BA (Hons) English Language & Literature

Bachelor's degree

In London

Price on request

Description

  • Type

    Bachelor's degree

  • Location

    London

  • Duration

    3 Years

  • Start date

    Different dates available

This degree combines the study of literature with the study of language from a linguistic perspective. You'll engage with theory and practice in literature and linguistics, and benefit from mutually illuminating critical debates in both disciplines.

Facilities

Location

Start date

London
See map
New Cross, SE14 6NW

Start date

Different dates availableEnrolment now open

About this course

We accept the following qualifications: A-level: BBBBTEC: DDMInternational Baccalaureate: 33 points overall with Three HL subjects at 655 Access: Pass with 45 Level 3 credits including 30 Distinctions and a number of merits/passes in subject-specific modulesScottish qualifications: BBBBC (Higher) or BBC (Advanced Higher)European Baccalaureate: 75%, including a strong grade in English LiteratureIrish Leaving Certificate: H2 H2 H2 H2 We also accept a wide range of international qualifications.

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Subjects

  • Shakespeare
  • Poetry
  • Poems
  • Media
  • Writing
  • Law
  • Cinema
  • Restoration
  • Teaching
  • Works
  • Credit
  • IT Law
  • Translation
  • English Language
  • IT
  • English
  • Perspective
  • Literature Study

Course programme

What you'll study

To complete the programme you must take 360 credits across three levels, with 120 credits at each level. Across the whole degree you must take at least 120 credits in linguistics and at least 120 credits in literature.

Year 1 (credit level 4)

You take four compulsory modules, of which one provides an introduction to linguistics:

Year 1 compulsory modules Module title Credits. Explorations in Literature Explorations in Literature 30 credits

This module introduces a wide range of works covering the major literary genres and embodying significant interventions or influences in the history of literature. The emphasis is on reading primary texts and discovering (or rediscovering) writers and cultures so that you will be able to make informed choices among more specialised modules later in your degree.

30 credits. Approaches to Text Approaches to Text 30 credits

The module will introduce students to essential concepts in modern literary study, critical theory and literary criticism through a detailed engagement with literary texts, theoretical texts and literary criticism. Students will develop critical reading skills, gain a vocabulary for discussing and analyzing literary works, and through a close integration with the PASS programme, will build up their academic writing and research skills in a series of short, assessed exercises that will aid in the writing and revision of their course work in the first year and throughout the degree.

Principal texts might typically include Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Shakespeare's The Tempest, Seamus Heaney's North, and Lorca's The House of Bernarda Alba.

30 credits. Introduction to the Study of Language Introduction to the Study of Language 30 credits

This module aims to acquaint you with the core areas of linguistic study, and will allow you to explore the relationship between language, culture, social structure and cognition. You will become familiar with the terminology, notions and theories that will underpin your further in-depth study of the English language. In addition to learning about the structure of language and its role in social relationships, you will be encouraged to gain skills in hands-on analysis of words, sentences and texts.

30 credits. Engaging Poetry Engaging Poetry 30 credits

This provides coverage in both breadth and depth across the genre of poetry, introducing students to a range of poetic and verse forms in English from the early modern period to the present day. Using the structure of the four, five-weekly slots for teaching across the two terms, the module will divide into four individual and yet integrated and coherent parts:

  1. Forms of Poetry
  2. History of Poetry
  3. The Practice of Poetry
  4. Close Readings

Chronological issues will blend with more individualised approaches to the reading and understanding of poetry, and due attention will be given to verse forms from medieval to modern lyric. The module will be the starting point for your engagement with both the critical and practical appreciation of poetry and will be supported by the participation of the department’s creative practitioners.

30 credits. or. Literature of the Victorian Period Literature of the Victorian Period 30 credits

This module is based on writing in Britain between 1830 and 1900. Perhaps no period of literary history has been so subject to stereotyping as the Victorian, yet, as its chronological span alone suggests, Victorian literature is marked above all by its diversity. The literature of the Victorian period contains both the legacy of romanticism and the origins of modernism; its aesthetic and moral ideals are powerful, varied, and unstable. Most crucially, it is the site of debate: about morals, politics, religion, science, sexuality, gender, nationhood, empire, and, at its very basis, about the nature and function of literature itself. The texts featured on this module will represent the full chronological sweep of the Victorian period as well as a range of its genres, including poetry, novels, short stories, and essays.

Major texts might typically include B Richards', English Verse 1830–1890 , Dickens' Bleak House , C Brontë's Villette , Eliot's Middlemarch , Hardy's The Return of the Native , and Collins' The Moonstone.

