Research at CTRL has a strong link to the various areas of application in language learning, teaching, preservation, and recording language change. The different research backgrounds of the staff members effectively complement each other in creating fruitful synergies in the areas of fist, second, and multilingual language acquisition as well as the effects and pressures of a multilingual contexts on a speaker's first or dominant language, which is broadly subsumed under the notion of language attrition. The local context of (Northeast) Scotland with a range of different English dialects, Scots, and Gaelic provides an ideal environment for studying these issues. The theme of language acquisition and attrition is at the centre of our research strategy and creates a rich context for synergies with other staff members and international collaborators - both within Linguistics and beyond.