One who has sacrificed: the use of 'high diction' in women's correspondence to Scottish newspapers during First World War.

Pedersen, Sarah

Abstract

This chapter uses as source material women's letters to the editor published in Scottish newspapers during the First World War. Newspapers are a particularly important resource in accessing the otherwise unrecorded voices of ordinary men and women, and are becoming much more accessible to the historian via the many on-going digitisation projects of newspaper archives. This chapter focuses on letters published in Scottish newspapers 1914-18. In particular, it investigates letters written to the newspapers by correspondents using familial pen names by which the writer claimed to be the mother, wife, daughter or widow of a combatant. The chapter investigates the type of issues that roused such women to write – anonymously – to their local newspaper during the war, the power of the choice of such a pen name, and the language used in their correspondence. In particular, it investigates the use of the 'high diction' of sacrifice and heroism in the letters of women correspondents, many of whom were working class; how such language was used to frame the war experiences of both the soldiers and their female family members; and how the use of 'high diction' changed during the war as women reworked it for their own purposes.

Citation

PEDERSEN, S. 2020. One who has sacrificed: the use of 'high diction' in women's correspondence to Scottish newspapers during the First World War. In Rennie, D.A. (ed.) Scottish literature and World War I. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press [online], chapter 4, pages 81-99. Available from: https://doi.org/10.3366/edinburgh/9781474454599.003.0004

• Online Publication Date: Sep 1, 2020
• Publication Date: Nov 30, 2020
• Deposit Date: Feb 14, 2023
• Publicly Available Date: Sep 2, 2023
• Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
• Pages: 81-99
• Book Title: Scottish literature and World War I
• Chapter Number: Chapter 4
• ISBN: 9781474454599; 9781474454605
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.3366/edinburgh/9781474454599.003.0004
• Keywords: High diction; Newspapers; Sacrifice; Women; Home front; Christianity
• Public URL: https://rgu-repository.worktribe.com/output/1887450