English Language and Applied Linguistics MA

This module aims to lay the theoretical and descriptive foundation that will form the basis of the other English Language and Applied Linguistics Master's modules. It aims to enable you to access and use different models of description of the English language, and to understand the theories underlying those models.

The module aims to guide you through the process of project-planning, including general research skills background reading, research and writing up. You will be guided in your choice of a project which interests you and allocated a supervisor to oversee your work as you bring the project to fruition.

Choose three from a list which may include:

This module aims to provide an introduction to phonetics. We will focus on articulatory, impressionistic and acoustic aspects of phonetics. The module will begin with an introduction to phonetic theory and transcription using the International Phonetic Alphabet, and then followed by an introduction to a new piece of software to conduct acoustic analysis of speech.

This module involves advanced study of the fundamental features of interaction, and exploration of a method for conducting detailed analysis of talk within and across cultures. It covers a range of different kinds of communication (from ordinary talk to formal news interviews) and explores the relationship between language and context in a range of culturally situated settings. You'll study the central underlying patterns by which interaction operates, and examines cutting-edge research on issues such as affiliation and action adjustment. Much of this research is drawn from Conversation Analysis, and we explore and critically assess main features of its methodology and findings.

This module aims to equip you with the analytical skills to identify the linguistic source of stylistic effects in literary and non-literary texts and to evaluate the interpretative significance of these for readers. You will engage with a range of debates in the field as well as cutting-edge research in cognitive and corpus stylistics to investigate both literary and non-literary style. The module covers both theoretical and methodological aspects of the study of stylistics.

This module aims to equip you with a set of analytical skills used for the identification and evaluation of the linguistic devices which encode ideologies in spoken and written texts. The module’s case studies will include the advanced study of Critical Stylistics in a range of different texts, including both spoken and written texts.

This module is about understanding and exploring what happens to and between people when they interact (chiefly, but not exclusively, through the use of language): how they convey their ‘meanings’; how they project their views of themselves, of others present, of their relationship with those others and of what is going on; how they interpret and evaluate what other people say; how these understandings make them feel.