30 credits. Year 2 (credit level 5)

You take one compulsory module in linguistics:

Module title Credits. Varieties of English Varieties of English 30 credits

This module explores how and why language is used differently in a range of contexts. We will examine language variation in relation to region, gender, ethnicity, age and social class; we will see that individuals are able to shift their style of speaking from one situation to the next and we will explore the attitudes that people have towards different varieties of English. The topics/issues that will be studied may include the following: Do women and men speak differently? What is slang? How and why do adolescents speak differently from adults? What are the public stereotypes about speakers with 'non-standard' accents? What is Standard English? In our discussion of these issues we will study various examples of spoken and written language and examine the role of literature and the media in representing language variation.

30 credits.

You also take 90 credits worth of modules from the range of options available within the department. At least 30 credits must be from modules encompassing pre-1800 literature.

Modules vary from year to year, but recent modules in linguistics have included:

Year 2 Linguistics modules Module title Credits. Language Learning and Teaching Language Learning and Teaching 30 credits

How do people learn a second language? What factors facilitate or prevent learners from becoming successful speakers? What pedagogical aspects should be considered to facilitate learning? This module explores these questions and other controversial issues related to the development and use of a second language within a multilingual perspective.

Initially the module will briefly overview research on how babies and children learn languages (First Language Acquisition) and then move on to how adults do so (Second Language Acquisition), including the individual/internal processes involved in second language acquisition, such as age, motivation, attitudes and learning strategies.

Then the module will consider the social factors and processes that influence language learners, such as learner identity, culture, power relationships, learning communities and contexts, discussing these in light of a multilingual turn.
For each aspect of language learning the module will discuss how different teaching approaches can be considered and how these play out in the classroom.

30 credits. Digital Media Discourse Digital Media Discourse 15 credits

Contemporary discourses involve interaction through a number of new media, afforded by new technologies. This module introduces key issues relevant to the study of language used in digital contexts. Drawing on sociolinguistic, discourse-analytic, and ethnographic approaches we explore the use of language and other semiotic resources in digital media, focusing on identity performance, social engagement, and aggression and conflict.

The module starts with an overview of initial approaches to computer mediated communication, looking at attitudes and ideologies towards these new practices. It then presents recent theoretical approaches and frameworks to the study of digital contexts (e.g. Computer Mediated Discourse Analysis).

Specific topics examined include: stories and identities on facebook; the language of blogs and wikis; microblogging practices and the meaning of hashtags; multilingual and multimodal practices and mixing of semiotic resources; frameworks of participation; impoliteness and conflict in e-fora and other digital settings. You will be encouraged to reflect on the public-private dichotomy, online and offline identities, the communication of space and time and your own use of digital media.

15 credits.

Recent examples of literature modules available at this level include:

Year 2 Literature modules Module title Credits. Drama and Transgression: From Prometheus to Faust Drama and Transgression: From Prometheus to Faust 30 credits

This module explores a range of approaches to conflicts between divine or political authority and human claims to self-assertion and freedom; submission to orthodoxy; co-existence of orthodoxy and humanism; reconciliation of autonomy and theonomy; and the demise of divine law. The module introduces you to epoch-specific types of overlaps and tensions between religious and positive law, divine and human reason, feeling and understanding. The module also aims to increase your awareness of issues of gender and power, and investigates the nature of female revolt and violence in the light of the Aristotelian theories and traditional male academic and religious discourses.

30 credits. European Cinema European Cinema 30 credits

This module Providing an overview of significant trends in European cinema since 1945, this module considers a number of specific films which reflect changing attitudes to contemporary European society and shifting notions of European identity. The first half explores the emergence of the various new cinemas in Europe after 1945 and the second examines a number of key films in order to explore how European identities have been projected and dramatised.

30 credits. Inventing the Nation: American Literature in the mid-19th Century Inventing the Nation: American Literature in the mid-19th Century 30 credits

This examines a cluster of major American writers from the 1830s to the 1880s, all of which are engaged in shaping, describing, criticising and contesting the emerging American nation. We will examine literature’s role in the definition of national identity by exploring individual writers. We will also address the key ways in which the American literary tradition differs from its English counterpart. The writers of the so-called ‘American Renaissance’ – Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Melville and Whitman – will be central to the module, as their writings are at the heart of the project of national self invention. However, the module will look at this project from alternative perspectives, including those of region, race and gender. It includes the study of film as well as texts.

30 credits. Literary London Literary London 30 credits

During the 19th century, London easily outstripped all other contenders as the largest and most vibrant metropolis in the world. Inevitably, the city, with its extraordinary contradictions, was intimately involved with some of the century’s most major literary developments.

This module focuses on representations of the metropolis by a range of writers living and working in London across the period, and in so doing covers a range of genres (poetry, biography, essay, novel, crime writing) and subjects (everyday life, government, poverty, religion, law, empire).

30 credits. Literature of the Later Middle Ages: Society and the Individual Literature of the Later Middle Ages: Society and the Individual 30 credits

This module constitutes a ‘pre-1800’ choice. You study English writing in the 14th and 15th centuries, especially social satire, the comic tale, varieties of romance, and autobiography. You study texts in relation to genre; society and morality; gender; dissent and individual consciousness. Texts might typically include Chaucer, 'The Canterbury Tales' (selection); romances such as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and 'The Book of Margery Kempe'; the ‘Lais of Marie de France'.

