Linguistic Coalescence — Lobster-fishing Terminology — Convergence vs. Divergence

Abstract

On Miscou Island, French Acadian and English fishermen share in the same heritage of English nautical terminology in the naming of lobster-fishing gear. In this paper, lobster-fishing terminology is analyzed as forming a linguistic coalescence between the French Acadian and English fishermen. A representative list of bilingual terms was compiled, then the French Acadian terms were analyzed as being either lexically, phonetically, and semantically convergent with or divergent from English and standard French terms. Results show that Acadian fishermen have their own terms in addition to English borrowings. Their vocabulary therefore, is more extensive than that of the English fishermen.