English Language and Linguistics BA (Hons) module details

Year one

Block 1: Structure and Nature of Language

If you were a medical student, much of your early degree study would be in human anatomy; you need to know what the various parts of the human body are, and how they fit together, before going on to understand how the various organs function. This module is an introduction to the anatomy of language production, with a focus on English. It will equip you to understand the fundamental building blocks of language, universal and language-specific, and to apply tools of analysis to the material you examine. You will develop an awareness of language variation (differences) and universals (common features) in language/s.

Besides refining your linguistic skills, you will also be trained in academic skills; learn how to research a topic, organise and reference your findings, and express your thoughts in written and oral form in a way that fits the requirements of the discipline.

Assessment: Class Test (40%) and Research Essay (60%)

Block 2: Journeys and Places

This module, with its focus on journeys and places, offers an opportunity for you to explore some of the key concepts underpinning your programme studies. You will take a post-disciplinary approach to English language and linguistics, using techniques from diverse areas to address key questions related to journeys and places.

You will attend interactive lectures with students from across the School of Humanities and Performing Arts. You will have opportunities to apply the concepts addressed in these lectures to your programme within subject-specific workshops and assessments.

The themes covered during the module may include journeys, spaces and the concept of welcome; (im)mobilities and journeys through time and space; representation and imaginative geographies; gender and placemaking; belonging and place attachment; journeys, places and identities; as well as themes related to sustainability and the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.

Assessment: Subject-specific Coursework: 1 (30%) and 2 (70%)

Block 3: Histories of English

How did a small island on the western fringe of ancient Europe produce a language which has spread across the world to become the first truly global tongue? In this module, you will explore the history and development of English from its beginnings to the present day and beyond. The module will examine theories about the origins of language and use English as a case study to show how languages change over time.

By the end of the module, students will have examined the history of English through the close study of texts chosen from the full range of the language's history; including early Celtic languages and Anglo-Saxon (translations will be provided).

You will consider language change over time and language variation (i.e. change over space) and how a wide range of linguistic and non-linguistic factors have led to the emergence of ‘Standard’ English, the proliferation of variant forms across the globe, and a world of ‘Englishes’ rather than ‘English’.

Assessment: Linguistic Report (40%): Group Presentation (60%)

OR you can select to study one route from the list below:

Creative Writing Route: Multimodal Writing

This module enables you to examine in how reading of traditionally published texts and innovations within the digital sphere can inform and improve your own practice, creativity and resilience as a writer. These two strands: digitally engaged writing and reading for craft, will be introduced through core readings, drawing on materials from a range of countries and cultures, including published work from global majority writers and writing in translation.

You will develop your craft skills through analysis of traditionally published texts in areas such as voice, form and structure, pace and development, genre, and language. However, as every stage of the writing process is impacted by digital, a key aim of this module will be to help you optimise your use of and potential for writerly growth in the digital sphere.

In addition to producing new creative work, you will work individually or collaboratively on a ‘writers’ salon’. You will select material, lead discussions, and devise exploratory writing activities to enable your peers to read for craft and productively explore multimodality. By working with others, you will consolidate your own learning and develop employability skills which are transferable to a wide range of workplace situations, particularly in an educational setting.

Assessment: Writers’ Salon (20%) and Portfolio (80%)

Drama Route: Revolutions: Staging Plays

You will develop and demonstrate performance skills relevant to chosen theatrical texts. Analysing the structures, both linguistic and narrative, of play texts and performances, you will explore a range of critical and technical perspectives. Through workshops, you will engage in a practical exploration of the module topic through a range of tutor led exercises, consolidating your knowledge through creative practice and working collaboratively with others.

Assessment: 60% Solo Performance or Presentation and 40% essay.

Film Studies Route: The Film Industry 1: Disney, Warner Bros. and the Business of the Film Studio

You will develop your understanding of the historic and current operation of major film studios, by reviewing their releases, changing structures over time, and their practices today. You will explore the history of movie studios and the evolving business practices of studios, focusing on the activities of two studios, the Walt Disney Company and Warner-Discovery. You will discover the key activities carried out by studios, including production, distribution, license sales and marketing.

