Produktdetaljer
Biographical note
Richard Scholar is Professor of French at Durham University. His books include The Je-Ne-Sais-Quoi in Early Modern Europe: Encounters with a Certain Something and Montaigne and the Art of Free-Thinking."Who needs ennui when we have old-fashioned boredom? . . . Scholar’s émigrés often manage to be posh and phoney at the same time, while still carrying a kind of precision it would be hard to find without them. . . . [In Émigrés] words have historical lives and tell us stories we may not know how to hear."---Michael Wood, London Review of Books
"A well-researched, convincing account of how our language has welcomed foreign words—but not always their native speakers."
Kirkus Reviews
"Scholar . . . reflects thoughtfully and sometimes surprisingly on the use of French words in English. . . . Given the current interest in immigration, Scholar’s book on immigrant words is erudite, witty, and surprisingly timely."
Publishers Weekly
"Like the émigré lexical items themselves, Emigrés crackles with hidden energy and is worth serious study."
Choice
"The émigrés that Scholar highlights—à la mode, galanterie, naïveté, ennui, and caprice—don’t assimilate and, in this act of resistance, reveal new ways of being."---Meghan K. McGinley, AmeriQuests
"This thoughtful summation of how much English owes to French, and other languages, has a certain je-ne-sais-quoi and cultural relevance."---David Caddy, Tears in the Fence
"[A] lively and always entertaining book. . . . Although Professor Scholar clearly has a wealth of learning at his fingertips, enjoyment of Émigrés need not be limited to academic readers. The book will be readily understood by academic and non-specialist readers alike. . . . The habit of using émigré words is infectious: for his sang-froid, savoir faire, and bonhomie in guiding us on this voyage through the complexities of our national love-hate relationship with French—and the French—we are all indebted to Richard Scholar."---Annette Tomarken, H-France Review
"The ‘émigrés’ of this engaging book . . . occupy an uneasy centre ground between donor and borrower language, being neither French nor fully integrated into English. This ambiguity, Richard Scholar argues, reflects a long-standing ambivalence in English cultural attitudes to things French, ranging from fascination to disdain. . . . The book takes us on an eclectic journey from Restoration comedy to Winnie-the-Pooh’s companion Eeyore, John Le Carré and the Oscar-winning Little Miss Sunshine."---David Hornsby, Modern Language Review
"Émigrés . . . takes an approach informed by both French and English literature, and sets its findings in a cultural context which is wider still. This is pleasing, as the historical study of language perishes in a vacuum. . . . [A] humane and humanistic book."---Anthony Grant, French Studies
"The dream of a primordial linguistic simplicity has a flip side: the fear of linguistic creolization followed by a loss of national identity. Richard Scholar’s book exorcises this atavistic fear."---Maria Neklyudova, Shagi / Steps.
"Fascinating and informative. His research is excellent, he writes clearly, and the book is full of charming and memorable detail . . . .[Scholar] has written a captivating book in an accessible style. It would be good if reading him became de rigueur among students of language and literature, but perhaps ça serait trop beau."---Alan Dent, Northern Review of Books
"This is a rich and rewarding book with plenty of linguistic faits divers and an impressive array of cultural references. . . .An excellent case for reconsidering the cultural and political significance of terms that retain their foreignness, even in a language as globally dominant as English."---Emma Herdman, Forum for Modern Language Studies