Medievalbookshop — AIB0041 Machan, English in the Middle Ages

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Tim William Machan.
English in the Middle Ages.
Published New York: Oxford U.P., 2005 (previously issued in hardback, 2003).
ISBN 0199282129;
ISBN-13: 9780199282128.
Binding: paperback, perfect bound.
Printer: Biddles, King’s Lynn.
Size: 155×233×12mm.
Page count: x,205pp plus 1 foldout monochrome plate.
Main language: English.
Unused bargain: this copy was not supplied shrink-wrapped by the manufacturer, so shows some evidence of long-term storage, the usual mild scuffs etc.

This item £10.00
P&P inc. within the UK
(delivery outside the UK not currently available)

[Publisher’s price £29.00]
Weight without packaging: 348g.

How to order this book

“Professor Machan explores for the first time fully a new dimension in the understanding of the role of the English language in medieval England. He is rigorous and sceptical in his examination of assumptions that have come to be too easily accepted — about the rise of ‘standard’ English, about ‘linguistic nationalism’, about the role of Lollardy in fostering the vernacular, about the intrinsic funniness of regional dialects. He uses literary texts well, and offers, from his particular linguistic vantage-point, new and compelling interpretations of the dialect northernisms in Chaucer’s Reeve’s Tale and of the subtleties of the ‘sociolect’ of courtly love-conversation in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.” Derek Pearsall , Harvard University

What did people in England in the Middle Ages think about language? What was their view of English, French, and Latin, and how did this influence the way they communicated? This book uses these questions as a basis for a ground-breaking investigation into the use and status of the English language in medieval England.

Professor Machan suggests that many linguistic, literary, and historical considerations of medieval statements on language have significantly failed to take into account the social and linguistic contexts of their production. In this volume he explores not only medieval ideas about language but also the discursive traditions which generated them.

English in the Middle Ages draws upon a wide range of documentary evidence, including most notably the royal letters issued in 1258 prior to the Barons’ War. The author also analyses the language spoken by Chaucer’s pilgrims, the conversations in ‘Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’, and many other chronicles, poems, and commentaries. The book concludes with a consideration of the post-medieval history of the status of English in law, literature, and education.

The book will interest scholars from a range of disciplines — particularly linguistics, literature, and history — and is written in clear, non‑technical language.

Readership: Scholars and students of linguistics (especially historical English linguistics) and medieval literature; medieval historians.

[BML/OUP]
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