7. Code-switching in the long twelfth century

Abstract

In historical code-switching research, most of the focus has thus far lain on texts produced in England, with code-switching between English, Latin and/or French. Different periods in the history of English have not, however, received equal attention from researchers: texts from the Early Middle English period have been almost completely neglected. This chapter looks at the range of forms and functions of code-switching in texts from the generally under-researched ‘long twelfth century’. Locating levels at which code-switching takes place - manuscript, page, text and clause - the chapter considers patterns emerging from these multilingual practices. Despite the dominance of Latin as the main language of text production in England at this time, particular attention is paid to Latin switches embedded in the English matrix, and code-switching from English to French is also discussed, although it is quite rare.

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