Transcultural Encounters and Linguistic Transfer in the History of English (BATS)

English as a contact language provides ample material for research both from a theoretical and an empirical point of view. This seminar seeks to explore the conditioning factors for the apparent liberality and ease with which English has adopted material from other languages (e.g. Celtic, Latin, Old Norse, French) at nearly all stages of its development. To provide an analytical framework for selected diachronic case studies, we will investigate the general mechanisms of linguistic interference and the varying conditions for contact-induced language change. On this basis, major processes of cross-cultural transfer, lexical enrichment and structural borrowing will be examined in order to evaluate the long-term effects of transcultural encounters on the shape of modern English.