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- Title
Periodization, Translation, Prescription and the Emergence of Classical French.
- Authors
Ayres‐Bennett, Wendy; Caron, Philippe
- Abstract
In this article we demonstrate how fine-grained analysis of salient features of linguistic change over a relatively short, but significant period can help refine our notions of periodization. As our case study, we consider whether it is appropriate to distinguish a period called français préclassique ('Pre-Classical French'), and if so, what its temporal limits are. As our contemporary informants we take, on the one hand, the comments of writers of remarks on the French language, who were highly conscious of language change, and, on the other, usage in successive French translations of the same Latin source text which can be exploited to track and date the adoption of 'modern' linguistic variants. We find atypical patterns of change - and notably changes which move rapidly through Labov's different stages - that contribute to the sense of discontinuity or periodization. However, this sense of 'rupture' does not coincide with the chronological boundaries hitherto suggested for français préclassique, thus throwing the validity of this period into question.
- Subjects
LINGUISTICS; FRENCH language; FRENCH philology; PHILOLOGY; ROMANCE languages
- Publication
Transactions of the Philological Society, 2016, Vol 114, Issue 3, p339
- ISSN
0079-1636
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1111/1467-968X.12081