In this module, you will learn to critically read novels at undergraduate level. Building on your experience of reading fiction at school, college, or for leisure, you will develop deep analytical readings and apply your growing critical skills to a wide range of novels encountered throughout your degree. This module aims to get you thinking about how novels work and how, as readers, we can understand them from different perspectives. You will learn to recognise subtle changes in narrative position, when to trust or distrust a narrator, how to identify subgenres (e.g., Realism, Romanticism, Modernism, and Postmodernism), and how to use literary criticism to uncover unexpected interpretations. You will integrate critical reading into your preparation for workshops and assessments to enhance your understanding of literary texts. This module provides the core academic skills in reading, writing, and research necessary for your time at university, alongside the analytical and communication skills that will, after graduation, make you attractive to future employers.

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

This module focuses on journeys and places, offering you the chance to explore key concepts underpinning your study of English language and linguistics. You will take a post-disciplinary approach to your studies, using techniques from diverse areas to address key questions related to journeys and places in relation to the use of English around the globe.

You will attend interactive lectures with students from across the School of Humanities and Performing Arts, and apply the concepts addressed in these lectures to the study of English language within subject-specific workshops and assessments.

Themes covered 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: Coursework (30%) and Essay (70%)

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%) and Group Presentation (60%)

Through this module you will develop your understanding of poetic form and genre and consolidate your close-reading skills by scrutinising a range of poems and poets from different historical periods. You will explore the historical origins and development of specific poetic genres such as epic and pastoral and learn the conceptual tools and technical vocabulary needed for critical analysis of poetry at undergraduate level.

Assessment: Essay 1 (40%) and Essay 2 (60%)

This module covers the birth of English literature, introducing texts written between the medieval era and the early modern period. You will explore poetry, drama, and prose, comparing early English literature with key European works of the time.

Assessment: Commentary (30%) and Comparative Essay (70%)

This module prepares you for post-degree pathways by focusing on the skills, capabilities, and knowledge needed to thrive in professional environments. Emphasis is placed on core attributes and transferable skills while developing familiarity with the world of work.

You will critically engage with themes such as race, gender, identity, and geopolitical issues in relation to the UN Sustainable Development Goals, conceptualizing a more equitable and sustainable society.

Through subject-specific workshops, lectures, seminars, and independent learning, you will explore work environments related to your discipline. Activities may include responding to real-world briefs, placements, community projects, and creating project proposals tailored to your programme.

Assessment: Written Portfolio or Recorded Presentation (100%)

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%) and Group or Individual Presentation (55%)

This module explores the relationship between language and society, examining how factors such as region, social class, race/ethnicity, and gender affect language use and attitudes. You will study regional, national, and international language variation, multilingualism, and language planning, as well as the global role of English. The module includes group fieldwork and a trip to Bletchley Park to examine the application of linguistic knowledge to cryptography.

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

Throughout the year, you will research and write a dissertation on a chosen topic, with guidance from the English Literature team. Workshops will support your project development, introducing key theoretical approaches such as Marxism, feminism, and ecocriticism.

Assessment: Research Portfolio (20%) and Dissertation (80%)

This module explores the Gutenberg and Digital revolutions, focusing on how printing and computing have influenced writing. You will create your own texts using historical and digital technologies.

Assessment: Test (30%) and Report 1 (35%) and Report 2 (35%)

This module examines ‘World Englishes’ from a global perspective, focusing on literature from postcolonial nations. You will explore themes like memory, class, and ethnicity in both written and oral traditions.

Assessment: Blog/Vlog (40%) and Research Essay (60%)

This module investigates Anglo-American modernism and its publication in 'little magazines.' You will study modernist texts by authors like T.S. Eliot and Virginia Woolf and explore how these works responded to modernity.

Assessment: Essay (40%) and Research Portfolio (60%)

Over the course of your third year, 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%)

This module examines the role of language in shaping individual and collective identities, focusing on facets such as gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and nationality. You will explore mechanisms of identity construction and current debates such as linguistic reclamation and intersectionality.

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

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%) and Critical Analysis (30%) and Scenario/Simulation Exercise (45%)

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%) and Presentation (50%)