Middle English Research Articles

On the rise of the ordinal number second in Middle English

On the rise of the ordinal number second in Middle English

Mark Faulkner. A new literary history of the long twelfth century. Language and literature between Old and Middle English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2022

Mark Faulkner. A new literary history of the long twelfth century. Language and literature between Old and Middle English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2022

On the evolution of subordinators expressing negative purpose: the case of lest in Middle English

On the evolution of subordinators expressing negative purpose: the case of lest in Middle English

Trinity College Library Dublin: A Descriptive Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Middle English and Some Old English. . By John Scattergood

Trinity College Library Dublin: A Descriptive Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Middle English and Some Old English. . By John Scattergood

Investigating English Sanctity in the Middle English St. Erkenwald

Abstract: This essay extends the analysis of an earlier article, published in the previous issue of Studies in Philology , which argues for an Anglo-Saxon cultural identity for the nameless man in the tomb in the Middle English St. Erkenwald . The present essay examines the fictional scenario of the poem, involving the exhumation and investigation of an early English saintly body during renovations at St. Paul's Cathedral in London, within the context of the historical investigations of Anglo-Saxon saints' cults in the decades following the Conquest of 1066, proceedings that track the nationwide cathedral-building program inaugurated by the Normans. The poem's emotional staging of a skeptical high-ranking prelate questioning the body, flanked by an anxious community, and the conspicuous absence of written documentation concerning the body capture the spirit and methodology of the historical investigations conducted by Norman prelates on early English saints pending reinterment in new ecclesiastic buildings. The poem emulates features of post-Conquest hagiography of early English saints in its long historical proem, while challenging the vision of history it proclaims. The source text of the Trajan legend and its importance to pre-Conquest society underscore and reassert early English formulations of salvation, supplying the distinctly early English mode of baptism of tears. The poem subtly undermines the investigatory process, defending early English identity in post-Conquest society.

Henry Daniel and the Rise of Middle English Medical Writing ed. by Sarah Star (review)

Henry Daniel and the Rise of Middle English Medical Writing ed. by Sarah Star (review)

The Politics of Babbling in Mum and the Sothsegger

Abstract This article contends that the alliterative long-line poem Mum and the Sothsegger redefines and develops the meanings of the Middle English verb babelen (to babble). I argue that the Mum-poet shifted the meaning of the word from denoting idle prattle and nonsensical, infantile vocalizations into a simple and transparent form of communication that was ideal for telling truths. Those who babble are directly opposed to those who keep mum or communicate in a subtle and complex manner, obscuring and manipulating the truth through their confusing rhetoric and glosses. The Mum-poet pits simplicity against complexity in his political commentary, advocating for the most straightforward, utilitarian manner of speech in statecraft.

Multiply‐translated Chaucer in the Korean classroom

AbstractThis paper introduces a teaching experiment that uses a set of local translations of a European medieval text—in this case, Korean translations of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales—as teaching texts in the Korean classroom alongside the original work. Students compare a range of translations dating from all periods of the 20th century, including one from as early as 1915 and others from the 1960s, 1980s, and 2000s. Tracking the variety of translation methods and different linguistic and artistic choices employed by these multiple translations allows even students unfamiliar with Middle English to gain a better sense of the particulars of Chaucer's language and character‐making. Treating translation itself as a creative mode, this paper argues that even bad translations and messy histories of linguistic interference can be put to productive pedagogical use. Recuperated local translation archives can be used in the teaching of Middle English literature by helping students understand Chaucer's own positionality as a translator and compiler. Such archives also contribute to the study of comparative literature more broadly as they present case studies of how ideas of world literature are formed over time and space, and encourage a critical engagement with the canon even as it is being taught.

The Application of Stratified Teaching Method in Junior Middle School English Teaching

In junior middle school English teaching, teachers should improve students' comprehensive English ability based on the training requirements of core literacy. For English teaching in junior middle school, listening is an important content. Teachers should design a scientific listening teaching mode based on the characteristics of junior high school students. At present, there are still some problems in the middle school English listening teaching in middle schools. Teachers should analyze the problems in listening teaching, and at the same time take the form of stratified teaching to meet students' differentiated and personalized learning needs, which plays an important role in promoting students to complete English listening learning more efficiently.

Teaching Chaucer in Tunisia: An interdisciplinary approach

AbstractPedagogies of the premodern in anglophone contexts face many obstacles, like cultural differences, linguistic remoteness, and stereotypical representations. In EFL learning and teaching settings, student motivation, cultural adequation, and historical imagination are also needed. In Tunisia, this was further complicated after the Jasmine Revolution when newly radicalised students of English resented aspects of premodern literature which they considered inaccurate, uninteresting, or inappropriate. In this paper, the author presents a learning and teaching model developed to help post‐revolutionary Tunisian learners with diverse backgrounds and orientations better understand and appreciate the works of Geoffrey Chaucer. Combining elements of cognitive studies, comparative literature, and digital codicology, this bricolage was used in graduate seminars at the University of Sousse to study digitised manuscripts and texts in Arabic, Latin, and (Middle) English. Informed by active pedagogy and enhanced by audio‐visual aids, activities based on this model effectively addressed challenges, helped achieve learning outcomes, and made Tunisians more at home with Chaucer.

