Throughout this course you are engaging with academic papers that explore aspects of Scots language and its use. In this unit you will work with the following article:

Lowing, K. (2017) ‘The Scots language and its cultural and social capital in Scottish schools: a case study of Scots in Scottish secondary classrooms’ Scottish Language, 36. 

Activity 6

Now read Lowing's the article using the link above and take notes to answer the following questions:

1. How and why did the devaluation of the Scots language happen, especially in education?

2. How does Lowing prove her claim that the ‘Scots language remains a misunderstood and problematic language in Scotland’?

3. Lowing explores the connections of the links made between Scots and a low economic standing of its speakers.

   • What reasons are given for the lack of social and cultural ‘capital’ of the Scots language?
   • What examples are listed to demonstrate that Scots does have ‘capital’ to this day?

4. What is meant by the term Scottish ‘schizoglossia’?

5. Compare Lowing’s results analysis from section 5 of the article with your own findings from the survey from Unit 1 which explored opinions about the standing of Scots, its place in the Scottish curriculum in your own professional context, and what implications did the people you asked see for students and practitioners when incorporating Scots lessons into classrooms.

Learning log

Once you have completed your answer, check our model answer for comparison.