English Literature and Language with optional TESOL pathway BA (Hons)

It has been argued that reality, as we each experience it, is an effect of language. Literary language, for Martin Amis, conducts a ‘war against cliché’ which unsettles our ideas about the world.

This exciting, diverse and challenging course enables you to explore the consequences of those ideas, and to combine the analysis of the English language, the study of literary history and the theoretically-informed close reading of literature.

The programme is designed to enable you to understand the key differences of approach between English Language and English Literature, while also - in a strand of core modules at each level - encouraging interdisciplinary study
If you are interested in teaching English to speakers of other languages you can choose to study our optional TESOL pathway.
You will encounter a wide range of literature from across the globe, studied in the context of perspective-altering theories concerning the relationship of language to identity, desire, cultural politics and the formation of reality itself. This degree will change the way that you think.
You will take a range of modules which complement and inform each other, involving a particular focus on the interaction of ‘ordinary’ and ‘literary’ language with ideology, discourse and power, in a national and a global context
The degree will provide a rigorous grounding in key aspects of modern literary history: the Renaissance; the Enlightenment; Romanticism; the nineteenth-century realist novel; modernism and postmodernism
You will benefit from an assessment strategy designed to produce confident, articulate graduates. As well as essays, you will be assessed on your participation in seminars and your ability to lead them. We also place great emphasis on developing your research skills, with independent projects a key part of the second and third year
You can choose to study for a semester in one of our partner universities in America.