taught German and Italian at Ithaca College, at the University of Freiburg and at several private language schools in both Germany and Italy. She is the co-author of German through Film (Yale University Press, 2006), which is a result of her general interest in the teaching of foreign languages. She also co-translated a German autobiographical novel into Italian and translated two Italian novels and a French-Canadian play into German.
 
Besides teaching, Adriana has worked since 1995 as a bilingual dictionary lexicographer for the PONS Großwörterbuch Italienisch (Klett Verlag, Stuttgart 2002) / Il dizionario di tedesco (Zanichelli Editore, Bologna 2001) and contributed to all four editions (the most recent in 2019) and its three compact versions il Tedesco SMART ( Zanichelli 2011, 2nd edition 2015, 3rd edition forthcoming 2023) and PONS Studienausgabe Italienisch (Klett 2010). The Großwörterbuch now includes over 386 000 entries and meanings, false cognates and cultural notes on 2,592 pages and is also available as an App, on Kindle and on Zanichelli's online portal. Adriana was also the collaborator for the Learner's dictionary Il tedesco Junior, edited by Silvia Verdiani (Loescher: Turin 2010) and published several articles on lexicographic matters and the teaching of Italian.
 

PODCAST

- 45-minutes-Interview with Stephanie Tonneson for her Photoblog and her Podcast Sit on the Floor, talking about growing up with and teaching multiple languages, September 2021 Whereever you listen to your Podcasts

 
Languages spoken:
German (native speaker)
Italian (native speaker)
English (near native fluency)
French (near native fluency)
Spanish (fluent)
 

Publications

Books:
Language Pedagogy:
German through Film (co-authored with Ruth Mader-Koltay), Yale University Press 2006, 153 pages
 
Lexicography:

Luisa Giacoma and Susanne Kolb: Il Tedesco smart, third edition, Zanichelli Editore, Bologna 2023; revising editor for the Italian-German section and translator of ~ 600 neologisms, under contract and forthcoming

Luisa Giacoma and Susanne Kolb: Il nuovo dizionario di tedesco / PONS Großwörterbuch Italienisch, fourth edition, Zanichelli Editore, Bologna and Klett Verlag, Stuttgart 2019; 2 592 pages and over 386 000 entries and meanings, over 700 false friends; translator of new entries and consultant for the Italian-German section

Luisa Giacoma and Susanne Kolb: Il Tedesco smart, second edition, Zanichelli Editore, Bologna and Klett Verlag, Stuttgart 2016; revising editor for the Italian-German section and co-author of false cognates, forthcoming
 
Luisa Giacoma and Susanne Kolb: Il nuovo dizionario di tedesco / PONS Großwörterbuch Italienisch, third edition, Zanichelli Editore, Bologna and Klett Verlag, Stuttgart 2014, 2 624 pages and 174,000 entries, 2,000 new entries; translator of new entries and consultant for the Italian-German section
 
Luisa Giacoma and Susanne Kolb: Il Tedesco smart, Zanichelli Editore, Bologna 2011, 1472 pages and 91,000 entries; revising editor for the Italian-German section
 
Luisa Giacoma and Susanne Kolb: PONS Studienausgabe Italienisch: Italienisch-Deutsch/Deutsch-Italienisch, Klett Verlag, Stuttgart 2010, 2048 pages and 200,000 entries and phrases; revising editor for the Italian-German section
 
Silvia Verdiani: Il Tedesco Junior + CD ROM, Loescher Editore, Turin 2010, 1344 pages and 34,000 entries; translator and collaborator of both sections
 
Luisa Giacoma and Susanne Kolb: Il nuovo dizionario di tedesco / PONS Großwörterbuch Italienisch, Zanichelli Editore, Bologna and Klett Verlag, Stuttgart 2009, second edition, 2 672 pages and 172,000 entries, over 30,000 new entries; translator of new entries and consultant for the Italian-German section
 
