An academic from the School of English, Sociology, Politics and Contemporary History at Salford University is studying the SLC’s Scots photos on flickr as part of an investigation into the use of Scots in formal and informal settings.

Dr Maggie Scott, formerly a lexicographer with Scottish Language Dictionaries, says, ‘In some of my research I’m looking at the ways that people are ‘comfortable’ with Scots partly to see whether it appears that Scots is progressing towards the status of a ‘standard’ language according to Einar Haugen’s model, where ‘elaboration’ (i.e. use in various contexts/text types, etc) plays a key role. I’m interested in seeing which environments seem more accepting of Scots – the archive that SLC is building up should provide some interesting information about the where and when Scots is used.’

Scott would like to hear about other examples of Scots used in business and other settings. Anyone with information that could help Scott with her research should write to:  m.r.scott@salford.ac.uk