Sociolinguistics in Scotland

This volume presents a comprehensive overview of sociolinguistic research in Scotland and showcases developments in sociolinguistic theory, method and application, highlighting Scotland's position as a valuable 'sociolinguistic laboratory'. Dealing with all levels of language, each chapter focuses on language use in different regions of Scotland, including Aberdeen, the Borders, Edinburgh, Fife, Glasgow and the Shetland Isles. Topics include the study of variation in towns on the Scottish–English border, the acquisition of variation by non-native speakers, lexical erosion in rural communities, and Gaelic and English code-switching. Other chapters focus on the history of sociolinguistic research in Scotland, the study of syntactic variation using the Scottish Corpus of Text and Speech, the influence of the media on language change, and changes in language attitudes in Shetland. Bringing together chapters written by a range of international scholars, this book provides an insight into Scotland's contemporary sociolinguistic landscape and is a key resource for advanced students and researchers interested in language use in Scotland.

Robert Lawson is Lecturer in Lecturer in English Language and Linguistics in the School of English at Birmingham City University, UK. His research interests include language in Scotland, language and masculinity, and the use of ethnographic approaches in the study of linguistic variation. He was the recipient of the Fulbright Scholars Award in Scottish Studies in 2012/13.