The Transmission of Anglo-Norman

Language history and language acquisition

Richard P. Ingham | Birmingham City University

Hardbound – Available

ISBN 9789027208262 | EUR 99.00 | USD 149.00

e-Book –

ISBN 9789027273345 | EUR 99.00 | USD 149.00

This investigation contributes to issues in the study of second language transmission by considering the well-documented historical case of Anglo-Norman. Within a few generations of the establishment of this variety, its phonology diverged sharply from that of continental French, yet core syntactic distinctions continued to be reliably transmitted. The dissociation of phonology from syntax transmission is related to the age of exposure to the language in the experience of ordinary users of the language. The input provided to children acquiring language in a naturalistic communicative setting, even though one of a school institution, enabled them to acquire target-like syntactic properties of the inherited variety. In addition, it allowed change to take place along the lines of transmission by incrementation. A linguistic environment combining the ‘here-and-now’ aspects of ordinary first language acquisition with the growing cognitive complexity of an educational meta-language appears to have been adequate for this variety to be transmitted as a viable entity that encoded the public life of England for centuries.

[Language Faculty and Beyond, 9] 2012. xii, 179 pp.

Publishing status:

https://doi.org/10.1075/lfab.9

Table of Contents

Preface | pp. ix–xii

1. Introduction to key issues | pp. 1–12

2. Anglo-Norman and L2 varieties of medieval French | pp. 13–26

3. The context of transmission | pp. 27–38

4. Rationale and design of the study | pp. 39–52

5. Anglo-Norman phonology | pp. 53–72

6. The syntax of quantifiers in Anglo-Norman | pp. 73–88

7. Noun gender marking in Anglo-Norman | pp. 89–100

8. Verb second and null subjects in Anglo-Norman | pp. 101–120

9. The order of Attributive Adjective and Noun in Anglo-Norman | pp. 121–138

10. The syntax and pragmatics of discourse particles in Anglo-Norman | pp. 139–158

11. Conclusions | pp. 159–164

Subject index | pp. 173–???

“This macro study of a dialect of medieval French draws on Anglo-Norman (AN) written texts spanning several centuries to consider the intersection of diachronic change and “exceptional” child language acquisition. [...] Ingham’s study is valuable both as a contribution to theoretical scholarship in diachronic change, language acquisition and transmission, and as a source of documentation of Anglo-Norman corpora, particularly those available in searchable electronic form.”

Julia Herschensohn, University of Washington

“[A] significant contribution to research on Anglo-Norman, and a must-read for those working on the impact of contact between French-English as well as historical contact situations in general.”

Devan B. Steiner, Ithaca College, on Linguist List 24.2950 (July 2013)

“L’ouvrage de Richard Ingham apporte ainsi aux études concernant l’anglonormand à la fois une perspective nouvelle et des analyses linguistiques précises et nourries, tout en offrant des réflexions méthodologiques essentielles concernant l’utilisation d’un corpus historique.”

Christel Nissille, in Revue de Linguistique Romane, 315-316 (2015)

“Ingham parvient dans cet ouvrage à faire un cas d’école des théories d’acquisition du langage et du bilinguisme appliquées à l’histoire de la compétence des rédacteurs de l’A-N. Son travail illustre brillamment les nouvelles directions que donnent à la linguistique historique les recherches contemporaines en psycholinguistique et didactique des langues, le développement des ressources électroniques et l’emploi des méthodes quantitatives d’analyse des données.”

Christel Nissille, in Histoire Epistémologie Langage, Vol. 38:2 (2016)

“Richard Ingham presents us with a clearer view of the Anglo-Norman language, one which was completely and correctly learned in a naturalistic context and not, as previously believed, a poorly learned L2 which was heavily influenced by Middle English. [...] Ingham’s work underlines the great need for further corpus studies on Anglo-Norman and overall is a valuable contribution to our understanding of the use and evolution of the language.”

Heather Pagan, in Zeitschrift für französische Sprache und Literatur, Vol.126:1-2 (2016). Pages 190-193

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