An electronic corpus of Letters of Artisans and the Labouring Poor (England, c. 1750-1835): compilation principles and coding conventions
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Abstract
This paper presents a collaborative project that focuses on letters of artisans and the labouring poor in England, c. 1750-1835 (LALP). The project’s objective is to create a corpus that allows for new research perspectives regarding the diachronic development of the English language by adding data representing language of the lower classes. An opportunity for an insight into the language use of the labouring poor has been provided by the laws for poor relief, which permitted people in need to apply for out-relief from parish funds during the period 1795-1834. For the last 18 years, the independent scholar Tony Fairman has collected and transcribed more than 2000 poor relief application letters and other letters by artisans and the labouring poor. In this project Fairman’s letter collection is being converted into an electronic corpus. Apart from converting the material into electronic form, the transcribed texts will be supplemented with contextual information and manuscript images. This paper presents the letter material, it describes the conversion of the letter collection into a corpus and discusses some of the problems and challenges in the conversion process.1