Supervised by Dr Mark Faulkner, School of English, and Dr Charlie Kerrigan, Department of Classics.

Research Objectives:

Nations are sociopolitical constructions that are consciously imagined by particular ethnic groups
to establish a sense of communal identity. Myths are essential tools in the creation and
legitimisation of nations. Since antiquity, communities have invented mythic narratives of their
historical foundation–one such myth from the Old English period claimed that Brutus, the
grandson of Rome’s mythical founder Aeneas, was the founder of Britain [1]. However, in the
eighteenth century, the rationalist development of a scientific theory of history began to debunk
narrative myths. Nonetheless, ‘national’ ethnic groups still continue to associate themselves with
the idea of a historically self-evident, unitary state. Whilst this establishes communal belonging, it
also alienates those outside the nation’s sociopolitical and cultural borders. Indeed, anti-immigrant nationalists and white supremacists often rely on this image of a homogenous nation to bolster their xenophobic rhetoric. It’s clear that ethnic groups no longer believe in narrative origin myths, but that a constructed nation is also still essential for individuals' sense of national identity–one that is often used for harm.

This study thus poses the question: what has replaced these myths to continue upholding the idea of the unitary nation, and what consequences does this have on our understanding of anti-immigrant rhetoric? I hypothesise that national communities now rely on a linguistic national origin rather than a narrative one. I propose that this origin became established through the monolingual paradigm, a rationalist linguistic conception that persists even through to the present day. According to this paradigm, monolingualism is a timeless, self-evident historical norm [2]. One nation is identified with one historically-constant language, thereby creating an imagined linguistic lineage. National identity thus became associated with inheriting and speaking the ‘national’ language, foreignising and marginalising linguistic communities—often associated with minority ethnic groups, as a result.

However, the monolingual paradigm never existed prior to the modern age [3], and this supposed linguistic origin may itself be a myth. This study will question the paradigm’s validity through an analysis of the linguistic ecology of pre-Norman Conquest England in an effort to undermine the use of ethnolinguistic nationalism in anti-immigrant sentiment. The Old English language is conventionally perceived as the dominant ‘national’ language of this historical period. However, the linguistic environment was actually remarkably fluid and diverse: five languages were present on the island at this time [4]. I will review quantitative linguistic data on the contact between Old English and the non-native Latin language, whose influence can be accurately traced through analysing surviving corpus texts, in an attempt to prove that Old English was not a defined linguistic entity but rather a language in construction—one which consciously borrowed from the more prestigious ‘foreign’ Latin grammar. Emphasising Old English as a language with permeable boundaries, constantly in flux, therefore implicates and subverts the conception of the stable, defined nation created by the monolingual paradigm. This study will thus illustrate a revised concept of nationhood, one with permeable, fluid, evolving borders. In application, this research will challenge the harmful xenophobic ethnonationalism linked to anti-immigrant rhetoric and offer a novel perspective on how minority migrant communities are affected by this.

Methodology:

I will primarily employ textual analyses of manuscripts and texts in my research. I will utilise the CorpusSearch tool to collect quantitative linguistic data on the York-Toronto-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Old English Prose (YCOE). To further assess the degree to which language policy and the monolingual paradigm interact, I will also investigate governmental and intra-governmental (EU, UNESCO) legislation. If archival access is required to study Old English manuscripts in detail, I will develop manuscript handling skills and put these into practice where applicable.

[1] Geoffrey of Monmouth, Historia Regum Britanniae, c. 1136.
[2] Gramling, David. 'Getting up onto Monolingualism: Barthes, Kafka, Myth', p. 32.
[3] Ibid., p. 30.
[4] Ní Mhaonaigh, Máire. 'Of Bede's 'five languages and four nations': the earliest writing from
Ireland, Scotland and Wales', p. 1.
[5] Ringe, Don & Taylor, Ann. The Development of Old English, p. 498.