Language Attitudes and Language Use in Pitmedden (Aberdeenshire)

Pitmedden is a village of approximately 1,000 inhabitants on the outskirts of Aberdeen city. The oil boom and the subsequent influx of people from all over the world have changed the village substantially. This study is an empirical investigation of the impact of these changes on language aspects, namely on language attitudes and language use of the local variety, the Doric, as well as of other language varieties spoken in the village. For this, it uses qualitative as well as quantitative methods. Although the overall attitudes expressed by the sample – both by natives and non-natives, Scottish and non-Scottish informants – are generally very positive, the claimed use of traditional dialect material is rather scarce. As it turns out, the nested configuration of the speech community is one of the reasons why the status of the Doric as an everyday community language has to be renegotiated.