Giorgio Basciu

Contact

Name and title: Giorgio Basciu

ORCID0009-0004-4237-1640 Länk till annan webbplats.

Workplace: The Department of Swedish Language and Multilingualism Länk till annan webbplats.

Visiting address Universitetsvägen 10 D

Postal address Institutionen för svenska och flerspråkighet106 91 Stockholm

Research groups

Scandinavian philology and language history

Scandinavian philology and language history is one of the research groups within Swedish and Scandinavian Languages. It brings together researchers interested in the study of language and literature from older times, preferably from the runic, Old Swedish, Old Icelandic and Early modern periods.

About me

 My research focuses on Old Norse literature, with a particular emphasis on poetry. My main areas of interest include:

  • Poetic language, including formulas and stylistic/rhetorical devices;
  • Structural patterns, including metrics and sound patterns;
  • Translation, particularly from Latin to Old Norse;
  • Digital Humanities, with an emphasis on corpus-based research and on the use of artificial intelligence (AI) – especially large language models (LLM) – in the study of historical texts.

My background in Germanic philology, acquired in Italy, is reflected in a comparative perspective on the Old Norse material, which explores its connections to the broader Germanic alliterative tradition, including for example Old English and Old High German poetry. I have an interest in both qualitative and quantitative research, which are integral to my doctoral research. My engagement with textual analysis has also extended to scholarly editing, where I have gained knowledge in creating digital editions and employing XML and the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) guidelines for encoding historical texts.

Background

Originally from Italy, I completed both my BA and MA degrees before moving to Sweden, where I embarked on my doctoral studies. My first encounter with Old Norse literature occurred within the framework of Germanic philology, which embraces the entirety of the medieval Germanic tradition. This background has shaped my approach to Norse philology, keeping me attuned to the broader linguistic and literary landscape of Old Norse material. Before entering academia, I worked for many years as a professional translator. My academic training also includes studies in translation and interpretation, which have further enriched my perspective on philological, linguistic, and textual analysis.

I have taught various courses at Stockholm University. My teaching has included Old Norse language and literature, translation theory and practice, digital text editing, and Historical Sociolinguistics.

Parallel to my academic work in Scandinavian studies, I have a strong interest in language teaching. I am a certified teacher of Italian as a foreign language and have taught numerous Italian language courses at the Department of Romance Studies and Classics at Stockholm University.

In April 2025 I defended my PhD dissertation, which explored word pairs and other syndetic constructions in Old Norse poetry. Based on a corpus of more than 850 stanzas preserved in the Icelandic fornaldarsögur, the study proposed a new framework for analysing the role of these constructions in poetic composition.

After completing my doctorate, I focused on the study of formulaic language in Old Norse verse. Until June 2027, I am engaged in a comparative research project at the University of Pennsylvania, with co-hosting at the at Harvard University (Aug-Dec 2026). Funded by the Sweden–America Foundation, the project examines syndetic constructions in Old Norse and Old English poetry, exploring how related Germanic traditions employ shared and divergent compositional strategies to structure poetic language.


Contact

Name and title: Giorgio Basciu

ORCID0009-0004-4237-1640 Länk till annan webbplats.

Workplace: The Department of Swedish Language and Multilingualism Länk till annan webbplats.

Visiting address Universitetsvägen 10 D

Postal address Institutionen för svenska och flerspråkighet106 91 Stockholm

Research groups

Scandinavian philology and language history

Scandinavian philology and language history is one of the research groups within Swedish and Scandinavian Languages. It brings together researchers interested in the study of language and literature from older times, preferably from the runic, Old Swedish, Old Icelandic and Early modern periods.