Editorial note: Hard and soft communication. Umberto Eco's lecture at Festival della Comunicazione di Camogli in 2014

Abstract

The editing of this speech follows a set of editorial conventions that have been defined to ensure a reconciliation between fidelity and ease of reading. The text published here is a transcription of Umberto Eco's speech at the Camogli communication festival, as delivered in 2014. The transcription relied on a notes text, written by Umberto Eco himself, which is available online but does not cover the entirety of the speech. The speech, originally produced in Italian, was translated into Portuguese and English. In the translation, expressions were changed only exceptionally and only when they were incomprehensible to the target cultural or linguistic context. In the transposition from orality to the written word we introduced some minor changes, although respecting the approach that Eco himself adopted in his own transposition of speeches and seminars into writing: making stylistic corrections and softening some characteristics of the oral exposition (such as repetitions and other linguistic traits). In general, we used "(...)" to indicate the introduction and ending of oral contents present in the video and which were not present in the written notes.