The Centre for Linguistic Research, which was formed in 2002, brings together staff working in various areas of linguistics, and particularly sociolinguistics, with a special emphasis on variation and change in varieties of English, immigrant varieties, forensic linguistics, Scots and other minority languages of the British Isles and a variety of issues around language and identity.

In 2003 the Centre opened a phonetics laboratory equipped with a range of hardware and software for speech analysis. These facilities are at the disposal of staff, students and visiting lecturers working in research which involves detailed auditory and acoustic analysis of speech. Other facilities include a recently refurbished recording booth capable of recording in a range of digital and analogue formats.

From its inception the Centre has organised seminars and conferences to disseminate research findings and has attracted distinguished visitors from other UK institutions and from abroad. In September 2005 we hosted the 5th UK Language Variation and Change conference (UKLVC5), then the largest linguistics conference ever held in Aberdeen, while in 2004 Professors James and Lesley Milroy of the University of Michigan gave the prestigious James Murray Brown lecture series. In 2010 we will host the British Association for Applied Linguistics (BAAL) annual conference.

PhD students based in the Centre are conducting research on a variety of topics including forensic linguistics, psychological aspects of teaching English as a foreign language, Discourse Analysis and Sociohistorical Linguistic Change. Centre staff are keen to encourage PhD applications from students interested in researching topics in staff members' areas of expertise (see personnel, below).

Centre staff are involved in teaching on the one-year taught MLitt in Sociolinguistics, which looks at historical and contemporary varieties of English in the British Isles and throughout the world, and on the two new taught postgraduate programmes MLitt in English Linguistics for Advanced Teachers of English (ELATE) and MLitt in Language Policy and Planning. Click here for information on postgraduate applications and funding.