Multilingual Practices in Middle English Texts
Sponsoring Organization(s)
Special Session
Organizer Name
Marta Sylwanowicz
Organizer Affiliation
Univ. of Social Sciences, Warsaw
Presider Name
Marta Sylwanowicz
Paper Title 1
"Loo what sholde a man in thyse dayes now wryte, egges or eyren": Code-Switching or Borrowing in Middle English?
Presenter 1 Name
Magdalena Bator
Presenter 1 Affiliation
Univ. of Social Sciences, Warsaw
Paper Title 2
Multilingualism in Legal Documents: The Analysis of Code-Switching in Medieval Wills
Presenter 2 Name
Joanna Esquibel, Anna Wojtyś
Presenter 2 Affiliation
Univ. SWPS Warszawa, Univ. Warszawski
Start Date
15-5-2016 10:30 AM
Session Location
Fetzer 2020
Description
The use of two or more languages in one communicative context can be found in nearly all types of Middle English writings, both literary and non-literary, verse and prose. Although multilingual writing in medieval England has been thoroughly studied, there are still materials that have not received equal attention from researchers and have been limited to relatively small datasets. The increasing availability of large electronic corpora of Middle English texts should allow for a more systematic overview of the multilingual practices in medieval texts. The purpose of this session is bring together scholars who would focus on the communicative functions of Middle English writings and discuss the connections between code selection, genre and text type. Some of the questions that the authors of papers may wish to answer are as follows: (1) what are the differences and similarities in multilingual practices found in various text-types (2) what strategies were employed to adapt the texts to the intended audience, (3) what was the communicative function of incorporating foreign elements? (4) do the proportions of foreign elements or code-switching vary? (5) Are there any systematic patterns of code-switching? The proposed discussion is of an interdisciplinary character and aims at looking at the analysed material from different perspectives, combining sociolinguistics, lexicology, typology, dialectology and/or syntax.
Marta Sylwanowicz (University of Social Sciences, Warsaw, Poland)
Multilingual Practices in Middle English Texts
Fetzer 2020
The use of two or more languages in one communicative context can be found in nearly all types of Middle English writings, both literary and non-literary, verse and prose. Although multilingual writing in medieval England has been thoroughly studied, there are still materials that have not received equal attention from researchers and have been limited to relatively small datasets. The increasing availability of large electronic corpora of Middle English texts should allow for a more systematic overview of the multilingual practices in medieval texts. The purpose of this session is bring together scholars who would focus on the communicative functions of Middle English writings and discuss the connections between code selection, genre and text type. Some of the questions that the authors of papers may wish to answer are as follows: (1) what are the differences and similarities in multilingual practices found in various text-types (2) what strategies were employed to adapt the texts to the intended audience, (3) what was the communicative function of incorporating foreign elements? (4) do the proportions of foreign elements or code-switching vary? (5) Are there any systematic patterns of code-switching? The proposed discussion is of an interdisciplinary character and aims at looking at the analysed material from different perspectives, combining sociolinguistics, lexicology, typology, dialectology and/or syntax.
Marta Sylwanowicz (University of Social Sciences, Warsaw, Poland)