English Language, Linguistics and World Literature

Gain a solid framework for the areas of study you'll cover as you progress, with this introduction to human language. You'll identify the core properties of language that make it unique among other human abilities and examine how these core properties can be explained by understanding the human mind and the functions of language in the world. You'll be introduced to core concepts and debates in the study of language (including language universals, the nature of language learning, the relationship between language and thought, the relationship between sound and meaning and the differences between language and communication more broadly).

Explore a constellation of literary works, engaging with different genres, periods, styles, cultures and traditions. You’ll study the richness of literature in global contexts and engage with the concept of World Literature. The relationship between national and global literatures will also be explored, alongside important questions about language, translation, adaptation and reception. You’ll learn how cultural contexts can shape literary texts and how themes travel across national boundaries. You’ll also consider the dynamics of power in the formation of literary canons, thinking particularly about centres and peripheries.

This introductory module allows you to read literature in global and national contexts, cultivate different methods of literary analysis and formulate ideas critically and analytically.

Gain a solid foundational knowledge in the core levels of language study: phonetics, phonology, syntax, semantics and pragmatics. You'll be introduced to a range of technical and formal mechanisms for analysing and describing language and the skills you will need to be able to apply your knowledge.

You'll develop analytical tools for understanding and constructing arguments about linguistic structure. Through being provided with a conceptual framework for description and analysis, you will gain a deeper understanding of language. You'll also gain insight into how they can apply the theoretical concepts they are learning to their own communication.

You'll gain awareness of some of the key areas of debate and consensus in linguistics from multiple theoretical traditions. This will prepare you to take subsequent modules that extend your theoretical knowledge and allow you to apply your understanding to areas of language study such as teaching, clinical linguistics and literary analysis.

How has storytelling evolved over the last 4000 years? We'll take you on a literary journey from classical literature to fairy tales and, finally, to the modern short story. Taking the idea of intertextuality as its theoretical starting point, you'll explore ideas about transmission and transformation, thinking particularly about how stories and motifs travel from one culture to another, changing in shape and emphasis as they go. Corresponding questions about originality, adaptation and appropriation will also be considered. The central aim is to explore the deep-rooted connections that exist between literatures from around the world, allowing us to learn important lessons about human cultures, histories and societies.

You'll practise different methods of literary analysis, including close reading and comparative study. Students will engage with a range of relevant theoretical material, employing psychoanalytic, feminist and structuralist approaches to unlock symbolic meanings in the primary material, equipping them with the literary knowledge and analytical tools necessary for further study.

What is the role of language in society? You'll be introduced to the notions of ‘language’ or ‘dialect’ in relation to the creation of social identity, by exploring how an individual’s conscious or unconscious language choices position them in the social groups they interact with. Historical and contemporary examples of language use impacting societal issues will be examined, including the role of language in social and political movements, the functions of linguistic choices in multilingual societies, and the role of language policy in education.

Fiction can create worlds, dissolve and unite images into new forms and capture the excesses and limitations of reality. It has the capacity to push the boundaries of the known and accepted in order to reveal hidden truths about humanity and the wider world. Nowhere is this potential more apparent than in fantasy literature, broadly understood to include fairy tales and fables, magical realism, the Gothic, the Fantastic and Science Fiction. These brands of literature are able to harness the power of the imagination, distorting real life to show something of its true nature.

Engaging with a range of theoretical perspectives and fiction from around the world, the module will be centrally concerned with the various ways that the conventions of non-realist modes of writing can contribute to the production of meaning. You'll explore the symbolic function of the supernatural, the marvellous, and the outright strange, connecting these motifs to the wider cultural and historic periods from which they emerge. You're given the opportunity to reflect on the nature and power of fiction, the relevance of genre as a means of categorisation and the symbolic potential of fantasy literature.

What is Comparative and World Literature and how does it work? You're encouraged to cultivate modes of comparative critical reading, to consider the discipline’s history and definitions, to engage with some of its key theories and methods, and to embrace the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead. Among the modes of reading explored are hermeneutics, structuralism, and deconstruction. Areas discussed include the theory and practice of translation, gender studies, literature and the emotions, exile and migration, text and image, ecocriticism, and digital humanities. You'll have the opportunity to study a range of theoretical writings alongside a selection of short primary works (poems, novellas, photographs and illustrations, extracts from novels and films). You reflect on a discipline that keeps reinventing itself by studying some of its most significant theoretical and methodological trends, and to identify and explore the avenues of critical thinking we might want to pursue in the future.

Gain a broad range of skills useful for the collection, analysis and presentation of language data. Topics covered will include: the nature of behavioural and corpus data, principles of data collection, introduction to quantitative and qualitative analysis; ethical considerations in data collection.

An exciting opportunity to develop an individual project in a topic of your choice, under the expert guidance of your supervisor.

