Welcome!
The Language in Context Research Group consists of staff, postgraduate research students and academic visitors to the University of Edinburgh who are interested in studying how the social, interpersonal and discursive context of language shapes its forms and uses.
We welcome discussion of topics in sociolinguistics, discourse analysis and stylistics. The research projects of members of this group encompass topics related to language ideologies, language and identity, language shift, attitudes to language, discourse analysis, and language contact.
We regard the communicative and symbolic functions of language variation and language use as fundamental to a comprehensive theory of human linguistic production and interpretation, not as adjuncts to it. We believe that quantitative and qualitative methods complement each other in the study of linguistics and we encourage research that explores productive ways of combining the qualitative and quantitative, just as we encourage research that connects descriptions of language use with theory in linguistics and related disciplines.
Language in Context events are announced on the website and by e-mail. If you would like to receive announcements by e-mail, please contact the group convenors to sign up to the mailing list.