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In:Historical Linguistics 2015: Selected papers from the 22nd International Conference on Historical Linguistics, Naples, 27-31 July 2015
Edited by Michela Cennamo and Claudia Fabrizio
[Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 348] 2019
► pp. 459–478

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Chapter 22
Penetration of French-origin lexis in Middle English occupational domains

 | University of Westminster
 | Edge Hill University
Published online: 10 September 2019
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/cilt.348.22ing
Abstract
This study reassesses whether the contact influence of French on Middle English should continue to be conceptualised essentially as high-status prestige borrowing. French-origin items were found to constitute an average of 27% of the specific lexis of six occupational domains collected in the Bilingual Thesaurus of Mediaeval English Occupations (Sylvester, Marcus & Ingham 2017), such as trade, building and farming. Corresponding figures for Scandinavian and Dutch loans were far lower. For French to have permeated the lexis of these domains so extensively, speakers of French must have interacted significantly with English users in such occupations. Contact with French evidently exerted influence not only on the language of social elite pursuits, but also on that of the technology relating to everyday occupations.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The sociolinguistic context
  • 3.Occupational domains
  • 4.Design of the study
  • 5.Methodology
    • 5.1Semantic roles
    • 5.2Using the Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary
  • 6.Data analysis
    • 6.1French- and Scandinavian-origin lexis compared
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
References (40)
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