Scottish Ethnology Ethnology provides an insight into Scotland's traditional and popular culture. Attracting students from all over the world, we teach practical skills that can be applied to the study of any culture. Students of Scottish ethnology learn about Scottish folklore and folk life and explore Scotland's rich diversity in language, culture and heritage. You will carry out your own ethnographic fieldwork and develop your analytical, creative, communication and critical skills, improving your research skills and confidence using archives and library resources. English Language The English language has a well-recorded history of more than 1,000 years and its changes can be traced through written materials ranging from medieval manuscripts to text messages. Using techniques from modern linguistics, you will analyse the structure of written and spoken English and will explore how the language has changed in the course of its history. You can also study modern-day varieties of English and Scots and identify the similarities and differences between the features of English and other languages. English is a highly structured system of communication in which the most complex and elusive meanings are encoded in sequences of sounds travelling through air, or of letters written on pages. Using the techniques of modern linguistics, you will analyse the structure of syllables, words, phrases, sentences and other linguistic units to see how they carry the message from the speaker to the listener and from the writer to the reader.