Expand your creative, analytical, critical, and organisational skills through the creation and completion of an independent project within a supportive learning environment. By means of a series of enriching and stimulating workshops, lectures, and supervisory meetings, you’ll be equipped with the methods and training required to succeed in creating an independent project. The project will not only expand your intellectual horizons as a student, but also prepare you for future careers through the transferable skills and personal development you’ll gain as a result.

You’ll benefit from structured learning progression that includes: formulating a proposal in consultation with your supervisor, delivering a mini-presentation on your proposed topic in a friendly student environment, and culminating in the final submission of your project, showcasing your journey as an independent and accomplished learner.

Track the linguistic development of neurotypical children from birth to four years of age. Stages of development covered will include: babbling; segmentation, categorisation and mapping; one-word utterances; two-word utterances, grammatical morphemes; negation and question formation. With the child’s linguistic trajectory in place, you'll assess the extent to which different theoretical approaches can account for the acquisition patterns they have observed.

Investigate representations of gender and identity in a selection of texts by women writers from different temporal, cultural, and linguistic backgrounds. In particular you'll explore the way in which representations of “self” and “other”, love and desire, madness and motherhood reflect the respective socio-cultural contexts and the situation of women therein. Corporeal aesthetics, patterns of behaviour labelled as feminine or masculine, representations of transgressive conduct, and relations of power will be investigated, drawing on classic feminist and queer theory and historiography, psychoanalytical thought, narratology , genre-theory, subject-theory, and studies in visual culture. You'll engage with the significance of images and representations of women and men proliferated through literature. These representations provide or question role models and perpetuate or problematize stereotypical versions of female/male goals and aspirations. Furthermore, emphasis will be placed on close readings of the selected literary and cinematic works, on cultural differences and variations, and on how conceptions of sex and gender are changing in the course of time.

Are you considering a career in publishing? Gain an introduction to the nuts-and-bolts of the publishing process in a supportive and intellectually stimulating academic environment. Skills gained range from proofreading, editing, marketing, and other useful techniques taught in conversation with comparative and world literature methods. Workshops featuring guest speakers (professionals, as well as alumni) sharing their knowledge, expertise, and personal journeys in the world of publishing are an important component of the module. The assessment gives you the opportunity to design their own independent project with the guidance of an academic supervisor. Projects may range from creating your own blog, magazine, and book series to writing book reviews and fiction and non-fiction blurbs.

Switch roles from sitting behind the desk to standing in front of a class, as you're introduced to the complexity of language learning and teaching. You'll develop other transferable skills such as public speaking, writing objectives and assessing outcomes, creating pedagogical materials, evaluating and analysing methodology, and synthesising linguistic knowledge into a creative application.  

You'll explore different aspects of language pedagogy, language acquisition, general education and classroom practice. You'll apply theoretical aspects of language teaching and planning in the implementation of a lesson, as well as evaluative skills applied in the formal assessment of a speaker’s level. You'll be introduced to proficiency scales including, but not limited to, CEFR and ACTFL, and will discuss and evaluate language proficiency descriptors.

With a focused teaching practice, you'll use the practical and theoretical knowledge gained in class to conduct short mini-lesson practices in groups. This includes writing and crafting learning objectives and structuring an effective a lesson plan. Take the opportunity to experience what it takes to be on the other side of the classroom.

Your Final Year Project is your chance to dive deep into a topic you’re genuinely curious and passionate about. It’s an extended piece of independent work that brings together everything you’ve learned during your degree, while also helping you develop skills you’ll use long after university.

You’ll start by writing a project proposal, working with the module convenor to shape your idea and being matched with a supervisor who will support you along the way. Guidance comes through a mix of one-to-one supervisions, lectures, and workshops, designed to help you refine your ideas and build the skills you need. As your project develops, you’ll share your progress through plans, literature reviews, and a presentation.

There are three pathways you can take, depending on your interests and future goals:

• Research Dissertation – explore a question in depth through academic research and critical analysis.
• Practical Project – create a substantial piece of practical or creative work, supported by reflection and evaluation.
• Applied/Professional Project – work on a project with a vocational or industry focus, applying your skills to real-world challenges.

Whichever route you choose, this is your opportunity to shape your own learning, showcase your abilities, and build valuable transferable skills in independence, organisation, and project management.

Compare the language skills of neurotypical individuals with individuals who have social, cognitive, linguistic or physical differences that impact upon their language development. Because of a different or delayed developmental path, these individuals may process language in diverse ways or have non-typical linguistic representations. You'll examine behavioural data (comprehension and production) in phonological, morphological, syntactic and pragmatic domains, learning how to relate these data to the profiles of the individuals concerned. Critical cases will include a selection from the following: profoundly Deaf individuals, individuals with official diagnoses (e.g. Down Syndrome; Autism; Developmental Language Disorder), neurotypical children and adults. These cases will provide the backdrop against which students can consider key theories and debates in the psychology of language.

