Russian Studies and Linguistics, MA (Hons)

Approximately 150 million people worldwide speak Russian, which is the official language of four countries and widely understood in Eastern Europe. In recent decades, it has experienced unprecedented transnational mobility. Combining Russian Studies and Linguistics offers an excellent joint honours program, integrating the study of a modern language in its cultural context with the analysis of meaning creation, language mechanics, speech sounds, global variations, and the structure and history of languages. This combination equips graduates with broad cultural education and specialized knowledge highly valued by employers globally.In Russian Studies, students learn the language alongside literature, culture, and historical contexts, with courses tailored to their proficiency level—from beginners to advanced. Intensive tuition develops high-standard skills in reading, writing, speaking, and translation. Linguistics explores how language functions through sounds, words, sentences, and conversations, including its everyday uses, societal variations, evolution, and acquisition by children. As the program progresses, students can design and test hypotheses on linguistic phenomena using specialized equipment.