Where do I even start! We learned a lot about some very useful data visualization tools this week, the DSSRF crew, Jason the English (and so much more) librarian and my English professor were great in helping me find loads of stuff to look at.
I think the first and most important thing I want to get through this week is getting through the book “Speaking American: A History of English in the United States” by Richard W. Bailey, I haven’t gotten too far into the book, but I already feel it touches on important subjects and gives great context to what I’m researching, identifying not only events, but also locations and people, societal anxieties like the frontier, that gives rise to meaning. Like for fantastical words in describing the frontier, in a desire to separate from aristocracy and so on. Most importantly, it notes how there is no single “correct” way to speak English, language has always been shifting and it has always been the younger generations that has shaped and reshaped words for themselves.
Since I want to incorporate modern slang into my research, I’m also gonna look into AAV, the influence of jazz and African-American culture on modern slang.
Lots of dictionaries to skim at too, the OED, old American dictionaries, new slang dictionaries… the list goes on!
Might also play around with some of the data visualization tools like Voyant to further analysis of texts. Start thinking about what sorts of timelines I’ll be able to make.