Research
The Department’s research engages with English and its cognate languages from medieval times right up to the present day. The School of English and Scottish Language and Literature achieved excellent results in RAE 2008. Not only did we return the largest number of active researchers in Scotland -- we submitted all our staff -- and the third largest in the UK, but 70% of our research was rated as either "world-leading" (35%) or"internationally excellent" (35%). Using various measures of research achievement, we are ranked between third and eighth in the UK. This result demonstrates our status as a major institution for the study of English and Scottish language and literature, and builds on our achievement of a 5*-rating in RAE 2001.
The Department’s research is structured around four themes:
Most colleagues work across these themes, and many are engaged with interdisciplinary research both within and beyond the School. Several colleagues, for instance, work on linguistic variation and change from both modern and historical perspectives and with a focus on Scots, and the AHRC- and EPSRC-supported SCOTS Project and its successors similarly brings together colleagues working in the modern, historical and Scots areas. English Language colleagues contribute to the new Centre for Burns Studies, focused in the Department of Scottish Literature, and those specialising in medieval studies work with colleagues in History and Modern Languages, and with the Special Collections department in the University Library. The Department also collaborates with the Department of Psychology on the AHRC-funded STACS project, looking at written texts from a cognitive perspective.
For information on research projects, follow the links on the left-hand menu.
The Department regularly hosts conferences and symposia on all subjects in the broad field of English Language and English Linguistics. Recent major conferences hosted by the Department included the XIIth International Conference on English Historical Linguistics (2002), the New Chaucer Society Congress (2004), the interdisciplinary Progress in Colour Studies Conference (2004), and (with the Psychology Department) the Society for Text and Discourse Conference (2007).
The Department is honoured to have several distinguished Honorary Research Fellows. There is a lively Visiting Speakers’ Programme, and a flourishing graduate programme, with a range of taught and research masters’ degrees and a large constituency of doctoral students. For details, visit our Postgraduate page.