ObjectivesBA (Hons) English & Linguistics aims to give you a thorough grounding in the twin academic disciplines of English Literature and Linguistics. The two subjects are taught independently of one another - you will be able to choose course units from the same range as those studying BA (Hons) English Literature (Q320) and BA (Hons) Linguistics (Q100). Finally, we also provide a series of course units that combine aspects of both subjects if you wish to study how the disciplines interact.
Entry requirementsSelected entry requirements English language: Candidates must be proficient in the English language, which is the language of instruction and examination at the university. Acceptable English Language qualifications include IELTS 6.5, CPE grade C, CAE Grade B or another equivalent A level: Grades AAB including English Literature (or English Language & Literature) at grade A and ANY language (including English Language. If you are taking English Language & Literature as a combined A-Level you will also require a modern language at A-Level). AS level: Two AS-Levels may be accepted in place of the third A-Level. Unit grade information: The University of Manchester welcomes the provision of unit grade information which, like all other available information, will inform the consideration of applications. Unit grades will not normally form part of offer conditions, except for Mathematics programmes. GCSE: Minimum grade C in English Language. Key Skills qualification: The University warmly welcomes applications from students studying the Key Skills qualification. However, as the opportunities to take these modules are not open to all applicants, currently this is not an essential requirement of the University. International baccalaureate: 35 points overall including English Literature grade 7 higher level plus any language (including English Langauge) grade 6 or 7 higher level. Additional entry requirements Additional entry requirements exist for this course. You may view these by selecting from the list below.
Academic titleBA English Literature and Linguistics
Course descriptionCourse description
BA (Hons) English & Linguistics is a three year joint degree taught across two departments. The Department of English & American Studies has excellent research expertise (especially in the area of Anglo-Saxon studies) and the Department of Linguistics has an enviable international research reputation (in terms of the breadth of coverage across the world's languages and the spectrum of contemporary ideas about language).
Special features
BA (Hons) English & Linguistics students enjoy the superb research and study facilities offered by the John Rylands University Library, the third largest academic library in Britain. Its archives, manuscripts and rare book collections have been described as 'a bibliographical microcosm of all liberal arts' and they are notably pre-eminent in the field of English literature.
The Department of English & American Studies has research strengths in many areas. The Manchester Centre for Anglo-Saxon Studies is a major research centre and undergraduates are welcome at its meetings and at those of the lively and informal Middle English Seminar. In addition to research strengths there are creative writing options in second and third year.
The Department of Linguistics has expertise in, as well as course units devoted to, a wide range of languages and language families including the Romance languages, the Germanic languages, the Finno-Ugric languages, languages of the near east (eg Arabic and Hebrew), Iranian languages, the indigenous languages of South America, inlcuding in particular Amazonian and Bolivian languages and Quechua, Siberian languages and Romani. In addition we have a number of courses covering the history and present-day state of the English language.
The Department of Linguistics participates in the Socrates/Erasmus student exchange scheme and has links with leading linguistics departments in Lund (Sweden), Amsterdam (Netherlands), Berlin (Germany), Odense (Denmark), Naples (Italy) and Paris (France). You may be able to spend one or two semesters at one of these partner universities as part of your degree course
Course content for year 1
In the first year you spend half your time studying English and half on Linguistics.
In English you are introduced to the full range of disciplines as the basis for further and more specialised study. The diverse topics available include English Literature 1580-1700, contemporary cultural theory (including work by T.S.Eliot, Virginia Woolf and Jeanette Winterson), Anglo-Saxon topics and Middle English studies. On the Linguistics side you will learn to look at language in a new way.
Linguistics course-units are designed to equip you with the skills necessary for describing and analysing the sounds, meanings and structures of language - you will study topics ranging from grammar to semantics, from phonetics to discourse analysis.
Finally, you have the opportunity to study a modern language course unit.
Course content for year 2
In the second year you can choose to weight your studies so that you spend up to two-thirds of your time on English or Linguistics, or you can continue to study each area equally.
Second year English course units build on first year work by adding breadth and depth to the subjects covered and giving you a more flexible choice of topics. Subjects available range from medieval literature to modern literary and cultural theory.
In Linguistics the emphasis switches to linguistic theories. You will build on your new analytical skills by considering ideas about the nature of language and models of its structure. You will study units in Syntactic Theory, Phonology, Typology and Grammatical Semantics as well as a number of specialised course-units of your choice.
Again, you can opt to study a modern language course unit.
Course content for year 3
In the final year you can again choose to weight your studies so that you spend two-thirds of your time on either English or Linguistics or once again you can choose to study the areas with equal weighting.
In English your study can be tailored to suit your own interests as there are nearly 40 course units available covering twentieth-century literature, literature from the Renaissance to 1900, aspects of culture (language, modernity, postmodernity), medieval language and literature, language studies and creative writing.
In Linguistics you can develop interests in particular areas of the subject as we offer a very wide range of specialist options including sociolinguistics, linguistic typology, language contact, language change, creole linguistics, experimental phonetics, grammatical theory, phonology, semantics and pragmatics.
In addition we offer courses in the structure and description of a wide range of the world's languages and language families as well as course units devoted to general learning skills, research skills and empirical fieldwork methodology.
Finally, as part of your last year of study you can opt to write a dissertation. The dissertation is an original piece of extended research supervised by a member of staff with research interests in a related field. You can choose to write the dissertation in either department (although in exceptional cases joint supervision by both departments is possible).
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