Amelia Woolner – Undergraduate Research Leadership Scholar

My project began as an investigation into the language of the First World War. I was interested in the contact between the British and French people on the Western Front, though also between people from very different social and geographical backgrounds who were forced to endure the conditions of the front line together.

My research was focused on the influence these factors had on both the English and French languages, and the differences in experience shown through examining both. However, as my research progressed, it became much more refined, and I quickly became interested in the naming strategies employed by different people. For example, how the British/French soldiers, nurses, government officials etc. referred to the enemy. It became clear that this was an interesting route to pursue, as it is a clear and concise way to decipher not only an individual’s attitudes towards the named thing, but also the social factors influencing their language choices. More broadly, I became focused on the issue of ‘identity’ at war, and how this is constructed through language.

Through this, I allow myself to examine how the war changed the identity for men and women, the British and the French, the upper and the working classes. Much like people today, the soldiers, nurses and government officials of the First World War were attempting to associate themselves with (or disassociate from) certain groups of people – to show unity, but also to show separation. I am interested in seeing how such war identities were constructed through language, and what this reveals about not only that individual’s experience, but what it reveals about the broader conditions of war and social values of the time.