Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 March 2020
The history of religious migration and experience of exile in the early modern period has received a great deal of attention in recent years. Neglected within this scholarship, however, is sustained discussion of linguistic encounter within these often fraught transcultural and transnational interactions. This article breaks new ground by exploring the linguistic experiences of religious exiles in English convents founded in the Low Countries. Most women within English communities in exile were linguistically challenged; focusing on the creative ways these women subsequently negotiated language barriers sheds new light on female language acquisition and encounter during this period.
The author would like to thank Caroline Bowden, Marie-Louise Coolahan, John Gallagher, Alisa van der Haar, and Victoria Van Hyning for their thoughtful and constructive comments on earlier drafts of this article. The research for this article was funded by the European Research Council under the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP/2007–2013 / ERC Grant Agreement n. 615545).