On French borrowing as a lexical choice in Middle English translation: a historico-semantic approach

Abstract

The present study begins as a survey of previous studies in French borrowing in Middle English, and thereby the related works on the multilingual situation in medieval England and bilingualism. As the survey proceeds, a new perspective to approach this subject emerges: French borrowing as a lexical choice in the context of translation into Middle English from a historico-semantic perspective. The study then proceeds with the first thirty stanzas of 'Amis and Amilioun' as a text case to explore the possible areas for future work on this subject in the context of written translation, in particular semantic blocking, synonymy, collocation and the long-neglected ‘resistance’ against borrowing.