Assessment: 80% essay and 20% presentation or written piece.

History Route: Nationalism and Revolutions in the Nineteenth Century

This module will introduce students to the rise of nationalism, the significance of the nation-state as a unit of political organisation, the development and expansion of empires (both European and non-European), and the impact of revolutions throughout the nineteenth century from a global perspective. Through thematic lectures, seminars, workshops, and independent reading, students will explore a range of case studies and develop an understanding of these fundamental building blocks of modern history. Students will additionally learn to identify different historiographical approaches that historians have utilised to study these important historical themes.

Assessment: Secondary Source Analysis 35% and Essay 65%

Journalism Route: Understanding Journalism

This module introduces you to classic and new theories and practice of journalism, and the role the news media have in explaining and shaping society. You will reflect on the evolutions and the current state of the sector and develop your understanding of global news debate and the role of journalism in shaping communities. Theories introduced include journalism and its role in society, theories of news production, content, and audience theories, and digital news theories. You will also dissect current events in order to understand how journalists have covered and responded to activism and social justice issues in the UK and worldwide both in mainstream media and social media.

Assessment: 60% essay and 40% presentation.

Media Route: Media, Culture, and Society

This module considers a range of approaches to the study of media, culture, and society, particularly focusing on the socio-cultural contexts in which contemporary media operate on a domestic and global scale. You will examine the notion of 'culture' as a range of mediatised practices and explore the everyday significance of contemporary cultural and media forms.

Assessment: 60% essay and 40% creative project.

Block 4: Words in Action

This module is designed to introduce the students to key concepts in the study of language and to instruct students in how to carry out forms of linguistic analysis. Taught in workshops, the emphasis is on putting theory into practice. Starting with the overall system of language, each week students will be introduced to an element of linguistics and taught how to apply appropriate and corresponding analytical skills in practical work and class exercises. The major areas of linguistics which are covered are: morphology, syntax, semantics, lexicology, and clause analysis.

Assessment: Linguistic Analysis (50%) and Group Project (50%)

Year two

Block 1: Language in Use

This module explores the nature of human communication, and the ways in which the meaning communicated by speakers go beyond the meaning of the words and sentences uttered. You will examine how hearers understand indirectly communicated meanings (conversational implicatures) and a variety of non-literal meanings (for example, metaphor, irony, metonymy), and compare how these meanings are conveyed in verbal communication versus in certain kinds of text (for example, literary texts). You will also look at children’s acquisition and comprehension of implicated and non- literal meanings and investigate the consequences for theories of our pragmatic abilities.

Assessment: Pragmatic Analysis (60%): Group Project (40%)

Block 2: Exploring Work and Society

This module is designed to prepare and support you towards the pursuit of post-degree pathways. You will focus on the specific skills, capabilities and knowledge needed to adapt and flourish in professional environments and contexts. There will be an emphasis on enhancement of core attributes, competencies and transferable skills as well as developing familiarity with the world and politics of work. The module will prepare you for diverse and dynamic working environments beyond university and support your long-term professional development.

You will be introduced to the UN Sustainable Development Goals and invited to engage critically around themes including race, gender, identity, and geopolitical issues, to conceptualize a more equitable society, and environmentally sustainable world, as relevant to your career aspirations.

You will engage with subject-specific workshops to gain greater understanding of worlds of work connected to English language and linguistics. You will take part in lectures, seminars, group discussion, independent learning, tutorial support and engagement with your peers.

Supported independent learning activities may include responding to real-world briefs, placements/shadowing, engagement with community projects or initiatives, creating proposals for projects or initiatives in a professional setting. These activities will be tailored to your programme.

Assessment: Written Portfolio or Recorded Presentation (100%)

Block 3: Screening Language

You will examine the use of language on the small and large screen, whether (i) to convey information about a (fictional) character, (ii) as a means of illustrating a particular linguistic issue (in a fictionalised account), or even (iii) as a means of documenting linguistic problems in the world.

