Program Overview
It offers a diverse range of modules, including language acquisition, bilingualism, syntax, and sociolinguistics. Students develop analytical, research, and critical thinking skills while exploring the fascinating world of human language and communication. With a focus on understanding speech production and interaction, the program provides access to state-of-the-art facilities for experimental and corpus-based research, preparing graduates for careers in various fields.
Program Outline
Degree Overview:
Linguistics is the scientific study of language, exploring language structure, language use in sociocultural contexts and the representation of language in the mind, as well as explaining mechanisms of language production and transmission of sounds. Language plays a pivotal role in all human affairs, and this degree will introduce you to the fundamentals of understanding how it works, including theories of grammar and the production of speech sounds. On this course, you’ll choose from a range of optional modules to pursue the areas that interest you. You can study in more depth topics such as how children acquire language, how bilinguals process two languages and how language changes over time. You could also explore issues around how language is used in different social contexts, or for different types of discourse such as social media or more formal written communication. Combining theoretical study with both quantitative and qualitative research experience, including learning how to collect your own data, this course equips you with a wide range of skills as well as a deep and broad understanding of a crucial facet of human behaviour.
Outline:
Year 1 Compulsory Modules:
- Languages of the World (20 credits): This module introduces you to varieties of English and non-English languages. You’ll develop key transferable skills of teamwork and group presentations as well as discipline-specific language analysis skills and presentation of linguistic examples. You’ll communicate the results of your research in the form of verbal presentations and written reports. You’ll also co-organise a conference and write an individual report on a language variety of your choice.
- Language: Meaning and Use (20 credits): This module introduces you to the scientific study of language use. It covers how language is acquired (language acquisition) and processed in the mind (psycholinguistics), how meaning is conveyed through language (semantics and pragmatics), and how language use varies across time, geographical areas and social settings (sociolinguistics). You'll be confronted with language data from English and other languages, and gain an understanding of how skills in linguistic analysis can be applied to a range of social and psychological phenomena.
- Key Skills in Linguistics (20 credits): The module introduces you to over-arching ideas in academic study and to specific study skills and critical approaches you'll need during their undergraduate course. Topics covered include thinking critically, writing and reading in academic study, referencing others' work, gathering data for linguistic research and basic research methods in linguistics and phonetics. It covers core concepts in linguistics and phonetics, focusing on how speech sounds are produced (phonetics) and function as part of the sound systems of languages (phonology), on the internal structure of words (morphology) and on the internal structure of sentences (syntax).
Year 2 Compulsory Modules:
- Phonetics (20 credits): This module looks at how the human vocal mechanism works to produce the sounds we observe in the world’s languages. You’ll learn how to describe and classify speech sounds on the basis of their articulatory characteristics. Some basic concepts in acoustic phonetic analysis are introduced. You’ll also learn how to use the International Phonetic Alphabet to transcribe speech sounds, and are trained in the production and perception of the sounds associated with the Alphabet’s symbols. You’ll gain a better understanding of the language(s) they speak, and become aware of the often surprising structural similarities between languages.
Year 2 Optional Modules (Selection of Typical Options Shown Below):
- Psycholinguistics (20 credits): This modules focuses on non-human communication, innateness and the biological basis for language and language acquisition. In exploring these issues, several important questions are addressed, such as: Are humans biologically endowed with the capacity for language? How do children acquire language?
- The Life Cycle of Languages (20 credits): This module introduces you to the major issues concerning language origins, diversity, endangerment and death. Topics covered include: language origins and evolution, biological models of evolution and biodiversity as they apply to languages, linguistic diversity, language and population genetics, social, historical and political factors leading to language endangerment and death, and language documentation and revitalisation.
- Language and Gender (20 credits): This module explores the relationship between language, gender and sexualities by engaging with (English) texts and media that sustain cultural ideas about gendered identities. The module specifically considers the suggestion that men and women use spoken language in different ways, taking into account early approaches to work in the field of language and gender.
Year 3 Compulsory Modules:
- Language Dissertation (40 credits): You’ll carry out and complete a piece of original research in linguistics guided by a supervisor, thus gaining in-depth knowledge of a specific area chosen by themselves.
Year 3 Optional Modules (Selection of Typical Options Shown Below):
- Languages in Contact (20 credits): This module enhances your understanding of languages in contact. It also develops a set of critical as well as creative skills in relation to bilingual and multilingual practices so that you’ll be able to understand what it means to know and use multiple languages. The emphasis in this module is on cognitive, pragmatic and sociolinguistic aspects of language contact, interrogated through examples from multilingual realities in Europe and beyond.
- Experimental Syntax (20 credits): This module develops advanced research and analytical skills in generative syntax. You’ll also explore how theoretical predictions can be tested experimentally, using empirical data from child or adult language acquisition, language processing, or language impairments.
- Language and Gender (20 credits): This module explores the relationship between language, gender and sexualities by engaging with (English) texts and media that sustain cultural ideas about gendered identities. The module specifically considers the suggestion that men and women use spoken language in different ways, taking into account early approaches to work in the field of language and gender.
Discovery Modules:
Throughout your degree you will benefit from a range of opportunities to expand your intellectual horizons outside or within your subject area. This course gives you the opportunity to choose from a range of discovery modules. They’re a great way to tailor your study around your interests or career aspirations and help you stand out from the crowd when you graduate.
Assessment:
We use a variety of types of assessment including: essays, exams, research projects and analysis tasks. In some modules you may also be assessed on components using group work or oral presentations.
Teaching:
Our tutors are experts in their fields and are leaders in their areas of research. You'll benefit from their knowledge and experience through a wide variety of learning and teaching methods including lectures, seminars, tutorials and workshops. Our teaching is highly interactive and research-based, with a rich mix of face-to-face work and high-quality innovative and digital technology-based activities, to ensure an inclusive and rewarding learning environment. Independent study is also an important part of the degree, since it gives you the chance to work on your research skills and think critically about what you find. You may also be taught by industry professionals with years of experience, as well as trained postgraduate researchers, connecting you to some of the brightest minds on campus.
Careers:
A linguistics degree will equip you with a wide range of skills. You’ll be able to study different approaches, some of which will be more arts-focused and others more science-oriented. It means you can cultivate skills in several areas that employers highly value. You’ll be able to study and analyse different types of data, both qualitative and quantitative, test your hypotheses and use technology to solve problems. You’ll also be a critical thinker with an advanced understanding of communication. As a result, graduates have gone into a range of careers including: coding, data analytics, advertising, education, marketing, human resource management, publishing, broadcasting, journalism, PR, tourism and the civil service. Others have studied for a postgraduate qualification in Linguistics to pursue a linguistics-based career or to prepare for PhD study, or undertaken further training in careers such as law, teaching, speech and language therapy, forensic linguistics, and speech technology. We are committed to helping you achieve your career ambitions. You'll be encouraged to make use of these facilities for module projects or your Final Year Project, giving you valuable experience of different types of research, and helping you develop useful transferable skills to support your future employability.
