The Search for a National Identity in the Scottish Literary Tradition and the Use of Language in Irvine Welsh's "Trainspotting"

The Scots language has been seen in combination with political independence and as one means to achieve this independence. The revolution in the literary sense was supposed to act as a forerunner of the revolution in the „real“ political sense. Literary independence for Scots has been achieved, but it has become clear that there is no such simple link between linguistic and political nationalism in Scotland.
Ricarda Weissenberger traces the development of Scottish literature, pointing out the roots of the Scottish literary Renaissance and its initiator, Hugh MacDiarmid. It was the Renaissance writers' intention and their use of language which counts as the crucial connection to today's writers. Irvine Welsh's novel „Trainspotting“ is taken as one example of modern Scottish fiction, its importance in the context of the Scottish literary tradition being shown by help of linguistic and thematic analysis.