English and Galician in the Middle Ages : a sociohistorical survey

Abstract

The sociohistorical approach provides a most accurate framework for the comparative study of both the English and the Galician speech communities in the Middle Ages. The analysis of the external circumstances in each case will constitute the starting point to examine their evolution across history. Since the status of a linguistic system can be altered by the influence of certain key events, I shall manage to determine how similar social factors and historical events in different communities can provoke, in the long run, divergent sociolinguistic effects.