The Italian "popular song" in Japan: A possible observatory of the diffusion of Italian language and culture

Uses of Italian songs (here understood in its broader sense) in the teaching of Italian are numerous and respond to a heterogeneous set of methodologies. In fact, the scientific literature describing teaching strategies based on Italian songs refers to approaches that can be very different from each other and, at the same time, addresses to equally differentiated targets. The focus of our survey is the sub-genre of the Italian popular song as described by Umberto Eco in 1964 and established as a defined musical variety in Italy and in the world also with the contribution, since 1951, of the Festival della Canzone italiana (i.e. Festival di Sanremo). This paper presents a preliminary analysis of the possibility to admit this specific textual genre among the observatories of the diffusion of Italian language and culture, with special attention to the case of Japan.