Writing Runes: Determining Functional Variation in Early Runic Inscriptions

Runic writing was a script used in many parts of the Germanic-speaking world from at least the second century AD through to the Middle Ages. This research project assesses how to determine the function of early runic writing in a society where writing was a less common social practice between c.400-650 AD. Though the project is primarily focused on the pre-Old English inscriptions (the Germanic language spoken in Britain c.400-650AD; corpus numbers c.25 items), the analysis will extend to all contemporary runic inscriptions on portable objects across Europe (totalling c.400 items). This provides a wider contemporary context for the pre-Old English inscriptions. The project focuses on determining function in a systematic way using approaches from historical sociolinguistics, social semiotics, and material culture studies. The analysis will then be used to create a framework which will attempt to answer key questions:
- When interdisciplinary analysis is applied to runic writing, what framework comes from the analysis and what can it tell us about the function of runic writing?
- What are the functions of pre-Old English runic writing and how does this change over the early runic period between c.400 to 650AD in Britain?
- How do the early runic inscriptions of Britain function in comparison with the inscriptions of the South Germanic, Frisian and Scandinavia corpora in Europe?

My previous studies have given me grounding in skills needed such as linguistic theory and historical language studies. 80 credits of my distinction-level MA degree were in runology, Reading Runes (72%)and my MA thesis on the early runic inscriptions of Britain (78%). During my MA I took modules in Old English including Contextualising Old English (72%); heightened my interdisciplinary research skills in Research Methods in Viking and Anglo-Saxon Studies (71%); and took a module concerning language history through place-names studies, Place-names: language, landscape, history (70%). Throughout my BA I also took relevant modules: The Literature of the Anglo-Saxons (76%); a module in historical linguistics, English Through Time (72%); and a place-names module, English place-names (77%). I was awarded the Alfred Oscroft Essay Prize for place-names in 2018 and received the Christine Fell Scholarship for my MA studies in 2019. The School of English at Nottingham is the only British department with two active runologists, both of whom I have a good working relationship with. Having them as my supervisors means that I will be well placed and supported concerning my research interests