Department of English
Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11875/2417
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Browsing Department of English by Subject "macaronic language"
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Item On the Grammar and Rhetoric of language mixing in Piers Plowman(Neuphilologische Mitteilungen, 2002) Halmari, HelenaIn excerpt (1) below, the Dreamer of Langland’s Piers Plowman is expressing his dissatisfaction with friars; the passage is a typical example of what is often called “macaronic language” - a conventionalized style where two languages (here Middle English and Latin, or a few times French) are mixed in a happy combination for fairly well-documented rhetorical purposes. In line (4) the Latin prepositional phrase In fame et frigore conjoins the Middle English NP flappes of scourges; lines (5) and (12-13) exemplify full clauses, with Biblical associations, in Latin. That Langland’s virtuoso combining of Latin and English is a result of careful planning is shown by his occasional, extremely pointed metalinguistic comments,