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In:Historical Linguistics 2023: Selected papers from the 26th International Conference on Historical Linguistics,Heidelberg, 4-8 September 2023
Edited by Jadranka Gvozdanović
[Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 371] 2026
► pp. 386–410

Historical language contact in private texts

A case study of multilingual practices in Alsace

 | University of Heidelberg
This content is being prepared for publication; it may be subject to changes.
Abstract
This study examines historical language contact in Alsace from 1914 to 1919, focusing on multilingual writing in the private sphere. The research combines historical sociolinguistics and language contact studies to explore the linguistic dynamics between French, German, and Alsatian. Utilizing a corpus of private correspondence and diaries, the study analyzes how individuals navigated multilingualism under socio-political pressures, such as official language policies and military censorship. The findings reveal complex linguistic behaviors, including code-switching, script-switching, and morphosyntactic borrowing, reflecting the interplay of identity, power, and language legislation. This research contributes to a deeper understanding of historical multilingualism, demonstrating how individual language use in private texts provides insights into broader socio-linguistic contexts and historical language contact phenomena.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Language contact and the French language
  • 3.The corpus
  • 4.Case study: Multilingual ego-documents
    • 4.1Language choice and the use of a multilingual repertoire
      • 4.1.1Morphosyntactic borrowing
      • 4.1.2Phraseological borrowing
      • 4.1.3Semantic borrowing
    • 4.2Code-switching
    • 4.3Script-switching
  • 5.Concluding remarks
  • Acknowledgement
  • Notes
  • References
References (60)
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