Lability and the rigidification of word order: evidence from Early Middle English

AbstractThis article analyzes quantitatively the effect of five linguistic features on the position of the object in Early Middle English. Four of them have long been explored in the literature: object type, object length, clause type and type of verbal cluster (±auxiliary). The fifth feature, lability, has so far been given less attention. Lability is the possibility that a given verb alternates between an unaccusative and transitive frame without morphological coding. This makes lability an instance of morphological syncretism. This study tests the hypothesis that, for disambiguation purposes, labile transitive verbs show a more consistent word order (VO in this case) than non-labile transitives. If confirmed, the hypothesis would point to a non-trivial connection between the increase of labile verbs and the move towards a fixed word order in Early Middle English. Such a connection has gone unnoticed in the existing literature, which, as far as the influence of morphological syncretism on word order is concerned, has focused almost exclusively on the effect of the loss of case marking. A total of 961 transitive clauses with labile and non-labile verbs were tagged for the above-mentioned five variables. Their effect on the choice between VO and OV is measured using statistical analysis. The conclusion is that verb lability is a significant predictor of VO in the period under scrutiny, with labile verbs thus spearheading the shift towards a stable word order pattern (VO) in English. The correlation between verb lability and word order rigidification demonstrated for Early Middle English in this article may be relevant for studies on word order from multiple perspectives: language-specific, typological, synchronic and diachronic.

한국과 핀란드의 중학교 영어 교과서 비교 연구

Objectives The study aims to compare middle school English textbooks in Finland and Korea in terms of the structure of a unit, its contents, and the readability of reading texts. Methods To show the differences and similarities in the structure of a unit, the organization of textbooks was comparatively described. Then, the sequence of sections and the length of each section were examined. For the comparison of the content of the textbooks, communicative functions, language forms, and topics were analyzed. In addition, text readability scores were measured at the discourse level using Coh-Metrix version 3.0. Results English textbooks in Finland and Korea showed considerable differences in organization, length, types of activities, etc. First of all, in Finnish English textbooks, the same characters appeared throughout the textbook, while Korean English textbooks showed different characters in every unit. Therefore, Finnish textbooks mainly used narratives and dialogues centered around the characters, while Korean textbooks showed a relatively high proportion of informative texts. In Korean textbooks, communicative functions and language forms are clearly separated and act as the axis of the textbook, but Finnish textbooks utilize language forms for communication practice. There were no salient differences in the level of readability between the two countries. Conclusions This study gives the following implications for developing Korean middle school English textbooks. Using colloquial narrative texts can increase the authenticity of input without increasing the vocabulary in the national curriculum. The dichotomy between language forms and communicative functions needs to be moderated for the development of oral communicative competence. It is also worth considering adding extra reading materials to textbooks to encourage students' autonomy and give teachers flexibility in the selection of teaching materials. Also, it is necessary to think about ways to creatively utilize the positive effects of translation activities for lower-level students.

The Semantic Meaning of Verb+ Particle Construction Based on Emergent Metaphor Theory

The origin of Verb+ Particle can be traced back to the Old English period. During the development of Old English to Middle English, the Particle slowly replaced the role of verbal prefixes, and by the late Middle English, it completely replaced verbal prefixes and became a category used quite frequently in everyday English communication. The Verb+ Particle is one of the English phrasal verbs, and because of its multiple meanings, Chinese English learners easily confuse the meaning and make mistakes when acquiring and applying it, thus its becoming a major obstacle for English learners. The thesis tries to use emergent metaphor theory and construction grammar theory in cognitive pragmatics to analyze the semantic meaning of the four common particles down from the form and meaning of Verb +particle constructions, and then to use the meaning features to relate the specific meaning items of Verb + particle. participants, thus strengthening the ability to understand and use Verb +particle in specific contexts, and exploring a new path for English learners to understand the semantic meaning of Verb+ particle.

The associations between foreign language anxiety and the effectiveness of immediate and delayed corrective feedback

AbstractThis article reports on a study exploring the associations between foreign language anxiety and the effectiveness of immediate and delayed corrective feedback (CF) in the acquisition of the English past tense. One hundred and two middle school English as a foreign language (EFL) learners responded to the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale for the purpose of gauging their foreign language anxiety. They were then assigned to three conditions: Immediate CF, Delayed CF, and Task Only. The three groups performed six communicative tasks in three treatment sessions, two in each session, which aimed to elicit the learners' use of the English past tense. The Immediate and Delayed CF groups received CF treatments during task performance in the first and final treatment sessions, respectively, and the Task Only group performed the learning tasks without receiving any CF treatment. The results showed that anxiety was a significant predictor of Delayed CF but not Immediate CF and Task Only. Drawing on attentional control theory, we interpret the results as suggesting that the debilitative impact of anxiety on L2 learning is triggered by a heavier processing burden delayed CF imposes on learners' cognitive resources.

