Dialects, registers, and accents – investigating the use of sociolinguistic variants

This aim of this Dialects, registers, and accents – investigating the use of sociolinguistic variants project at University of Dundee is to marry the psycholinguistic and sociolinguistic sides of this problem, by combining cognitive and social psychological methods to investigate both the cognitive mechanisms behind sociolinguistic variant use.

Context of  Dialects, registers, and accents – investigating the use of sociolinguistic variants Dialects, registers, and accents – investigating the use of sociolinguistic variants project at University of Dundee University of Dundee

As well as being of theoretical importance to our understanding of how sociolinguistic information impacts on language processing, the project also has socio-political ramifications. 

We aim to involve local dialect groups in the development of this project, both for the co-production of our experimental materials and participant recruitment but also to help shape the research questions around the needs of the community and address issues of discrimination and prejudice.

• The scope of this project is open and broad, allowing ample opportunity for applicants to bring their own research ideas and to build on their own expertise. Applicants interested in related topics such as language and emotion, language acquisition, and ethnolinguistics are encouraged to get in contact to discuss their ideas. 
• The Mindyourlangauge laboratory is set up for language production research, primarily using picture naming methodologies, and spoken language comprehension studies, using eyetracking and behavioural measures. Surveys, interviews, and questionnaires can also be used to investigate the sociolinguistic aspects of dialect, register, and accent usage.