Eighteenth-century French cuisine terms and their semantic
integration in English
A great variety of French culinary vocabulary
has been taken over into English down the ages (e.g., Chirol 1973). During the
eighteenth century, too, French served English as an important donor
of lexical items which reveal the finesse of French cookery. The
present analysis sets out to shed light on the semantic integration
of French-derived culinary terms. An essential objective of this
paper is to find out whether (a) a particular sense a borrowing
adopts after being introduced into English has its origins in French
(as a result of the continuing influence of French on English) or
(b) whether the relevant change in meaning is due to an internal
sense development within the receiving language.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 1.1Previous studies of the French impact on the English
vocabulary
- 1.2The OED Online as a source of French
culinary terms
- 1.3Aims and methodology
- 1.4Terminology employed in the present analysis
- 1.4.1Types of loan influences
- 1.4.2Types of semantic change
- 2.The semantic integration of French culinary terms in the
eighteenth century
- 2.1Cooking styles and the preparation of food
- 2.2Food items and products
- 2.3Beverages
- 2.4Dishes
- 2.5Desserts and items of confectionery
- 3.Summary and conclusion
-
Notes
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References
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Online resources