Charlotte Thompson Darling

Charlotte's thesis focused on William Colenso (1811–1899) as a central character who helped define the textual landscape of New Zealand.

MA, New Zealand Studies

Charlotte Thompson Darling is a linguist and print historian. She completed her BAHons in Linguistics and her PGDip in Museum and Heritage Studies here at Victoria University of Wellington. She has an ongoing interest in orthographic systems, sociohistorical linguistics and documentary heritage. Her thesis explored how dictionaries in Aotearoa have functioned as important aspects of our textual landscape, and as multifaceted networked objects that were used to navigate a complex language contact situation. Linguistic texts such as grammars and dictionaries are not only rich sources of linguistic information but of social and cultural information too. In particular, this thesis will focus on William Colenso (1811 – 1899) as a central character who helped to define our textual landscape through his printing of dictionaries, and his own (unsuccessful) attempt at lexicography.