Explore interdisciplinary approaches (relevant disciplines: linguistics, anthropology, sociology, philosophy) to the notion of 'culture' and 'intercultural communication', with a special focus on concepts and methodologies from the areas of Pragmatics, Sociolinguistics, and Discourse Analysis. You'll cover phenomena such as indexicality, (im)politeness, humour, non-literal language, miscommunication, while also discussing a range of discourse contexts (classroom, healthcare, business, media).

You are encouraged to reflect critically upon the definition of culture, linking it to identity, social variables and, of course, language and communication. The module’s scope is not limited to examining instances of communication between members of different linguistic communities (or national cultures), but also expands to any communicative event where participants’ varied backgrounds and cultural identities come into play.

We'll provide you with a methodological toolkit that allows you to analyse and dissect the intricacies of any communicative event. You'll learn the principles of Conversation Analysis, as well as working with a sociolinguistic model of analysis (Hymes’ SPEAKING model).

The two assessments for this module are aimed at enhancing your analytical skills, research skills, reporting and academic writing. The Fieldnotes assignment encourages you to carry out a systematic collection and recording of spontaneous interactions in intercultural environments, while the Case Study assignment builds on you previous data collection and allows you to gain experience in writing in the style and format of an academic paper.

Explore bilingualism and multilingualism from linguistic, social and cognitive perspectives. You'll consider contemporary definitions of bilingualism and multilingualism; the critical roles of age and type of exposure in second or third language acquisition; the social and cognitive consequences of multilingualism; the phenomena of language transfer and code-switching and what each tell us about second language processing and lexical representations; the multilingual brain. Past and current theories of multilingualism will be introduced and critiqued throughout the discussion of these key topics.

Explore a range of issues relating to mental health and neurodiversity as they manifest in literature from around the world. You'll explore the representation of conditions ranging from depression and anxiety to psychopathy, schizophrenia, autism and hysteria. Drawing on relevant theoretical material, including interventions from neuroscience, psychiatry, philosophy and psychoanalysis, you'll consider both symptomology and symbolism. You're encouraged not just to diagnose fictional characters with neurological conditions, but to consider the symbolic potential of neurodiversity and mental health, particularly in relation to issues of power, gender, social cohesion, and the alienation of the self.

Importantly, you'll be asked to consider the ways that attitudes to mental health have changed over time, from the earliest references in the ancient world, to associations with demonology and, later, the development of psychiatry and psychoanalysis. Foucault’s influential ideas about madness as a social construction and mechanism of power will also be evaluated.

Through close engagement with the primary material, you have the opportunity to develop tyour thinking around these complex, topical, and often highly sensitive issues.

What makes certain books more adaptable than others? Explore how books are adapted and interpreted for the screen. You’ll analyse how certain books lend themselves to multiple reshapings, such as F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. You’ll also analyse lesser-known works that have gone on to become Hollywood blockbusters, like the stories of Jorge Luis Borges, masterfully adapted by Christopher Nolan in Inception. Adaptations directed by internationally recognized filmmakers will be examined with a view to eliciting an understanding of their particular approach to, and filmic vision of, written texts. Through these analyses, we aim to understand the distinct cinematic visions and approaches of filmmakers from around the world toward literary adaptations. Through these discussions, you’ll explore theories of adaptation intermediality and film criticism, as well as questions of class, identity, gender, power, migration and race that underpin both the literary works and their filmic adaptations.

Explore the notions of exile, travel and migration by focusing on an international corpus of texts and films from the nineteenth to the twenty-first century that concern the transnational movement of European and non-European writers across the globe. Travel trajectories will be studied in relation to the specific historical and cultural contexts out of which the texts originated and that concern complex issues of race, identity, gender and imperial history. You'll gain an international and comparative methodology for studying the phenomenon of travel, exile and migration narratives. You'll also be equipped with a critical framework that will allow you to interrogate and problematise Eurocentric and exoticizing perspectives of Asian, African, and Latin American countries, particularly what critics have theorised as the imperial gaze and orientalism respectively.

Build on the idea that writing creatively entails an interest in the ‘expressive mechanics’ of language. A more in-depth understanding of this will benefit your writing in many ways, for example by giving you a precise taxonomy with which to describe fictional, poetic and dramatic techniques and aiding critical reflection on creative practice.

The module is designed to appeal not just to those with an interest in writing, but to anyone who would like to explore further and in a ‘hands on’ fashion the insights into the expressive functions of language and literature offered by stylistics. SYou'll be ‘doing stylistics’ in the broadest sense of that phrase.

You're introduced to various stylistic and narratological topics (e.g. linguistic deviation, deixis, cognitive poetics, focalization, ways of representing thought/speech, and metaphor) produce creative exercises which implement and explore them. Various ‘input’ texts (poetry, fiction and drama) will also be used as examples of the techniques and concepts under discussion, and some as the basis for textual intervention exercises (critical-creative rewriting). Students then produce a portfolio of creative work (which may be one or more complete stories, a selection of poems, a dramatic text, or a mixture), accompanied by a stylistics-informed critical reflection on practice.