Accentricity

This episode is Accentricity’s first audio research paper. In April this year, I was really excited to have an article published in a linguistics journal, telling people about some of the findings from my PhD research. But... not all people. Because although I did my best to write the article as clearly and simply as possible, it’s only really accessible to other linguists. That’s fine, of course – journal articles are for talking to other people in your field. But I think my findings might be interesting to people who aren’t linguists, too. So I’ve made this podcast episode to accompany it. It contains the same findings as the journal article, but explained in a more accessible way, and with some voices and ideas other than mine included.

I’ve left out some detail which might be interesting to other linguists. If you are a linguist and want this detail, you can find the article here, or you can find the pre-publication version here. If you are a linguist who is much too busy to read the article, then give your eyes a rest and enjoy having information delivered to your ears instead :)

This is a new thing that I’m trying out, and I’d love to hear what you think. Should I do this for every piece of research I do? Want to chat about the process of making it? Feel free to drop me a line on [email protected] with ideas or questions.

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Leon Żydowski moved from Poland to Scotland when he was 5. He lived there for 13 years, before moving back to Poland last year, aged 18. He’s now studying Tourism & Recreation at University in Wroclaw at weekends and working during the week.

Julia Stachurska moved from Poland to Scotland when she was 7. Now, at 21, she’s a student at the University of the West of Scotland, a caseworker at the Scottish parliament, and an SNP (Scottish National Party) council candidate for Murdostoun, North Lanarkshire.

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Our Accentricity t-shirts are out now! Get yours here.

They’re designed by artist Cat Ingall, who also makes other cool things that you can buy from here Etsy shop.

You can also support the podcast on Patreon or Steady, or with a one-off donation to help keep Accentricity going.

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You can find a transcript for this episode on the website. Our transcripts are made my Aileen Marshall: contact her at [email protected] for all of your transcription needs!

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Find us @accentricitypod on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, or sign up to our newsletter for updates on what’s going on behind the scenes.

Over the past year, during the Covid-19 pandemic, we’ve been working with a group of people from all over the world, teaching them to podcast and helping them to tell personal stories about the experience of moving from one place to another. Everyone who took part was brand new to podcasting, and most of the episodes were made without any professional equipment, using mobile phones and free editing software. The results of this course are seven episodes: each one about a very different migration experience, and each person bringing their own style and personality. We hope you love them as much as we do.

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Claire Needler is an Ethnology PhD student in the Elphinstone Institute, University of Aberdeen. Her research interests include contemporary uses of Scots, especially among young people; how to promote positive attitudinal change towards the Scots language; and whether teaching the Scots Language Award in schools boosts pupil self-esteem and wider achievement. She is interested in the intersection between language, culture and identity, and how these combine to create a feeling of community belonging.

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Thanks to Dawn Leslie and Hamish Garland for being part of this podcast, and to Professor Jennifer Smith for the permission to use the clip from the Scots Syntax Atlas.

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Our Accentricity t-shirts are out now! Get yours here.

They’re designed by artist Cat Ingall, who also makes other cool things that you can buy from here Etsy shop.

You can also support the podcast on Patreon or Steady, or with a one-off donation to help keep Accentricity going.

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Find us @accentricitypod on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, or sign up to our newsletter for updates on what’s going on behind the scenes.

The contributors:

Jennifer Smith is Professor of Sociolinguistics at the University of Glasgow. At the moment she’s working on two big research projects: One Speaker Two Dialects and The Scots Syntax Atlas. You can find more information about her research and publications here.

Emilia is only seven so she doesn’t (yet) have a website. Watch this space! Thanks also to her brother Daniel, her mum Ula and her dad Kyle.

Thanks to all of the contributors from the Barras – you were endlessly excellent!

And thanks to my sister Martha for the chat and the wine.
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Find us @accentricitypod on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, or sign up to our newsletter for updates on what’s going on behind the scenes. You can support us on Patreon, on Steady, or with a one-off donation, to help keep Accentricity going.

The contributors:

Justin Currie performs solo and with his band Del Amitri.

Aidan Moffat’s most recent album is a collaboration with RM Hubbert called Here Lies The Body. If you haven’t listened to Arab Strap, look up Ten Years of Tears for a very fast trip through their career.

Dave Hook performs with the band Stanley Odd, and solo as Solareye. He will be supporting Bombskare at the Liquid Rooms in Edinburgh on the 2nd of March (2019), and you can see him as part of collaborative hip-hop project The Air In Between on the 28th and 29th of March (2019). Tickets and more info on other gigs can be found here.

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The music used in this episode is (in order of appearance):
* Nothing Ever Happens by Del Amitri
* The First Big Weekend by Arab Strap
* The Shy Retirer by Arab Strap
* Roll To Me by Del Amitri
* It’s All Gone To Fuck by Stanley Odd
* The Pageant by Solareye

The music is used with the permission of the artists.

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Find us @accentricitypod on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, or sign up to our newsletter for updates on what’s going on behind the scenes. You can support us on Patreon, on Steady, or with a one-off donation, to help keep Accentricity going.

Over the past year, during the Covid-19 pandemic, we’ve been working with a group of people from all over the world, teaching them to podcast and helping them to tell personal stories about the experience of moving from one place to another. Everyone who took part was brand new to podcasting, and most of the episodes were made without any professional equipment, using mobile phones and free editing software. The results of this course are seven episodes: each one about a very different migration experience, and each person bringing their own style and personality. We hope you love them as much as we do.

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Anna Durkacz is a singer-songwriter, and a member of two bands, Ravaged Hearts and The Professors of Logic. The song at the end of the episode is In Praise of Polish, from the album Come of Age.

***

Our Accentricity t-shirts are out now! Get yours here.

They’re designed by artist Cat Ingall, who also makes other cool things that you can buy from here Etsy shop.

You can also support the podcast on Patreon or Steady, or with a one-off donation to help keep Accentricity going.

***

Find us @accentricitypod on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, or sign up to our newsletter for updates on what’s going on behind the scenes.