Undoing ideologies in diachronic studies of English : towards more realistic pictures of language changes from late OE to ME

For over a century, the development of English, especially its two waves of foreign influence during the period between late OE to ME, has been a controversial area. This paper attempts to examine the two instances of foreign influence exerted upon English using several important notions taken from pidgin-creole and bilingual theories to provide more realistic pictures of the two language contact situations. The paper does not provide a clear-cut conclusion, but rather it undoes age-old binary models, e.g., pro-Germanic vs. pro-Romance, introduces new insights, and raises questions regarding sociolinguistic aspects of language contact and the transformation of English during the period