James Murray and the Correspondence Networks of the Oxford English Dictionary, 1879–1915

Objetivo

This project aims to transform the study of English-language lexicography and allied research fields by creating a research platform based on the letters of James A.H. Murray. From 1879 to 1915, Murray was the first chief editor of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), the foremost historical dictionary of the English language. The letters sent to and by Murray provided him and his colleagues with vital information on words and texts from eminent scientists, authors, and other specialists from Europe, America, Australia, South Africa, and elsewhere. Despite the letters’ immense literary, linguistic, and historical value, they have never been systematically edited and published beyond a small pilot edition co-created by the present applicant. This project will digitize the largest collection of Murray’s editorial letters, held by Oxford’s Bodleian Libraries. The project’s major aims are:
1. To catalogue, transcribe, edit, and publish Murray’s 1879–1915 correspondence, making it available online for the first time, and to use this edition to analyse how the letters shaped the content and methodology of the OED.
2. To link the letters to a prosopography, map, and network graph which visualize their spatial and topical connections, in order to assess the international networks—scientific, literary, and political—in which the OED’s makers participated, and to compare these to the findings of other 19th-century correspondence projects.
3. To render the letters into an annotated corpus, enabling quantitative linguistic insights into morphosyntactic variation and change in late 19th- and early 20th-century English.
2028 will mark the centenary of the completion of the OED’s first edition, and this project is positioned to catalyse a new wave of research not only into the dictionary but into English language and literature, European intellectual networks, and the history of linguistics and related scientific disciplines during the most significant decades of the OED’s making.

Ámbito científico (EuroSciVoc)

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