The Progressive in Scottish English and Standard English: Its Contexts and Functions in the 20th and 21st Centuries

Abstract

This thesis focusses on the contexts and functions of the progressive in Scottish English. On one hand, it looks at whether Scottish English differs from Standard English and on the other, it ascertains whether there was a change in Scottish English. The periods under investigation are 1990-1995 and 2000-2005. To investigate possible differences, a corpus study was conducted, using the British National Corpus (BNC) and the Scottish Corpus of Text and Speech (SCOTS). The context features this study focussed on were tense and whether a verb was stative or dynamic. Additionally, the functions of the progressive were analysed, based on Römer (2006), Kortmann (2006), and Wada (2013). The results show that there is no effect of corpus or period on frequency, but that there is an effect of level of formality. Additionally, features differ between levels of formality, corpora, and periods. Both basic functions and additional functions differed when comparing Scottish English and Standard. Additionally, Scottish English is more likely to have the progressive appear with a stative verb. Overall, the research confirms that the progressive is used in a wider range of contexts and functions in Scottish English than in Standard English. The results regarding the differences between the two periods were ambiguous. Some features were more likely to occur more often in the earlier period, whereas others were more likely to occur more often in the later period. This shows that the use of the progressive may have expanded on some points, but may have decreased on others. When looking at the effect of level of formality, the progressive is not used in more contexts in informal texts, even though this was expected. This could also be the result of a methodological issue. These results give more insight into the differences between Scottish English and Standard English and show the changes occurring in Scottish English.