BA (Hons) English Literature with English Language

International students can apply
Overseas study available

This course offers you the opportunity to study both English literature and English language. The literature modules allow you to explore a wide range of literary texts and genres. The language modules give you a firm understanding of the fundamental components of language study and teach you about the history of the language, varieties of English, and a range of other topics. This will enhance your knowledge and experience as an English student.

Our teaching gives you the skills you need for literary and linguistic study and also encourages you to consider social and cultural issues in the texts you study.

YEAR 1

In year 1 modules provide a thorough grounding in key ideas and approaches to literary and linguistic study at University level.

Narrative, Fiction and the Novel

You will read a variety of novels; learn about the history, genre and forms of British fiction and study concepts such as ‘realism’, ‘romance’ and ‘the picaresque’.

Introduction to Drama

You will be introduced to different genres and forms of drama, analysing key features of dramatic texts from Shakespeare to 21st century theatre.

Language through Literature

You will be introduced to the social and cultural history of the English language and explore the ways in which linguistic theories can inform textual interpretation. You will examine historical and ongoing changes in the uses of English words and develop the ability to discuss language in relation to its historical and social contexts.

Introduction to Poetry

A broad survey of historical periods and genres, which prepares you for the study of poetry at degree level, from Shakespearean sonnets to linguistically innovative twenty-first century poetry and many points in-between.

Popular Fictions

You will be introduced to the key concepts relating to the study of popular fiction and develop a knowledge of the main genres and forms of popular literature. You will study of a number of representative texts from key phases in the development of popular forms, including critical attitudes towards them.

Theory and Practice

You will be introduced to a range of theoretical approaches to literary and cultural practice. You will gain an understanding of how both literary and cultural texts can be read and analysed, and how different theories can be productively applied to them.

YEAR 2

In year 2 you will study two core literature modules, one core and one optional language module and two further option modules. The core modules focus on Romantic and Victorian literature and the History and Diversity of the English Language, and your option modules offer choices in literature and language. You will have the opportunity to work more independently and develop your understanding of the relationship between theory and text.

Core module: The Romantic Period

Study literature emerging in a time of revolution and consider themes such as the rights of man, woman and slaves, the sublime, childhood, empire, the self, and the gothic. This was a time of formal and stylistic experimentation, so this module explores language and form in detail in relation to key themes within their historical and cultural context.

Core module: Victorian Literature

You will enhance your skills in close analysis, studying 19th Century writing within a range of historical and theoretical contexts. Texts include novels, poetry, and non-fiction and the module covers a range of issues including class, culture, urban experience, women’s writing, decadence and identity.

Core module: History and Diversity in English

You will be introduced to key periods in the history of the English language and characteristic features of the language in these periods. You will explore language change with reference to the different levels of language (namely grammar and syntax, lexis and phonology, and orthography) and explore regional variation and change in English dialects.

Optional modules may include:

Literature, Adaptation and the Screen

You will examine interdisciplinary relationships between literary fiction and its adaptation to the screen, considering the challenges involved in transposing literary works to film and/or television. You will become equipped with the skills to produce a working treatment and step outline for a screen adaptation (TV or film).

Corpus Linguistics

A corpus is a collection of texts, stored on computer, and sampled to represent one or more varieties of a language. A corpus can help you to answer questions like, what differences are there between British and American English? What recent changes have there been in standard English? This module includes a weekly hands-on component so you can use real corpora to explore these kinds of questions.

Utopias and Dystopias

Learn to understand the complex relationship between utopian projections and the material world, and study a variety of utopian and dystopian texts by authors such as Anthony Burgess, Philip K Dick, George Orwell and HG Wells.

Women’s Writing Between the Wars

You will analyse the aesthetic and cultural impact of novels written by women between the First and Second World Wars, including Agatha Christie, Daphne Du Maurier and Stella Gibbons.

Creative Writing

You will learn writing techniques for a variety of genres including poetry and the short story. You will also be introduced to key skills such as presenting your work professionally, discussing it and reflecting critically on your creative products and processes.

Attitudes to English

This module will trace the origins and development of prescriptive attitudes and linguistic insecurity, and the extent to which these ideas are relevant to contemporary users of English. Topics include Received Pronunciation, , grammar and ‘morality’, and politically correct language.

YEAR 3

In year 3 you will have ONE core Literature module, ONE core Language module and ONE English option module in each Semester. At this level, we encourage you to develop independence of mind in critically assessing secondary and theoretical sources, and expect a high level of analytic skill in discussing literature and language.

Core module: Modernism

This module explores the formal, conceptual and ideological complexities of the modernist period and addresses themes such as the decentred self, the city, the role of tradition, the relation between gender and writing, the use of myth, and the interaction of national identity and cosmopolitanism.

Core module: Postmodernism

This module explores recent and contemporary texts in relation to critical issues such as authorship, narrative structure, linear progression, and identity. Selected texts will include films as well as novels, short stories, plays and poetry.

Core module: Change in Contemporary English

In the last 10-15 years, new technologies have led to the emergence of new forms of text, such as email, instant online messaging, blogs and text messages. In this module we will look at developments across both traditional and the new forms of text, and explore how social factors are shaping the way the English language is evolving today.

Core module: World Englishes

You will consider English in the context of its status as a world language and the historical, social and linguistic characteristics of English in different parts of the world. You will also examine the impact of English on other languages, the impact of American English on British English and vice versa, and consider the future of English in relation to other world languages.

Optional modules may include:

Reading the Page

You will explore the significance of the form of the book including text and illustration and consider how the page may be most effectively used to carry both narrative and argument in different literary forms including poetry, novels and graphic novels.

The Language of Names

Names are all around us, and this module explores the linguistic structure, history, development and political significance of names and naming, focusing on the UK but with reference to other countries as well. You will have an opportunity to examine the names of people and places in real life and in literary and other creative contexts.

Green Writing

This module explores literary representations of nature from Romanticism to the present-day, looking at images and tropes within different forms of green writing, such as the relationship between place and space, the country and the city, landscape, memory and subjectivity, animals, environment and gender.

Dissertation

A chance to explore in detail a topic of your choice in an extended piece of critical writing. You can choose to write a dissertation on language or literature.

British Theatre post-1950

This module contextualises post-war British theatre in terms of naturalism, the avant-garde and the epic mode. A range of play texts will be explored in relation to form, narrative, action and character while exploring the ways in which they engage with issues of class, sexuality, gender and national identity.

BA (Hons) English Literature with English Language

YEAR 1

YEAR 2

YEAR 3

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