A typology of code-switching in the Commentary to the Félire Óengusso

Abstract

This thesis aims at answering a number of questions relating to medieval Irish bilingualism by studying one particular bilingual corpus. This corpus consists of a number of glosses and notes that accompany a ninth-century Martyrology called Félire Óengusso (The Martyrology of Óengus). The questions are: is modern-day spoken bilingualism any different from historical written bilingualism? Do the same rules and theories apply? When medieval Irish scribes used Latin and Irish in one sentence, what does this tell us about their proficiency, their education, and their audience? In short, what can medieval Irish bilingualism tell us about the society that fostered it? The thesis can be divided into roughly two parts. The first part deals with the corpus: it provides a diplomatic edition of the bilingual glosses in manuscript Oxford, Bodleian Library, Rawlinson B505 and discusses the potential function of the Commentary and its origins. Since it is very difficult to make any definitive statements about the date of composition of the text or the number of individuals that contributed to it, an approach has been chosen that focuses mainly on the bilingual reception and reproduction of the text. The second part deals with the grammatical and functional analysis of the code-switches found in the Commentary. For such an analysis, it is imperative to know whether code-switching in writing and in speech are comparable at all, and this is therefore addressed extensively. It appears that code-switching in writing and in speech are in some ways comparable, especially in informal textual genres. Because of the similarities between the two forms of code-switching, models originally developed for code-switching in speech could be used to analyse code-switching in writing. For the grammatical analysis, Pieter Muysken’s typology of code-switching was used. For the functional analysis, a combination of several theories was used. While nothing particular could be said about the proficiency of the scribes, it did become clear that code-switching patterns in the Commentary seem to have been influenced by the typological distance between Irish and Latin but also by chronological developments and societal norms regarding language use. From the functional analysis, it appears that code-switching in medieval Irish texts may be both a functional communicative device used to structure a text and an unconscious expression of bilingual identity for a like-minded audience.