Research in SESLL

The formation in 1996 of the School of English and Scottish Language and Literature was followed by a 5* in RAE 2001.  The School of English and Scottish Language and Literature achieved excellent results in RAE 2008.  Not only did we return the largest number of active researchers in Scotland -- we submitted all our staff -- and the third largest in the UK, but 70% of our research was rated as either "world-leading" (35%) or"internationally excellent" (35%).  Using various measures of research achievement, we are ranked between third and eighth in the UK.  This result demonstrates our status as a major institution for the study of English and Scottish language and literature, and builds on our achievement in RAE 2001.   It reflects our continuing research aim: to secure, sustain and enhance the School’s standing as an institution producing research of the highest quality across all areas of activity in literature and language.

 The School’s field of research is the history, critical analysis, theory and practice of literature and language in English/Scots, and in translation.  This research takes place across the School’s three departments (English Language, English Literature, Scottish Literature), often collaborating with other colleagues in the Arts Faculty; there is also research-input from colleagues outside the School, including Crichton Campus and the Faculty of Education.  Effort is concentrated on broad research themes across and beyond the School.

The following are the School’s main research themes:

Period groupings:

• Modernism, Twentieth-Century and Theory
• Eighteenth-Century, Romantic and Victorian
• Medieval and Renaissance
• Creative Writing
• Scottish Literature (spanning all chronological periods)
• Language research:
  • Historical English Language
  • Modern English Language
  • Scottish Language  

In literature, there are cross-period and cross-disciplinary strengths in colonial, postcolonial and diaspora studies, Irish studies, American studies, translation and literature, and editing and textual scholarship. 

Colleagues also reach out to other disciplines: philosophy and politics, music, law, culture and technology, science and medicine.  Colleagues in language have a common interest in linguistic variation and change and in corpus work, and there are research collaborations with the University’s departments of Psychology and History.  Work on Scottish Language connects historical and modern concerns and links with the Scottish Literature component of the School’s work.