Luisa Giacoma and Susanne Kolb: Il dizionario di tedesco / PONS Großwörterbuch Italienisch, Zanichelli Editore, Bologna 2001, Klett Verlag, Stuttgart 2002, over 2400 pages and over 122,000 entries, translator for the Italian-German section and revising editor for both sections
 
Translations:

short biographies of Lina Binswanger and Anneliese Treumann, by Mara Fazio and Claudio Lindner for München, das offizielle Stadtportal, 2019 https://www.muenchen.de/rathaus/Stadtverwaltung/Direktorium/Stadtarchiv/Erinnerungszeichen/Biografien/Anneliese-Treumann.html 
https://www.muenchen.de/rathaus/Stadtverwaltung/Direktorium/Stadtarchiv/Erinnerungszeichen/Biografien/Lina-Binswanger.html

Antonello Borra, Alphabetiere, a choice of 53 texts from the two poetry collections Alfabestiario and Alphabetabestiario, Regensburg: Peter Kern Verlag 2015 (co-translated from Italian with Barbara Krohn)
 
Marie-Christine Le-Hûu, Jouliks oder Zuviel der Liebe, München: Theaterstückverlag 2007 (translated from Canadian French; original title: Jouliks)
 
Rocco Fortunato, Made in Italy, München: Goldmann Verlag, 2004, 315 pages; (translated from Italian; original title: Fabbricato in Italia)
 
Giovanna Bandini, Nächte wie Seide, München: Goldmann Verlag, 2003, 158 pages; (translated from Italian; original title: Giorni dispari)
 
Johannes Hösle. Prima di tutti i secoli, Padova: Meridianozero, 2003, 172 pages; (translated from German with Antonello Borra; original title: Vor aller Zeit)
 
Articles:

- Kulturrealia als lexikographische Herausforderung in zweisprachigen Wörterbüchern, co-authored with Luisa Giacoma, forthcoming in: Kulturrealia in Paralleltexten als didaktischer Fokus trans- und interkultureller Germanistik, Peter Lang 2022, pp. 71-82

- Il nuovo dizionario di Tedesco / Das Großwörterbuch Italienisch Zanichelli / Klett (L/ Giacoma/S. Kolb) als digitales Hilfsmittel in der Fremdsprachendidaktik, co-authored with Luisa Giacoma, in: L’Analisi Linguistica e Letteraria, 2022, v.1, pp. 125-144

Sconfinamenti dell’italiano – riflessioni di un’insegnante italotedesca negli Stati Uniti, ESP (Éducation et sociétés plurilingues), Aosta and Paris, 2019, pp. 49-62

“Cheering Wolfgang, the Colleague, Mentor, Teacher and Friend”, in: Living by the Golden Rule – Mentor – Scholar - World Citizen, a Festschrift Volume in Honor of Wolfgang Mieder on the Occasion of His Seventy-Fifth Birthday, Berlin, Bern, Bruxelles, New York, Oxford, Warszawa, Wien: Peter Lang, 2019, pp. 15-17

“Zur Übersetzung italienischer Sprichwörter im PONS Großwörterbuch Italienisch” (translating Italian proverbs for the PONS Großwörterbuch Italienisch), in: The Proverbial «Pied Piper», a Festschrift Volume of Essays in Honor of Wolfgang Mieder on the Occasion of His Sixty-Fifth Birthday, New York, Bern, Berlin, Bruxelles, Frankfurt am Main, Oxford, Wien: Peter Lang, 2009, pp. 195-204
 

“La riforma dell'ortografia tedesca, l'ortografia del 2000”, as an appendix to Das Pons Wörterbuch: dizionario tedesco italiano, italiano tedesco, edited by Birgit Klausmann-Molter, Bologna: Zanichelli; Stuttgart: Klett, 1996, 22 pages


Presentations:

Guest speaker on October 25 - 26, 2021 at Università della Valle d'Aosta in Aosta, Italy, teaching a 6-hour work-shop on Staging German – Creating an active classroom-through Drama in Education to colleagues and advanced students in the German department

