The Scottish Language Varieties And Their Influences On The Scottish Identity

Seminar paper from the year 2005 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 1,0, University of Potsdam (Institut für Anglistik/ Amerikanistik), course: Scots and the other languages of Scotland, language: English, abstract: When people think of Scotland the images they have in mind are usually very restricted. Most of us combine the country with the myth of Nessie, the Clans and their tartan culture, the good whisky, the Highlands and the famous Highland Games. All these existing images of Scotland make up a large part of the country’s culture but Scotland is more than that. Only the minority of us might think of Scotland as a country with a long and problematic history and just some are regarding the fact that it has still not gained its entire independence. It is a country full of contrasts and difficulties which you cannot only become aware of when you consider the geographical situation but also the social, political and cultural circumstances. A today’s problem resulting from Scotland’s long history is the question of Scottish identity, and accompanied by that the language problem. Language is an element of culture and people express through their language and speaking behaviour identities and attitudes. In Scotland the situation is quite difficult. As part of the United Kingdom the official language spoken in Scotland is Standard English but depending on the area you are visiting, you can also find speakers of other varieties such as Scots or Gaelic or even dialects. However, these varieties are said to be non- standardised languages and therefore are not officially used in Scotland. That leads to the problem that speakers of these varieties have the feeling not to be part of the speaker community and consequently they cannot identify themselves with these. The issue that now has to be surveyed, is the question what types of languages are existing in Scotland and how do these language varieties influence the identities and attitudes of Scots. For that reason I have planned to concentrate on one of Scotland’s languages and would like to write my paper about the Scots and their tongue. In the first part I will deal with the Scots, their nation and their development. The main focus in my work will be the re-flection on Modern Scots, the problematic of the Scots’ status and its varieties. I am going to discuss if it is a distinct language, an accent or a dialect and will also look at the different varieties of Scots inside and outside of Scotland to give an overview of existing forms.

The first decade of the new Scottish Parliament has seen the emergence of a new-found national confidence. 'Scottishness' is clearly alive and flourishing. This book offers new and detailed insights into Scottish language and its usage by the Scottish press. To what extent does the use of identifiably Scottish lexical features help them to maintain their distinctive Scottish identity and appeal to their readership? Which Scottish words and phrases do the papers use and where, is it a symbolic gesture, do they all behave in the same way, and has this changed since devolution?Combining analysis of broad trends with detailed discussion of individual Scottish words and phrases, its timely publication coincides with a period when interest in things Scottish is at an all time high.

Seminar paper from the year 2009 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 2,7, RWTH Aachen University, course: Geographical varieties of English, language: English, abstract: This paper deals with the topic ''Scotland'' and is written behind the background of geographi-cal varieties of English. Thus we focus on the main topics historical development and present day language situation in Scotland, linguistic issues and sociolinguistic characteristics. In order to point out what differences between Standard English and Scottish English exist we take a closer look on the multicultural history of Scotland, which reflects in the many different dialects that used to be spoken in Scotland. French, Roman and Celtic influences made the Scottish language so versatile. This reflects not only in its vocabulary, but also in its grammar and phonology. Another important point is the geographical division of Scotland that also exerts influence on the Scottish language, because people on the mainland and the islands use to speak different languages. Finally we want to show that today there are only slight differ-ences between Scottish English and English English that mainly consider the prestige of the languages and the function of identification, but that there used to be differences in the past that are important to the Scots as individual and independent nation.

Robert McColl Millar examines how language has been used in Scotland since the earliest times. While primarily focusing on the histories of the speakers of Scots and Gaelic, and their competition with the encroaching use of (Scottish) Standard English, he also traces the decline and eventual 'death' of Pictish, British and Norn. Four case studies illustrate the historical development of North East Scots, Scottish Standard English, Shetland Scots and Glasgow Scots. Immigrant languages are also discussed throughout the book.

