The following volumes featured in the 2010 conference exhibition trace the development of the Canadian English dictionary from the first Indigenous language dictionaries published for European colonists to contemporary editions on regional varieties of Canadian English. Dictionaries in both England and America influenced the form that Canadian English dictionaries would take: Samuel Johnson’s eighteenth-century dictionary boldly endeavoured only to describe, and not prescribe, word meanings; the Oxford English Dictionary (“the OED”), initially titled the New English Dictionary, was the first dictionary compiled according to “historical principles,” i.e., that recorded how word meanings changed over time; and Noah Webster’s “compendious” dictionary of American English was the first to distinguish and define a national variety of the language outside the United Kingdom. When in 1967 the Gage company published the Dictionary of Canadianisms on Historical Principles to mark the centennial of Confederation, it was not only the first dictionary to be published on Canadian English, but also the first to be printed by a Canadian publishing house. As seen in the Survey of Vancouver English by Janice McAlpine, Director of the Strathy from 2000 to 2010, the Strathy Language Unit continues in this ongoing effort to define the unique features of our language.

English Dictionaries in Global and Historical Context, An International Conference, June 2010

In 2010, the Strathy Language Unit collaborated with the Department of English in convening an international conference on the history of the English dictionary. Linguists and literary scholars from Europe, Asia, Australia, and North America traveled to Queen’s to present and discuss their latest research in English lexicography. Paper sessions addressed topics such as “Historical Dictionaries,” “English Language Learners’ Dictionaries,” “Perspectives on Compiling and Publishing Dictionaries,” and “The Future of the Dictionary,” and included talks by John Considine (University of Alberta), Sarah Ogilvie (Cambridge University), and Michael Adams (University of Indiana), among other leading lexicographers.

The three-day conference featured a guided tour of the W.D. Jordan Special Collections Library and its holdings, which include a rare eighteenth-century hornbook used to teach children the alphabet and their prayers.

Literature and Canadian English — the Strathy Language Unit
One of the important changes brought to the Department of English with the appointment of James Cappon in 1888 was a shift to literature and away from philology as the focus of English studies. A focus on language was to return nearly a century later, however, with a bequest in 1981 from an alumnus, J.R. Strathy.

Strathy’s gift mandated the creation of the Unit that bears his name, whose mission is to study standard English usage in Canadian speech and writing. The corpus on which this study is based includes, among other sources, the work of several Canadian authors who gave permission for their fictional and nonfictional texts to be entered into the database: Margaret Atwood, Max Braithwaite, J.K. Chambers, Robertson Davies, Eugene Forsey and Makeda Silvera.

The Strathy Language Unit has produced two editions of the Guide to Canadian English Usage as well as two paper series; established the Strathy Corpus of Canadian English; collaborated in projects such as the Dictionary of Canadianisms on Historical Principles; supported an undergraduate course in Canadian English at Queen’s; hosted conferences such as the 2010 English Dictionaries in Global and Historical Context; and served as a resource for students, international scholars and members of the public interested in Canadian English. From 2000-2010 the unit published Strathy Undergraduate Working Papers on Canadian English, featuring papers by students in the Canadian English course at Queen’s University. A new version of the series, Strathy Student Papers on Canadian English, includes papers by undergraduate and graduate students at any institution. The new series is hosted on the Strathy QSpace site, text taken in part from http://www.queensu.ca/strathy.

Margery Fee, Director, Strathy Language Unit (1987-1993)
The second director of the Strathy, succeeding W. C. Lougheed, was Margery Fee , whose scholarship included literary criticism as well as linguistic analysis. While overseeing the research that would lead to Guide to Canadian English Usage (co-authored with Janice McAlpine [Arts ’77 and Director of the Strathy from 2000-2010]), Fee also edited Silence Made Visible: Howard O’Hagan and Tay John , a collection of essays regarding O’Hagan’s novel.

In 2012 a piece of Queen’s history returned home, in the shape of the gown worn by Muriel Waterhouse at the time of her graduation from Queen’s, with a B.A. in English, at Spring 1919 Convocation.

At the time it was a tradition at the University, among female graduands in particular, to have classmates and fellow graduates autograph the sleeves of the gown. Perhaps she studied with Wilhelmina Gordon, the first female member of the English Department—or perhaps with Cappon, who taught a course in Canadian Literature from 1915-1919.

Muriel’s gown was generously donated to Queen’s University Archives by her daughter, Margaret McKay-Clement, herself a graduate of Queen’s (B.A. ’50).

Since 2007, the Department of English has invited the winner of the annual Scotiabank Giller Prize to deliver a public lecture at Queen’s as part of a capstone experience for fourth-year English majors and medials, who all receive free copies of the prize-winning book. The event also features a book-signing and a reception, bringing together students, writers, faculty and the wider community.

It is a source of pride to the Department that we have been able to host the Scotiabank Giller Prize-winning author every year since 2007: it fosters a spirit of community among the graduating class and demonstrates our commitment to engaging with contemporary literature in Canada.

This unique event was initially funded by the Queen’s University Faculty of Arts & Science. The generous support of Alumni has helped it to continue.

Sylvia Söderlind explores the question of colonization through a uniquely Canadian comparatist lens that acknowledges our competing nationalisms in Margin/Alias: Language and Colonization in Canadian and Quebecois Fiction (1991).

Glenn Willmott’s study of transnational Modernism began with an examination of the work of Canadian literary critic Marshall McLuhan in McLuhan, or Modernism in Reverse (1969), then examined its importance to fiction in Unreal Country: Modernity in the Canadian Novel in English (2002).

Les Monkman also offers a comparatist reading of Canadian literature in “Horses and canoes”, “kangaroos and beavers”: comparing Australian and Canadian Literatures in English in 1990. However, his wide-ranging work explores two other important strands of criticism: Indigenous Studies and the place of Canadian Literature in the curriculum. He has published A Native Heritage: Images of the Indian in English-Canadian Literature (1981) and with Douglas Daymond has co-edited several volumes that interrogate the category “Canadian Literature,” including Towards a Canadian Literature: Essays, Editorials, and Manifestos (2 vols. 1984-5) and Literature in Canada (2 vols. 1978).

Current faculty member Sam McKegney focuses on intersections of literature and Indigenous experience his Magic weapons: Aboriginal writers remaking community after residential school (2007) and his most recent project MASCULINDIANS : Conversations about Indigenous Manhood (2013).