Mr J. Derrick McClure
Mr J. Derrick McClure, M.A. (Glasgow), M.Litt. (Edinburgh), retired in 2009 after over forty years in the Department of English, University of Aberdeen.
Publications include Why Scots Matters (Saltire Society, Edinburgh, 1988, revised 1997, third edition 2008), Scots and its Literature (edited collection of previously-published essays: Benjamins, Amsterdam, 1995), Language, Poetry and Nationhood (Tuckwell, Edinburgh, 2000), Doric: the Dialect of North-East Scotland in the Varieties of English Around the World series (Benjamins, Amsterdam, 2002), the chapter 鈥淓nglish in Scotland鈥� in the Cambridge History of the English Language (Vol. 5), and over a hundred articles on Scottish linguistic and literary topics in various journals, festschrifts and conference proceedings volumes. In 2009-10 Chairman of the Scottish Government鈥檚 Ministerial Advisory Group on the Scots Language, until 2009 Chairman of the Forum for Research in the Languages of Scotland and Ulster, and still member of the Scottish Parliamentary Cross-Party Group on the Scots Language, the Language Committee and the International Committee of the Association for Scottish Literary Studies, the Scottish Dictionaries Council and the steering committee of the National Library of Scotland鈥檚 Bibliography of Scottish Literature in Translation (BOSLIT). Until 2009 Editor of the annual journal Scottish Language. Recent and current research and publication principally on Scots as a medium for literary translation and Middle Scots poetic prosody. Translations include Scotland o Gael an Lawlander (Gairm Publications, Glasgow, 1996: Scots translations from contemporary Gaelic poetry), the Scots versions in Meas air Chrannaibh - Fruit on Brai(i)nches by Aonghas P脿draig Caimbeul, Stornoway (Acair) 2007, Sangs tae Eimhir (from Sorley MacLean鈥檚 D脿in do Eimhir), Stornoway (Acair) 2011, Ailice鈥檚 Anters in Ferlielann (a North-East Doric version of Alice鈥檚 Adventures in Wonderland), Cnoc Sc茅ichin (Evertype) 2012, and translations from (among others) Cecco Angiolieri, Fr茅d茅ric Mistral and Alfred Kolleritsch. In 2002 awarded an MBE for services to Scottish culture.