Giuseppe Antonelli was born in Arezzo, grew up in Rome and now lives in Milan. He is a tenured professor of History of Italian Language at the University of Pavia. His first studies mainly dealt with the Eighteenth-century novel (Alle radici della letteratura di consumo, 1996), the epistolary genre in the Nineteenth century (Tipologia linguistica del genere epistolare nel primo Ottocento, 2004, Marino Moretti Award for Young Scholars), and contemporary Italian language. He is author of many Italian grammar textbooks and linguistics essays. In 2003 his novel Trenità ovvero Elogio dei tempi morti was shortlisted for the Premio Strega.

He is the author of Lingua ipermedia. La parola di scrittore oggi in Italia (2006), L’italiano nella società della comunicazione (2007), Ma cosa vuoi che sia una canzone. Mezzo secolo di italiano cantato (2010), the Italian Linguistics manual Manuale di linguistica italiana. Storia, attualità, grammatica (2011), written with Prof. Luca Serianni, La vita non è in rima (per quello che ne so) (2013), an interview and dialogue on lyrics with Italian singer and songwriter Luciano Ligabue, Comunque anche Leopardi diceva le parolacce. L’ italiano come non ve l’ hanno mai raccontato (2014), Storia dell’italiano scritto (2014, Premio Pavese 2021), co-edited with Matteo Motolese e Lorenzo Tomasin, and the Italian grammar L’ italiano, gli italiani (2016), co-edited with Emiliano Picchiorri, Un italiano vero (2016), Volgare eloquenza (2017), Il museo della lingua italiana (2018), L'influenza delle parole (2020), Il mondo visto dalle parole (2020), Il Dante di tutti (2022). His most recent book is La vita delle parole (2023).

He is a contributor to Corriere della Sera, for which he also curated two series of collaterals. He created and hosted La lingua batte, a weekly program on Rai Radio 3, and he's a weekly host of the tv show Il Kilimangiaro (Rai 3). From 2007 to 2017 he coordinated the section of the European Vocabulary for the Mantua Literary Festival. He is part of the commission nominated by the Ministry of Cultural Heritage for the design of the great Museum of the Italian language which will be inaugurated in Florence in 2021. He is the scientific curator of the Dante exhibition Gli occhi e la mente. Un’epopea pop (The eyes and the mind. A pop epic) that was held at the MAR - Museum of Art of the city of Ravenna from March 20th to July 18th 2021 on the occasion of the celebrations for the seventh centenary of the death of Dante Alighieri.