Language and Scottish Literature

by John Corbett

This practical introduction uses theories of language to explore different aspects of Scottish literature. It includes material on varieties of Scots and Scottish English, linguistic approaches to literary studies, the grammar of texts, vocabulary, metaphor, poetic metre, language in use, point of view, narrative, stereotypes of the Scots, discourse and reading older Scottish texts. Extensive examples demonstrate the application of the theories, from poems and ballads to a football report, and from short stories to extracts from film scripts and plays.

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 31, 1997

About the author

John Corbett grew up in Ayr and studied Scottish and English literature and language studies at the University of Glasgow. He has taught in a number of higher educational institutions in Brazil, China, Macau, Scotland and Russia. Now retired from teaching and administration, he remains an adjunct professor at Beijing Normal Hong-Kong Baptist University and a visiting professor at the University of Glasgow.

He has published widely on diverse topics, including Scottish literature and the Scots language, literary translation, intercultural language education, and corpus linguistics. He is Publications Convener of the Association for Scottish Literature and has twice chaired the MLA Scottish Literature Forum.