30 credits. Moderns Moderns 30 credits

You study modernist writing in Britain, Ireland and internationally from the 1920s, including such works as Eliot, 'The Waste Land'; Woolf, 'Mrs Dalloway'; Joyce, 'Ulysses'; Brecht, 'Mother Courage'; poems of Yeats, Auden, Stevens and others.

30 credits. Old English Old English 30 credits

This module constitutes a ‘pre-1800’ choice. An introduction to the language and literature of the Anglo-Saxons, with consideration of a variety of themes and genres, including history, lyric, mythology, poetic elegy and romance. Some texts are read in translation. Major texts might typically include selections such as the 'Anglo-Saxon Chronicle', 'Beowulf', works by King Alfred, Ælfric, and Bede.

30 credits. Post-Victorian English Literature Post-Victorian English Literature 30 credits

This module examines selected literary works across several genres in the period 1901-36, concentrating upon English-based writings in the non-modernist tradition. Topics for consideration include responses to social change and warfare, and new conceptions of Englishness and modern sexuality. Authors typically include Hardy, Shaw, Forster, Strachey, Brooke, Owen, Graves, Mansfield, Lawrence, Waugh, Holtby, and Orwell.

30 credits. Restoration and 18th-Century Literature Restoration and 18th-Century Literature 30 credits

This module constitutes a ‘pre-1800’ choice. You study English verse and prose satire 1660–1760; the Restoration comic stage; the rise of the novel; landscape and poetry. The principal texts might typically include selections from: Paul Hammond (ed.), 'Restoration Literature: An Anthology'; Behn, 'Oroonoko'; Defoe, 'Robinson Crusoe';Swift, 'Gulliver’s Travels'; Richardson, 'Pamela'; Fielding, 'Tom Jones'; Sterne, 'Tristram Shandy'; and works by Burney and Johnson.

30 credits. Sensibility and Romanticism: Revolutions in Writing and Society Sensibility and Romanticism: Revolutions in Writing and Society 30 credits

This module constitutes a ‘pre-1800’ choice. The module covers aspects of mid to late 18th century and early 19th century literature including ‘sensibility’, ‘pre-romanticism’, the Gothic novel and the emergence of the Romantic movement. Principal texts might typically include Sterne, 'A Sentimental Journey'; Goldsmith, 'The Vicar of Wakefield'; Austen, 'Sense and Sensibility' and 'Mansfield Park'; Lewis, 'The Monk'; Scott, 'Waverley'; Brontë, 'Wuthering Heights'; selected poems of Blake, Byron, Coleridge, Keats and Wordsworth.

30 credits. Shakespeare Shakespeare 30 credits

This module constitutes a ‘pre-1800’ choice. The module covers the literary and cultural analysis of Shakespeare’s work in its chronological development; his poetic language and dramatic art. You read most of Shakespeare’s plays and poems.

30 credits. Year 3 (credit level 6)

In your third year you write a dissertation, which may focus on either literature or linguistics.

You also choose modules from the options available at his level, making sure that across the degree you have at least 120 credits in linguistics and 120 credits in literature.

Modules may vary from year to year, but recent examples in linguistics have included:

Year 3 Linguistics modules Module title Credits. Approaches to Language and the Media Approaches to Language and the Media 15 credits

In this course, you will learn to analyse a range of media text-types found in advertisements, magazine and newspaper articles, television and photography. Comparative studies with literary texts may also be included. The course will cover a number of approaches to the reading and interpretation of a range of media genres.

You will be asked to reflect upon features of language and consider how they work within texts and across a variety of contexts.

The course will draw on linguistics and discourse analysis. In the analyses undertaken, the ‘linguistic’ features of a text will be understood broadly to include the participants (i.e. the narrators, audience, observers and hearers, etc), audio-visual components, as well the cultural and ideological conditions within which these features occur.

15 credits. How to Read in Translation How to Read in Translation 15 credits

Designed for students of language and literature, How to Read in Translation provides an interactive introduction to the complexities and pleasures of reading in translation. It focuses on literature translated into English and requires no foreign language experience or expertise.

Much of what we read in a university context has been translated into English from another language. By navigating concepts of imitation, mimicry, hybridity and hermeneutics, this module will expose students to the power of translations both to illuminate and elide cultural differences. We will question why literature from some languages remains undertranslated, and what influence changing literary tastes, societal developments, political regimes, and the cultural and financial interests of the bookselling industry have on translation.

We will study a selection of poetry, prose and theatre in translation, by comparing various translations of the same original text together with their critical and popular reception.

15 credits. Language and Gender Language and Gender 15 credits

This module aims to

BA (Hons) English Language & Literature

Price on request