British Accents and Dialects: The Case of Scottish English

Abstract

It seems difficult to listen to an individual speaking paying attention just to the information he or she is providing and ignoring completely the speaker’s identity. There is general agreement that one of the main characteristics of languages is that they can disclose information about the nationality of an individual and even reveal the exact region he or she comes from (Cargile, Giles, Ryan, & Bradac, 1994). However, this characteristic may not be helpful since there are many languages and dialects and the difference between them is not clear-cut most of the time. Even though this is an area already explored, little research can be found on whether Scottish English is a dialect, or an accent. This paper tries to explain the specific characteristics that convert a language into a dialect and the ones that mark the distinction between a dialect and an accent. In the research carried out, clarification for classifying Scottish as a dialect, or an accent has been limited. In order to label Scottish detailed analysis of this variety will be carried out taking into account both aspects, dialect and accent. It is expected that the brief account on Scottish history and its linguistic features would allow us to label Scottish as a dialect.