The CLiC blog showcases research and impact activities from the AHRC-funded CLiC Dickens project. We write posts summarising our research output, reporting on impact events and explaining new features of the CLiC web app.
#CLiCCreative demonstrates how the CLiC Web App can serve as both a creative resource and an innovative research tool for writers of historical fiction. You can find out more about the overarching project here. In this blog post, we’ve provided a keywords guide to our Jane Austen Corpus for aspiring writers of Regency fiction who … Continue reading “#CLiCCreative Jane Austen Keywords Guide”
The research stage of novel writing can be time-consuming and challenging, but is essential if you want to write a believable and immersive historical story. This stage of the writing process doesn’t have to be daunting! Take a break from conventional fact-finding methods, and take a look at these digital resources that can help you … Continue reading “#CLiCCreative Digital Research Resources for Writers of Neo-Victorian Historical Fiction”
Whether by rail, on foot, via stagecoach, in a carriage, or aboard a ship, journeys play a pivotal role in novels of the long-nineteenth century. What can we learn about what it was like to travel in another time? In this research activity we’ll be using the CLiC Web App to learn about modes of … Continue reading “Using CLiC as a Creative Research Tool: Journey to the Past”
Ventriloquy is the art of speaking in such a way that one’s voice appears to come from another source. When it comes to writing believable dialogue, writers of historical fiction are a bit like ventriloquists. How can modern writers give the impression that their characters are conversing in the past? What research methods can we … Continue reading “Using CLiC as a Creative Research Tool: Historical Ventriloquism”
This post, penned by Dr Rosalind White (@DrRosalindWhite), will provide an overview of how our CLiC Web App can be used as an innovative historical research tool to cross-reference or verify historical details. This can help writers save time and energy, as well as quickly immerse them in the particulars of their preferred period. You … Continue reading “Using CLiC as a Creative Research Tool: Checking your Manuscript for Anachronisms”
Gregory Tate is a Senior Lecturer in Victorian Literature at the University of St Andrews. He is the co-organiser of the AHRC-funded ‘Victorian Literary Languages’ network, and he is writing a book titled The Grammar of Style in Victorian Fiction. In this post, Greg examines George Eliot’s use of, and commentaries on, interjections in her … Continue reading “George Eliot’s Interjections”
Eleonora Gallitelli was awarded a PhD in Comparative Literature at IULM University, Milan, for a thesis on the early Italian translations of works by Dickens, Faulkner and Rushdie, where she combined the methodologies of corpus linguistics and close reading. In this post, she identifies the different meanings that the vocabulary of affection assumes for the … Continue reading “Words of affection in George Eliot’s Middlemarch”
Tiffany Olgun is a PhD student at Royal Holloway, University of London, researching the Dickensian dandy. In this post, she explores the language surrounding nineteenth-century English dandyism and the progression of the dandy from his Regency incarnation to his decadent form. The nineteenth-century English dandy is often portrayed as a man of pure surface and … Continue reading “Decadence and Debauchery: Undressing the Dandy Using the CLiC Web App”
Fe Brewer is an English teacher and Lead Mentor in Leicester. She is the co-author of Succeeding as an English Teacher (Bloomsbury 2021) and presents regularly on English subject knowledge and education. In this post, she explores how Dickens’ portrayal of children echoes contemporary changes around the concept of childhood.
In this post, students of the TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) MA at the University of Birmingham blog about the CLiC Web App as a language learning resource. This post originated from a task set by Dr Viola Wiegand for ‘Corpus-Assisted Language Learning’, a TESOL module that encourages students to engage with the philosophy of data-driven learning. Many thanks to Weiqing Chu, Luyi Wang, Miaoting Wu and Xinzu Li for their fantastic contribution.