Key issues in the module are introduced by and anchored on film viewings, which feed into self-selected assignment themes. The topics students are exposed to will draw on the following areas: (i) the analysis of language structure by means of the study of conlangs (e.g. Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, Star Trek, Harry Potter), (ii) the mapping of language attitudes towards non-standard varieties of English (e.g. My Fair Lady, Boarders, Trainspotting), (iii) an introduction to communication and language acquisition (e.g. Nell, Project Nim), (iv) issues of decolonisation/de-stigmatisation in multilingualism and language documentation (e.g. Sisters in Law, The Linguists).

Each topic that is introduced will give students a new method of linguistic analysis, which they will try out for themselves, evaluate and critique.

Assessment: 3 x 500-word Blog posts (45%): Group OR Individual Presentation (55%)

OR continue with the route selected in the first year:

Creative Writing Route: Story Craft

This module focuses on story in its broadest sense—a subject relevant to diverse forms such as poetry, hypertext, and all scripted work. Narrative remains a tremendously powerful tool in media, marketing, advertising, gaming, and fiction. Key themes may include narrative arcs and structures, characterisation, pacing, event, story-world, dialogue, clue-laying, revelation, concealment, and engaging the reader.

The module begins with an emphasis on storytelling and prose, exploring story structure, narrative drive, and how writers compel us to keep turning the pages. It will also examine how storytelling has evolved in contemporary contexts and the relationship between form and content. You will develop skills and techniques to apply to your wider creative practice.

Additional specialist study may occasionally explore story craft in other forms, genres, and cultures, such as writing for stage and screen, with a particular focus on structure and narrative.

You may use storyboarding and electronic presentation tools (e.g., Padlet, Pecha Kucha) as learning aids. Analytical reading and practical creative tasks will be expected.

Assessment: Story Craft Proposal (40%) and Story Craft Creative Work (60%)

Drama Route: Theatre Revolutions

You will engage with key moments of transition in theatre practice and develop your understanding of those changes from a range of cultural and historical perspectives. Theatre is an ever-changing form, and this module provides you with the opportunity to explore exciting moments of change throughout history such as the shift from melodrama to naturalism or the shift from naturalism to post-dramatic performance. Themes you will explore could include Justice, War and Love.

Assessment: 50% group performance and 50% essay.

Film Studies Route: Professional Practice 2: Screen Archives

In this module you will learn about the management and usage of screen archives. You will discover how to identify, approach and mitigate the threats that time and space pose to the preservation of film and media heritage for future generations, while also identifying and exploring the various purposes for which this archival material is utilised by a range of external stakeholders. The module’s hands-on practical evaluation of historical material will encourage you to consider: what can we find and study in film archives? How do we present these items to the public? Who is an archivist and who a collector? And what, ultimately, are the purposes and uses of an archive’s holdings and how can they best be served? You will benefit from learning in the 私房俱乐部 film archives, where you will observe, evaluate film ephemera and their broad historical and socio-cultural contexts.

Assessment: 50% essay and 50% presentation with exhibition materials.

History Route: Migration, Multiculturalism, and Racism

This module will examine the centrality of migration, multiculturalism and racism in the development of the modern world. Focusing mainly on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the module will tackle themes that might include theories and criticisms of the concept of multiculturalism, histories and experiences of migration, theories of diaspora, the social and economic status of minorities, the ways in which ethnic, racial, migrant, religious or other types of minorities interact with the dominant society and culture, and the representation of these experiences in sports and visual culture. Case studies that might be examined in this module include the Jewish community in Britain, the global African diaspora, the origins of multicultural Britain, among others.

Assessment: Primary Source Analysis 40% and Essay 60%

Journalism Route: Beyond News: Peace Journalism and Opinion Writing

You will explore innovative and constructive approaches to journalism, such as peace journalism, constructive journalism, and solution journalism, which aim to create opportunities for change through journalism. You will gain an understanding of practical elements of writing an entertaining, interesting and compelling first-person opinion column, why these columns are more popular today in magazines and newspapers and write your own columns on your own blog. We will also look at review writing and the journalistic similarities here with opinion writing. You will be encouraged to find an area of popular culture they are interested in and review your experience of it, honing your work, practising techniques and styles, until your writing is up to industry standard.

Assessment: 50% journalism report and 50% review or column.