IIIMiddle English

Abstract This chapter has twelve sections: 1. Early Middle English (c.1050–1350); 2. Manuscript and Technical Studies; 3. Religious Prose and Verse; 4. Secular Prose; 5. Secular Verse; 6. Piers Plowman; 7. Gower; 8. Older Scots; 9. Drama; 10. The Gawain Poet; 11. Romance: Metrical, Alliterative, Malory; 12. Hoccleve and Lydgate. Section 1 is by Samira Lindstedt; section 2 is by J.D. Sargan; section 3 is by Natalie Calder; section 4 is by Mark Ronan; sections 5, 10, and 11 are by Darragh Greene; section 6 is by Seth Strickland; section 7 is by Rebecca Menmuir; section 8 is by Kate Ash-Irisarri; section 9 is by Sarah Brazil; section 12 is by Laurie Atkinson with assistance from Rebecca Menmuir.

Sensology: Sensory Approaches to Middle English Literature and Culture

Sensology: Sensory Approaches to Middle English Literature and Culture

Where didwergo? Lexical variation and change in third-person male adult noun referents in Old and Middle English

AbstractThe present study uses variationist quantitative methods to examine the evolution of the semantic field of third-person male adult noun referents from Old English to Middle English, covering a time depth of approximately six hundred years. Results show a shift from the favored variantwerin Old English tomanin Middle English, with the diachronic change in frequency following a prototypical s-shaped distribution. Although the replacement seems to take centuries to be complete, lexical frequency and written transmission are proposed as influential explanatory factors, and a homonymic clash is suggested to have accelerated the process of replacement in Middle English. Text type and text origin contribute to variation, with alliteration significantly influencing lexical choices in Old English verse texts. When combined with findings from recent synchronic work, this study highlights a heterogeneously structured semantic domain, which has undergone lexical replacement and change over time, providing some evidence for the applicability of s-shaped patterns for lexical change.

Textbook-based L2 Oral Reading Fluency of Lower-level 8th Grade EFL Students and Its Association with L2 Reading Comprehension

The present investigation endeavors to assess the L2 oral reading fluency and comprehension abilities of Korean EFL middle school students in the context of the Korean national curriculum. Sixty-one eighth-grade students participated in the study, which involved oral reading and comprehension tests using second-year middle school English materials. Informal reading assessments were also conducted to evaluate the students' English word reading accuracy, automaticity, and prosody, and L2 oral reading fluency was determined from these measures. The results showed that only 30% of the students were capable of reading independently, while the remaining students encountered difficulties. A significant correlation was found between L2 oral reading fluency and L2 reading comprehension. The findings of this study provide valuable contributions to the field of Korean English education and hold implications for both L2 reading instruction and research.

BACK FORMATION AS A MINOR PROCESS OF WORD FORMATION

<div><p>Back-formation is a process of English word creation that, due to its irregular nature in terms of form and meaning, has yielded numerous plausible interpretations from linguistic researchers in terms of how it functions on non-affixed words that are interpreted as complicated by speakers. These interpretations are based on how back-formation acts on non-affixed words that are interpreted as complex by people. This study will examine the similarities and differences between clipping and back-formation, as well as the typology of back-formation, with the goal of shedding light on the possible workings of the mechanism that may be responsible for the development of new words. Because it is also predicated on a description of this process of word construction in Middle English as well as modern English, the technique that this research study employs can be categorized as descriptive.</p><p><strong>Keywords:</strong> Back-formation, clipping, mechanism, typology, methodology, descriptive.<strong> </strong></p></div>

MULTILINGUAL APPROACH TO TEACHING THE HISTORY OF ENGLISH: PROS AND CONS

The history of the English language is a compulsory subject included into the curriculum of students majoring in English. As a theoretical course, it focuses students’ attention on the English language development from both diachronic, and synchronic perspective, spots the differences between Old, Middle and Modern English, guides them through the changes English has experienced over history. Obviously, English is not the only language whose structure has changed over time, and our idea was to highlight the similarities and differences between English as the major language and French, German and Spanish as minor languages our students learn as part of their compulsory curriculum. Despite belonging to different language groups, the four languages can be compared in terms of various grammar structures, thus giving students an opportunity to practice not only English, but also other languages they learn at university.The aim of this article is to show the ways to incorporate the multilingual approach to teaching the history of English and to emphasize its advantages and disadvantages from both teacher, and student perspective.