A hypothesis on the structure of macaronic business writing

Wright, Laura

doi:10.1515/9783110892000.309

Cited by 23 publications

(12 citation statements)

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“…Distribution was thus one diagnostic. A further, more salient test was derived from Laura Wright's (1995) study of mixed-language business writing in which she considers the semantic relationships between terms which occur in the base language and lexical items which are in the embedded language, that is, nonce borrowings or single-word code-switches. 4 Wright considers that technicality may be central to the question of code choice, and argues that technicality entails restriction of meaning, categorizing noun phrases in the accounts she examines, which contain a great many lists of items and their costs, according to their superordinate and hyponymic relations.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Contact effects on the technical lexis of Middle English: a semantic hierarchic approach

Sylvester¹

2018

English Language and Linguistics

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In the context of multilingualism in later medieval Britain, the influx of French terminology into the emerging technical vocabulary of Middle English is likely to have produced synchronous synonyms. For functional reasons, some native terms are expected to be dropped from the language, others to undergo differentiation through semantic shift. A significant proportion of the French borrowings are often seen as having been new technical terms, but earlier historical research on the nature of technical vocabulary in English has not clearly characterized this lexical domain; ways are therefore explored here of identifying technical terminology in this period. Definitions contained in historical dictionaries, principally the Middle English Dictionary, provide the main diagnostic, specificity of meaning. As a case study, borrowings in a technical register are examined using the terms contained in the subdomain ‘Instruments’ within the Middle English vocabulary for Building (extracted from the Bilingual Thesaurus of Everyday Life in Medieval England project) supplemented with lexis from the Historical Thesaurus. Utilizing the components of meaning in the Middle English Dictionary and the Oxford English Dictionary definitions, the lexical items are classified into semantic hierarchies as was done for the Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary. In addition to dates of first usage, etymological information about the lexical items is included in the semantic hierarchies, allowing analysis of patterns of replacement by borrowed terms at different levels of the lexicon. It is found that the impact of French on the native lexicon in this dataset is most evident at the superordinate and basic levels of the lexicon, where we find almost equal numbers of native and borrowed terms, while at the hyponymic level native terms are in the vast majority. The study provides an insight into the vocabulary of speakers of the Middle English period with a high level of experience and expertise in technical fields and the findings suggest a resistance to borrowed vocabulary not at the lowest section of the social stratum, but rather by the class of skilled workers.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Contact effects on the technical lexis of Middle English: a semantic hierarchic approach

Sylvester¹

2018

English Language and Linguistics

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“…The use of foreign languages in the merchants' letters can be related to multilingual practices evident in business documents of the time (see e.g. Wright 1992Wright , 1995Wright , 1998Wright , 2000Wright , 2001Rothwell 2000), while the Latin of the domain of law has been noted in Davidson (2003Davidson ( , 2005, as well as Nurmi and Pahta (2013).…”

Section: Multilingual Practices In Writingmentioning

confidence: 99%

9. The social and textual embedding of multilingual practices in Late Modern English: A corpus-based analysis

Nurmi¹,

Tyrkkö²,

Petäjäniemi³

et al. 2017

Multilingual Practices in Language History

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“…The lack of attention to the original sources in most of the literature is particularly striking for three main reasons 10 : (i) the Brewers' resolution of 1422 is recurrently mentioned in many different studies of late medieval London using different approaches (e.g. Otway-Ruthven 1939;Thrupp 1962Thrupp [1948: 158; Howatt & Widdowson 2004[1984: 10; Delisle & Woodsworth 2012[1995: 26); (ii) the London Grocers play a significant role in the City of London as one of the most powerful livery companies (Burrage & Corry 1981); and (iii) Chambers & Daunt (1931) is an essential work of reference for the academic community. 11 Furthermore, despite further insights that have recently emerged into the real coexistence of Latin, French and English in financial accounts (e.g.…”

Section: Inconsistencies and Misunderstandings: The Grocers And The Bmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…11 Furthermore, despite further insights that have recently emerged into the real coexistence of Latin, French and English in financial accounts (e.g. Wright 1995;Miller 2002;Trotter 2010), these seem to have gone completely unnoticed for researchers in other fields. Creaton (1976) and Jefferson (2003) constitute two good examples of this inattention.…”

Section: Inconsistencies and Misunderstandings: The Grocers And The Bmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dating the Shift to English in the Financial Accounts of Some London Livery Companies: A Reappraisal

Carnicero

2015

Multilingua

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A mixed-language phenomenon such as language shift has been acknowledged to constitute one of the hallmarks of the manuscripts in which the members of the City of London livery companies recorded their financial transactions during the late medieval period. Despite these texts having been studied by scholars in very diverse disciplines, inconsistencies pertaining to the exact date when some companies shifted from Latin and/or French to English as their official language of record keeping have prevailed in the literature. This article is intended to shed light on the evolution over time of language shift in different livery companies, by revisiting the two single studies which, albeit marginally, have so far touched on this topic (Heather Creaton's [1976] edition and translation of the London Mercers' Wardens' Accounts and Lisa Jefferson's [2003] edition and translation of the London Goldsmiths' Wardens' Accounts and Court Minutes), and by contrasting each perspective with linguistic information from first-hand sources. I conclude that there remains a need for a much more consistent and focused approach to the issue of language shift in the City of London livery companies.

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A hypothesis on the structure of macaronic business writing

Cited by 23 publications

References 0 publications

Contact effects on the technical lexis of Middle English: a semantic hierarchic approach

Contact effects on the technical lexis of Middle English: a semantic hierarchic approach

9. The social and textual embedding of multilingual practices in Late Modern English: A corpus-based analysis

Dating the Shift to English in the Financial Accounts of Some London Livery Companies: A Reappraisal

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