Media Route: Public Relations and Strategic Communication

This module introduces you the concepts and debates that underpin both the practice and the academic discipline of public relations. You will learn about the different strands of public relations, the industry structures and the tools used by practitioners to engage with their audiences. You will develop an understanding of mediated communications and the relationship between practitioners and journalists. The ability to practically utilise new media and technology as part of strategic communications will also form a key strand of the modules learning and teaching strategy.

Assessment: 60% online PR campaign plan and 40% group presentation and reflective report.

Block 4: Language and Linguistic Diversity

The module examines the links between language and society and the issues that may arise from this. You will look into factors that can affect language use and attitudes, such as region, social class, race/ethnicity, and sex/gender. The consideration of variation at a regional level will broaden out to consider national and international variation, multilingualism and language choice. This will also involve the consideration of language in education and language planning, and the challenges posed by the role of English as a global language. The module includes both pure and applied linguistics, and students will consider how linguistic issues have real-world applications.

You will carry out group fieldwork as part of your assessment, developing your practical research skills in a way which offers a bridge to the final year dissertation. The module will also involve a trip to Bletchley Park, to examine the practical application of linguistic knowledge to cryptography.

Assessment: Phase Test (20%): Analytical Study (30%): Group Project (50%)

Year 3

Block 1 and Year-Long: Research Methods/Dissertation

Third Year Students on this programme write a dissertation over the course of the year. This is linked to the year-long module:

Blocks 1-4: Yearlong Dissertation

You will propose, refine, develop, research and write a dissertation on a topic supervised by a member of the English Language and Linguistics team. We will support you throughout the year with workshops on such topics as:

designing a research project
conducting an effective literature review
quantitative versus qualitative research
corpus linguistics
the principles of fieldwork
questionnaire and survey design
the use of mixed and blended methodologies
conducting research in an ethical manner
writing up methodology and results

At the end of Block 1, all students will give a poster presentation of their work in progress and will field questions from their peers and members of the teaching team. The final dissertation will be submitted in June. It should be no more than 10, 000 words in length.

Assessment: Poster Presentation/Q+A (10%) and Dissertation (90%)

Block 2: Language, Identity, and Culture

How does language shape our sense of who we and who other people are? This module examines the complex role that language plays in the construction of individual and collective identities in contemporary society. You will consider key facets including gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and nationality, and critically examine the mechanisms of identity construction, such as performativity, enregisterment, as well as current issues in this area, such as linguistic reclamation, appropriation and intersectionality.

You will carry out their own research on a topic that relates to language and identity, developing their skills in data collection, analysis and evaluation.

Assessment: Report (40%) and Podcast (60%)

Block 3: Communication, Control and Resistance

For over 2000 years, humans have been studying the tools of effective, persuasive communication; what is now called 'advertising', 'PR', 'news management' ‘Fake News’ or 'spin' has in previous centuries been known as 'rhetoric'. This module introduces you to the key concepts of rhetoric and oratory as a discipline and will enable you to both analyse and produce texts employing powerful, persuasive language. You will be taking ideas and issues which have endured from Aristotle and the Renaissance to the present and will examine rhetoric in theory and practice.

You will acquire a detailed knowledge of rhetorical structures and figures, and study how protest movements and various groups have deployed the techniques you will examine and will learn how to employ yourself – or resist them.

You will move from analysis to production, by enabling you to craft their own persuasive material. This will have clear benefits in terms of developing the key transferrable skills of effective communication and presentation in written and oral form.

Assessment: Test (25%): Critical Analysis (30%): Scenario/Simulation Exercise (45%)

OR continue with the route selected in the first year:

Creative Writing : Uncreative Writing

This module encourages you to rethink the premise of ‘Creative Writing’ as self-expression. It will heighten your attention to the language that surrounds you in everyday life and involve an element of self-transformation in your attitudes towards the relationship between art and life.

Creative Writing is traditionally based on the idea of ‘original’ composition and the quest to find a ‘unique’ voice. The ability to generate new writing that expresses creative thought and reflects on experiences is one of the enduring definitions of what it means to be human. However, there is an alternative, playful history of ‘Uncreative Writing’ that challenges these ideas. It embraces writing practices that celebrate the ‘materiality’ of language, chance procedures, collage, ‘conceptual writing’, ‘found’ and ‘appropriated’ texts, and experiments with artificial constraints. This alternative history is multi-disciplinary, and this module introduces you to ideas, attitudes, and practices from visual art, musical composition, mathematics, and Zen.

