Course summary

Unlock the power of words through the investigation and analysis of the fundamental structures and theoretical principles of English language and linguistics. During this course, you will study the structures and theoretical principles of English and language in general, and use them to understand and analyse spoken and written English discourse in context. This may include investigating sounds, word meanings, sentence structures, discourse analytical principles, child language acquisition, and language variation and change. You will be offered a variety of assessment types, including standard essays, presentations, data collection projects, exercises, transcriptions, dissertation and even blogs. This will equip you with the academic experiences you need to make the most of employment opportunities following your undergraduate degree and/or postgraduate study. The course has been repeatedly praised by external examiners, who have noted the unusually broad range of expertise provided by the teaching team, which covers some of the most cutting-edge subjects in English language and linguistics, such as Corpus Linguistics (computer-assisted discourse analysis). Staff also have considerable expertise in the areas of sociolinguistics, historical linguistics, child language acquisition, models of grammar, critical discourse analysis, dialectology and comparative linguistics. Foundation Year courses have been designed for students who do not have the necessary academic qualifications needed to enter directly into the first year of a degree but who have the ability and commitment to do so. Once the Foundation Year has been completed successfully, you can then go on to complete your degree.