Construction of Scotland Class: Reflective Blog

Week 2 (6-12 October)
Reflections on class work:

In class this week, we discussed how the perception of Scotland is formed in relation to our speech. I believe that Scottish people find difficulty in differentiating between their informal regional dialect and their formal traditional English tongue. The conflict between these two registers has to a certain extent created an insecurity and even a slight embarrassment among Scots. I believe this to be the case because Scots are continuously re-adjusting their use of language based on who they are speaking to and are at constant risk of being ridiculed for their use of certain words and phrases. We discussed in our tutorial about the need some Scots feel to speak in a colloquial way among peers for fear of being mocked for speaking ‘properly’ and the need they feel to speak in formal English and disregard traditional Scottish words when speaking to people from other nations for fear of being misunderstood or again, mocked.

I think Kevin Bridges illustrates this argument very well when discussing how he alters his speech when performing outside of Scotland and says “No matter how much you try to enunciate, there’s always some from Leamington Spa who’ll say ‘We saw you on the television and I didn’t quite understand everything you were saying’.” I believe Scots are often made to feel embarrassed for using traditional Scottish language but I believe every region of Scotland has a special, almost cryptic, slang sub-language of its own and we should embrace and be proud of our unique speech because it is a part of our heritage and culture.