False friends: Fiction

L’uso di fiction come sinonimo di sceneggiato tv, è tutto italiano. In inglese fiction significa “di fantasia”. In una libreria, per esempio, troverete le sezioni fiction (narrativa) e fact o non-fiction (saggistica). Avete presente la fantascienza (scienza di fantasia)? Non a caso è… science-fiction!

Mark Worden (Standard British accent)

The word fiction isn’t exactly a false friend. I would say it’s more a case of a misuse ⁽¹⁾ of a word in Italian. When Italians talk about a “fiction,” as a TV programme involving drama, this bears very little relation ⁽²⁾ to the English use of the word, which is a type of literature. If you go into a bookshop or a library, it will be… divided essentially into two sections; “fact” and “fiction.”⁽³⁾  “Fact” is essays, subjects like sport or psychology, academic subjects, mathematics, anything like that, and… and “fiction” is all… all the rest, basically, stuff that’s been made up ⁽⁴⁾; novels ⁽⁵⁾, essentially, literarature. And what the English use when trying to describe what the Italians call “fiction” in the TV sense of the word is “TV drama” or a “TV series.” And I have to say that the word fiction has created a lot of confusion for… for Britons in Italy and perhaps for Italians in England, who knows?

GLOSSARY

1 misuse: uso improprio

2 bears very little relation: ha veramente poco a che fare 

3 “fact” and “fiction”: lett. fatti reali e finzione

4 stuff that’s been made up: cose che sono state inventate

 5 novels: romanzi