English and Galician in the Middle Ages - Publicaciones ...

English and Galician in the Middle Ages:
A Sociohistorical Survey
Begoña Crespo García
para retornar hacia el monolingüismo inglés hacia mediados del
s. XIV.
Finally, he states that English monolingualism was common
among the lower strata but there was a tendency towards individual
bilingualism in some instances.
Therefore, language contact in England went through a variety
of stages: from initial monolingualism of any sort (either
English or French) through diglossia and bilingualism to fi nally
English monolingualism. Two languages coexisted, but their
use was determined by function and prestige factors. When
there is no consensus between these two factors a confl ict situation
springs up (Fishman, 1979). Moreover, the learning of
a foreign language is subordinated to the form and structures
of the mother tongue. Hence, the necessity of considering the
concepts of language confl ict and subordination. In Galicia
persiste desde a Edade meia unha situación de diglósia (sempre
conflictiva), cun alto índice actual de bilingüismo individual -maioritariamente
galego-dominante-, e unha baixa porcen-taxe de monolinguismo
individual -maioritariamente galego-falante- (note 13)
(Álvarez Cáccamo, 1983: 38).
This brief sociolinguistic sketch depicted the situation of the
Galician language towards the end of the 20 th century. A 1994
survey revealed that the analysis of linguistic competence
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