Seminar paper from the year 2023 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 2,0, http://www.uni-jena.de/ (Institut für Anglistik/Amerikanistik), course: Wahlpflichtmodul 1 Sociolinguistics, language: English, abstract: As Scotland was heavily impacted by the settling of various social groups and religions over time, the language landscape dispersed and brought up many exciting dialects over time. This paper will give an overview of the development of the significant regional dialects in both historical and contemporary Scotland, as well as linguistic variations and their importance for today’s Scots. By the end of this paper the following research question should be answered: 'How has history shaped the contemporary Scottish Language, what are key differences to Standard British English, and how does this affect the linguistic identity and prestige in Scotland today?' The research objective of this study is to give a very rough overview of the Scottish language in general, as well as a cultural insight into its importance. It can already be said that Scotland is a fascinating region to conduct sociolinguistic studies. Its history underlies many influxes of social groups in different time periods, which still contribute to developing the currently existing dialects. This study cannot provide a final summary of Scottish dialectology since this field is so vast that the essay must be seen as an introduction to delve deeper into the Scottish language. Before starting with the historical overview, it must be mentioned that the dates and years of historical events may vary from source to source. Therefore, this study underlies some degree of historical inaccuracy, which will not affect the fundamental understanding of the unravelling of Scottish dialectology. The provided time slots will be tied to the respective source used.

Seminar paper from the year 2005 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 1,0, University of Potsdam (Institut für Anglistik/ Amerikanistik), course: Scots and the other languages of Scotland, language: English, abstract: When people think of Scotland the images they have in mind are usually very restricted. Most of us combine the country with the myth of Nessie, the Clans and their tartan culture, the good whisky, the Highlands and the famous Highland Games. All these existing images of Scotland make up a large part of the country's culture but Scotland is more than that. Only the minority of us might think of Scotland as a country with a long and problematic history and just some are regarding the fact that it has still not gained its entire independence. It is a country full of contrasts and difficulties which you cannot only become aware of when you consider the geographical situation but also the social, political and cultural circumstances. A today's problem resulting from Scotland's long history is the question of Scottish identity, and accompanied by that the language problem. Language is an element of culture and people express through their language and speaking behaviour identities and attitudes. In Scotland the situation is quite difficult. As part of the United Kingdom the official language spoken in Scotland is Standard English but depending on the area you are visiting, you can also find speakers of other varieties such as Scots or Gaelic or even dialects. However, these varieties are said to be non- standardised languages and therefore are not officially used in Scotland. That leads to the problem that speakers of these varieties have the feeling not to be part of the speaker community and consequently they cannot identify themselves with these. The issue that now has to be surveyed, is the question what types of languages are existing in Scotland and how do these language varieties influence the identities and at

Seminar paper from the year 2010 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 2,0, University of Tubingen (Englisches Seminar), course: Englisch Grammar: Phonetics, language: English, abstract: 1. Introduction It's a braw bricht muin-licht nicht the nicht. (literally: It's a beautiful bright moonlight night tonight.) Kiddingly, Scottish people love to let English people try to pronounce this sentence from Scots. For English people it is hard to pronounce the Scottish sentence since it contains the /x/-phoneme that English Standard English does not know. Therefore Scots is in the eyes of English Standard English Speakers a quite foreign language. But what happens when the two languages – English Standard English and Scots – merge and make up a new language, namely Scottish Standard English? When did the influence of English on Scots start? How much of the language heritage from Scots was imported into SSE? Which special features in phonetic, grammar and lexis can be found? What other languages influenced SSE and which so-called loanwords can still be found? This term paper will try to give answers to these questions. Therefore in (2.) will be given a definition of SSE in contrast to Scots. Then there will be given a rough overview of the historical background and development of SSE (3). Afterwards, certain differences of SSE and English Standard English in phonetic (4.1), grammar (4.2) and lexis (4.3) will be described. Then there shall be given an insight in SSE nowadays (5). 2.

Language and Identities offers a broad survey of our current state of knowledge on the connections between variability in language use and the construction, negotiation, maintenance and performance of identities at different levels - individual, group, regional and national. It brings together over 20 specially commissioned chapters, written by distinguished international scholars, on a range of topics around the language/identity nexus. The collection deals sequentially with identities at various levels, both social and personal. Using detailed, empirical evidence, the chapters illustrate how the multi-layered, dynamic nature of identities is realised through linguistic behaviour. Several chapters in the volume focus on contexts in which we might expect to observe a foregrounding of factors involved in the definition and delimitation of self and other: for example, cases in which identities may be disputed, changing, blurred, peripheral, or imposed. Such a focus on complex contexts allows clearer insight into the identity-making and -marking functions of language. The collection approaches these topics from a range of perspectives, with contributions from sociolinguists, sociophoneticians, linguistic anthropologists, clinical linguists and forensic linguists.