A history of the French language from its Latin origins through the modern period. Emphasis on "external history" (development of the language in relation to other social and cultural phenomena) with some historical grammar (phonology, morphology, syntax, orthography) introduced through textual readings from the various historical periods. Sociolinguistic emphasis, focusing on the emergence of a standard language and its relationship to other varieties of French.

This course covers the history of the French language from its Latin roots through to contemporary usage. Both internal and external history will be considered so that students acquire a firm grounding in the linguistic evolution of the language, coupled with an understanding of its development in relation to a range of social and cultural phenomena. The course will be structured around our analysis of the wide range of texts from different genres presented by Ayres-Bennett (1996) and which date from 842 CE to the present day. We will use the relatively new historical sociolinguistic approach to try to capture what Anthony Lodge (2009) has called “une image multidimensionnelle de la langue du passé”.

Requirements: Reading ability in French required. No training in linguistics required.

Text book: Ayres-Bennett, Wendy (1996/2005) A History of the French Language through Texts, London-New York: Routledge.

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