BA (Hons) English Language and Linguistics

What's the course about?
In your first year, you will learn about the building blocks of language. Think about grammar, speech sounds and dialects. You’ll study communication and interaction, language in the media and you’ll investigate how to analyse language data.

In your second year, you will build on the first-year modules. You’ll look in more depth at how we produce speech sounds, how a sentence is built and how languages differ. You will choose from a range of optional modules, giving you the chance to specialise in your field of interest. You can take forensic and psycholinguistic modules, look at research methods and even learn about English language teaching. You can also take a subject-specific careers module and get some relevant work experience. We offer a career development module in your second year that will equip you to take up an English Language teaching work placement, whether teaching phonics to primary school pupils or at a special needs school, or volunteering at the Stroke Association. You may also shadow speech and language therapists or help with specialist language teaching in a sixth form college.

Work placement/study abroad option: Between your second and final year, you’ll have the option to study abroad or do a work placement for up to a year. Not only will this give you an amazing experience to talk about but will also give your CV a boost. If you’d rather go straight to your final year, that’s absolutely fine too.

In your final year, all modules are optional. This means you can choose whichever you like, leaving you free to focus on what interests you. For example, can do clinical linguistics, design your own research project and look at the social aspects of language, as well as explore collections of spoken or written language data.