Bilingual book launch of Johannes Hösle’s Album aus Dietenbronn, translated into Italian by Antonello Borra, at the Deutsch-Italienische Dante Alighieri Gesellschaft/ the German-Italian Dante Alighieri Society in the Weinschenkvilla, in Regensburg, Germany, July 19, 2019

Guest speaker on April 24, 2019 at Wheaton College in Norton, MA, teaching an 80 minutes advanced German class how to perform a poem, having a pedagogical discussion about Drama in Education with colleagues in the German department and offering a 2-hour workshop Staging Languages – Creating an active classroom-through Drama in Education to Faculty and Students of all languages

Staging Languages – Creating an active classroom-through-theatre-methods. A departmental presentation both for RLL and German & Russian, at UVM, January 23, 2019

Staging Italian – Creating an active classroom-through-theatre-methods. AATI Presentation in Cagliari, Italy, June 23, 2018

My experience as a dictionary maker: a hands-on approach on a little-known profession. Guest speaker at UVM’s linguistic club on April 16 2018

Reintroducing dictionaries into the conversation about learner autonomy, error assessment and lifelong learning, AATI Presentation in Palermo, Italy, June 29, 2017

Bringing dictionaries back into fashion. From a lexicographer turned language instructor, ACTFL Presentation in Boston, MA, November 20, 2016

Bringing dictionaries back into fashion. From a lexicographer turned language instructor, a departmental presentation at UVM, October 7, 2015
My experience as a dictionary maker: a hands-on approach on a little known profession. What I learned working on German-Italian/Italian-German dictionaries, a talk for the German house at UVM, October 1, 2015

Book launch of Antonello Borra’s Alphabetiere, co-translated with Barbara Krohn, at the museum of natural sciences in Regensburg, Germany, July 3, 2015

Guest speaker at the Turin International book fair, May 14, 2015 along with four other women, to discuss L’italiano e i suoi sconfinamenti: meraviglie dell’italiano e l’italiano delle meraviglie (Italian outside its borders: Italian marvels and marvelous Italian), an event sponsored by the Concorso Letterario Nazionale Lingua Madre (National Writing Contest Lingua Madre)

Reading of a choice of Antonello Borra’s Alphabetiere, co-translated with Barbara Krohn, at the Vascello d’oro in Carrù (CN), Italy, November 30, 2014

Staging of Marie-Christine Le-Hûu’s Jouliks oder Zuviel der Liebe, my translation of her play from Canadian French (original title: Jouliks) at the Ambigu theater in Berlin, Germany, November 20, 2014

Introduction to the German director Jan Ole Gerster’s movie “Oh boy” for the German House at UVM and the local German speaking community, February 3, 2014

Guest speaker on April 24, 2013 at Norwich University in Northfield, VT, presenting German through Film to the Faculty in the Department of Modern Languages and visiting an Intermediate German class which was using the book

Guest speaker about my multilingual upbringing and my pedagogical approach at teaching 3 different languages in the US at UVM’s linguistic club on October 17th, 2012 (invited by Prof. Maeve Eberhardt)

Leader of the one-day-workshop for the NJAATG (New Jersey American Association of Teachers of German) at their annual meeting on March 18th, 2009 at the Delbarton School in Morristown, NJ, presenting German through Film

 

Associations and Affiliations

American Association for Italian Studies
American Association of Teachers of Italian
American Association of Teachers of German
 

Areas of Expertise and/or Research

Language Pedagogy, Lexicography and Translation

Education

  • M.A. Romance Languages and Linguistics, Albert Ludwig University

Contact

Phone:
  • (802) 656-0860
Office Location:

Waterman 508

Courses Taught

  • ITAL 1100: Elementary Italian I
  • ITAL 1200: Elementary Italian II
  • GERM 1200: Elementary German II
  • GERM 2990: Intermediate Special Topics: My Best Friend, The Dictionary
  • FREN 1100: Elementary French I