A key focus of the module is the celebration and importance of play and experimentation as central aspects of creativity. You will be supported in developing a receptivity to the creative potential of everyday life and a willingness to transform everyday materials.

Assessment: Uncreative Portfolio (100%)

Drama Route: Performance, Identity, and Activism A+B

This module explores the ways in which theatre and performance has been, and can be, used as a vehicle to discuss politics, to emancipate individuals and communities, as a tool for intervention and liberation, or as a means of engagement and communication within society. Exploring politics of personal identity and social relations, the module enables you to make connections between performance and political activism, using intersectional perspectives – race, gender, sexuality, class, and (dis)ability – to create work that pushes beyond pure entertainment. It also considers ways in which drama, theatre and performance functions as a means of engagement and communication within society.

Assessment: 60% solo piece or group performance and 40% presentation and essay.

Film Studies Route: Film History and Theory 3: British Cinema

This module explores British cinema, its cultural specificity and its remarkable creative and cultural diversity within an industry-grounded framework, with a particular focus on the post-studio period since the late 1960s and developments between the 1980s and the present. You will gain an understanding of some of the creative figures, individual producers and production companies, films, cycles, genres and trends which have shaped post-1960s and contemporary British film. You will also discover the structural and cultural challenges faced by the UK film industry and the strategies UK filmmakers and institutions have deployed to bring ‘culturally British’ films to audiences at home and worldwide.

Assessment: tbc

History Route: The War at Home: 1939-1945

This module explores the economic, social, political, and cultural aspects of the home front during the Second World War focusing upon case studies such as Britain and Germany. The module will examine primary sources on the individual case studies and also offer students the opportunity to engage with different historiographical traditions and interpretations during this time frame. The case studies covered will also be placed into wider international context.

Assessment: Primary Source Analysis 50% and Podcast/Video 50%

Journalism Route: Music, Film, and Entertainment Journalism

This module will develop your understanding of music, film and entertainment journalism, its history and its cultural importance. It is a practical module designed to prepare you for a career as a journalists, PR or promoter. You will produce a varied multi-media journalism portfolio showcasing your ability to preview events and write reviews of gigs/albums/films/theatre/TV/comedy and other arts forms to industry standard on various media platforms, including digital, print and social media. The curriculum will include guest speakers, including musicians, directors, and working music, film, and arts journalists, to enhance the learning experience. Supported where possible with trips to relevant music venues, theatres, to speak to staff about media management and how their venues are reported by the media.

Assessment: 100% Journalism portfolio.

Media Route: Gender and TV Fictions

What have women/those who identify as women contributed to the production of television drama and sitcom? How have women been represented within these genres in terms of their gender, class, sexuality, race and age? These are key questions which this module addresses by exploring British feminine-gendered fiction from the 1960s to the contemporary period. Taking an historical approach, this module contextualises key shifts to women’s positioning on both sides of the television screen in relation to broader cultural, economic, social and industrial change. You will feminine forms of British television fictions’ negotiations and responses to feminism, post feminism, neoliberalism, postcolonialism and broadcasting policy.

Assessment: 50% portfolio of research materials and 50% group presentation.

Block 4: Hardware/Software: Language, Mind and Culture

You will learn about the origins of language and look into meaning-making mechanisms in language/s, before moving on to the extraordinary phenomenon of (first) language acquisition. You will look into how children acquire the sounds, words, and grammatical structures of their first language, and you will later consider the nature of bilingual and second language acquisition.

The second part of the module looks at the complex relationship between language, thought and culture. You will look at similarities and differences across languages and consider whether the language we speak affects how we see the world (the linguistic relativity question), and how cultural differences can be reflected in language and in conceptualisation. These questions will lead you full circle to consider the nature of human language itself: how it differs from other communication systems, and whether linguistic knowledge is of fundamentally different kind from other kinds of knowledge.

Assessment: Report/Analysis (50%): Presentation (50%).