Chaucer as a Sociolinguist

Jonathan Fruoco (1)

1 ILCEA4 - Institut des Langues et Cultures d'Europe, Amérique, Afrique, Asie et Australie

This chapter tackles the issue of Chaucer’s Middle English language. It traces the history of English from earlier times to Chaucer’s age to show the Middle English poet’s facility with language. For if J. R. R. Tolkien was correct in his 1934 lecture to the Philological Society, then Chaucer was not only a gifted poet but also a remarkable philologist, thinking like a linguist of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Mots clés: Chaucer; Middle English; language contact; Internationalism; Sociolinguistic

Domaines: Littératures; Linguistique

Jonathan Fruoco. Chaucer as a Sociolinguist: Understanding the Role of Language in Chaucer’s Internationalism. Critical Insights: Geoffrey Chaucer, Salem Press, 2017, 978-1-68217-256-8. ⟨hal-01499909⟩