English Language, BA (Hons)

• English Language achieved 100% overall satisfaction as rated by final-year undergraduate students in the 2018 National Student Survey

• Study English as a global language, sharing experiences with different cultures and communities

• Develop a deep understanding of the fundamentals of the English language, its historical evolution and its role in constructing identities, social relations and practices

• Gain valuable transferable skills in data collection and analysis, critical thinking, presentation skills, academic writing and independent research

• Opportunities to undertake a volunteering placement in Year 2 and attend optional field trips

Language is central to our lives and how we communicate. Learning how languages work opens doors to cultures, communities and opportunities in the global workplace. English Language at Winchester focuses on real-world application of language, exploring how it is used and what it tells us about our society, culture and mind in the past, present and possibly future.The programme’s coherent but varied range of topics takes you on an absorbing journey through the linguistic make-up of English, engaging with real-world language in aspects of discourse analysis and anthropology and concepts such as multimodality and materiality. Alongside this, you may choose from a diverse range of modules such as Postcolonial Fictions, Political Philosophy, Social Media and Critical Reading.Over the course of three years, our supportive staff help you become a confident and analytical linguist with the skills to excel in a range of fields in the modern employment market.And you won’t always be cooped up in a lecture theatre. Independent and group learning is a core seam of the three-year course. You have the chance to undertake a volunteering placement in your second year. And there are opportunities to attend optional field trips – previous students have visited places of interest within Winchester and as far afield as Germany.In Year 1, you are introduced to key concepts and skills to build a solid understanding of syntax and morphology, phonetics and phonology and semantics and pragmatics. Possible optional modules cover media studies, poetry, politics and more.Year 2 offers introductions to more specific schools of linguistic research, such as sociolinguistics or periods of historical linguistics, among others. Optional modules may include Language and the Mind, Language Acquisition and Forensic Linguistics.Your final year culminates in an extended piece of work, either a dissertation or an independent project, which enables you to explore a topic that is especially interesting to you or relevant to your career aspirations, overseen by a staff member in that area.Optional modules may include Ethnography, The Evolution of Language or English in the World.With a thorough grounding in language and fresh insights into other cultures and the nature of communication, graduates enter a wide range of careers including speech and language therapy, writing, publishing, media work, human resources, teaching and advertising. Others pursue careers in teaching English as a foreign language.