We are very pleased to welcome Poppy Plumb to the Encyclopaedia of Shakespeare’s Language team for the next few weeks. Find out a little more about Poppy and what she’ll be working on below…
I’ve just finished my second year at Lancaster studying English Language and Literature, and for the next few weeks I’ll be working on the Encyclopaedia of Shakespeare’s Language. I was excited to hear about this project because of its application of linguistic and corpus methods to Shakespeare. Being such an integral part of the literary canon, and embedded in the study of English Literature throughout compulsory education in the UK, I find the opportunity to take a more linguistic approach to Shakespeare refreshing and exciting. I’m also keen to pursue postgraduate study following my undergraduate degree, so the opportunity to work on a research project like this would provide me with invaluable experience.
My research on the project will be focussing on neologisms: the words that Shakespeare supposedly coined. I’ll be building upon the work of past interns and comparing various definitions of each word from different sources; checking each word is present in a corpus of Shakespeare’s plays, and coming up with a proposed definition of each word for the encyclopaedia.
Given the immense number of words being added to the encyclopaedia, the work Poppy is doing is integral to its compilation. We look forward to working with her.