BA (Hons) English Language and Literatures

This module explores the social, political and philosophical contexts of the English and global Renaissance through its literary culture.

This module will equip you with the skills to carry out detailed linguistic analysis of a range of texts to uncover the ways in which linguistic norms and narrative devices can be exploited for stylistic effect. The module examines the relationship between message and style in literary and non literary texts and covers topics such as linguistic deviation, the structure of oral and written narratives, narrative point of view, the representation of speech and thought, and the use of metaphor. Students examine the use of stylistic effects in a range of text types such as speeches, poems, drama, literary prose, news texts, advertisements, and so on.

This module aims to provide both a thorough introduction to the main areas of contemporary literary criticism and theory, with a particular emphasis on textual/cultural constructions of identity. Students will be equipped with a set of theoretical terms and concepts that will enable them to understand what is at stake in current debates in critical and cultural theory, and the way in which such debates inform the politics of literary and cultural representation. Topics covered include Structuralism/Post-Structuralism; Psychoanalysis; Marxism; Feminisms; Postcolonialism; Disability Studies; Animal Studies. Students will be provided with copies of theoretical essays via the VLE, with particular emphasis on thinkers from beyond the white, European-American 'canon' of theory.

This module will explore the representation of disability in Victorian literature and culture, using a definition of the 'Victorian era' which expands beyond the colonial centre and considering texts as part of a long nineteenth century as well. With a particular emphasis on the way in which the 'extraordinary' body and mind are constructed in Victorian popular culture, students will study a selection of nineteenth-century texts via the lens of contemporary disability theory. The ideologies of empire are explored alongside issues of gender, class and religion (Christianity and Islam). Students will encounter nineteenth-century novels, drama, poetry, short stories, pamphlets, religious tracts, newspaper articles and advertising.

This module aims to give students insight into how language is used in everyday interaction. Students will be introduced to key theories and concepts concerning the ways in which people use language to get things done, how they understand implied meaning, talk politely or impolitely to one another, and how they manage conversations. Students will be introduced to key theories and concepts from the sub-disciplines of pragmatics and conversation analysis, such as entailment and presupposition, conversational implicature, relevance, speech act theory, politeness and impoliteness theories, preference organisation and floor management. Students will apply knowledge and skills gained in the module to the analysis of spoken and written texts.

This module aims to help you prepare for your final year project by introducing you to the basic concepts, types and methods of research for English language, Linguistics and TESOL. You will have the opportunity to design and carry out a mini-research project based on your own interests and experiences. Topics can include but are not limited to first or second language acquisition, language variation, linguistic discrimination and discourse analysis. This is a good opportunity to explore further something that has piqued your interest in a previous module or design a research question based on observations you have made about language in the real world.

This module will focus on the key themes, ideas and characteristics of the Gothic genre, situate them in their historical and philosophical context, and attend to the ways in which the representation of the Gothic has developed over the centuries since it first emerged out of the shadows of the Enlightenment. We will begin with John Aikin's 'Sir Bertrand: A Fragment' and end with Helen Oyeyemi's 'White is for Witching' and in between examine a range of literary texts. Close attention will be paid to the ways in which the genre has featured in a range of media and cultural environments, including, visual art, film, music, television and youth subcultures. Topics such as cultural anxieties, the ideology of the sublime, sexual politics, and strategies of subversion will be foregrounded, as will the array of critical perspectives and readings that the Gothic has generated. We also examine the ways in which themes such as gender, class and race intersect with the concern of the gothic tropes that we examine.

This module provides opportunities for community-based learning through voluntary community engagement. This activity will enable you to understand the relevance of your studies within a community context, combining practical experience with academic studies. In addition, it is an opportunity to develop a critical understanding of the Third Sector, and the notion of citizenship. Both subject specific and transferable skills will be developed and utilised throughout this module, thus developing graduate employment attributes.

This module provides an opportunity to apply academic skills and knowledge to a project negotiated with an external organisation. Students are required to identify, negotiate and research an issue which is relevant to both their academic study and the external organisation. This enables the student to demonstrate an awareness of academic research within an organisational context, together with an understanding of the parameters of research methodologies within an academic framework.

In this module, you have the opportunity to conduct a piece of independent research in the area of English Language, Linguistics or TESOL. You will choose your own topic of study and will be supported by the module leader and your dissertation supervisor as you craft and carry out your project. For the most part, however, you are expected to work independently. To help you plan your research, you are required to submit a research proposal and gain ethical approval, where relevant.

This module provides the opportunity for students to conduct their own research into a negotiated subject of their choice within the areas of English Language Studies or English Literary Studies. It requires students to demonstrate the analytical skills acquired over length of their English degree, including the abilities to construct and sustain an argument, and to support it using evidence.

The module aims to explore in greater complexity and detail some of the issues introduced in Language and Society relating to the mechanisms, motivations and outcomes of language variation and change. Focus in the first half is on structuralist theories of language change and examination of English and the grammatical and lexical changes that happen via its speakers in the first 2000 years of its existence. In the second half of the course, this knowledge is applied to examining world Englishes including Caribbean Englishes, English as it is spoken on the Indian subcontinent and dialects of English across the British Isles. Students will examine the ideologies which circulate historically and today about language variation and change. Particular attention will be paid to the use of case studies to test the key theories of language variation and change.

This module maps, historicises and analyses our rapidly changing experience in the digital age, which confronts us with new and diverging forms of social relationships, identities and changing human behaviour. The module explores how narrative form is changing by paying attention to new modes, media, formats, platforms and reading devices with new temporalities and possibilities, such as literature published via Twitter, gaming narratives, cell phone novels, and new genres such as 'tech thrillers'. We also analyse game narratives. Particular attention is paid to gender representation in the digital age, digital inequality in relation to class and ethnicity, and how technology responds to post-secular contexts. Relevant theoretical contexts include post-humanism, digital humanities, AI and computational literary studies.

This module, as its title suggests, looks at how social actions and meanings are communicated between interactants, using Conversation Analytic (CA) techniques. You will be introduced to the methods CA theorists have established, and their key findings. You will apply these techniques to spoken data, using Jeffersonian transcription. You will analyse both everyday and institutional data in terms of practices (eg overlap, repair) and actions (eg requests), depending on the data you and the class collect.

This module aims to provide students with an understanding of the Modernist period and the terms ‘modernism’ and 'avant-garde' in some of their classifying and critical uses, and to develop and deploy reading skills appropriate to modernist and avant-garde texts across a selection of works, including some from continental Europe and the USA and Latin American. We will begin with a screening of Salvador Dali's film 'Un Chien Andalou' and end with a short story by the first openly gay black writer in the USA, Richard Bruce Nugent, in between we will examine the work of James Joyce, Latin American Frida Kahlo, Virginia Woolf, D.H. Lawrence, T.S Eliot, David Garnett, and Leonora Carrington amongst others. In addition, some sessions will be dedicated to the analysis of Modernist theory and the texts and to an examination of relevant contextual tropes such as gender theory, psychoanalysis and the concept of the fragmented subject (Freud, Jung and Spielrein) and theories of time (Bergson) and race (Walker).

This module covers definitions of multilingualism, theories of code switching, theories of concurrent and sequential language acquisition. It goes on to cover discussion of society and linguistics in configurations of multilingualism, and examines language maintenance and attrition, as well as language planning and policy.

This module approaches medieval literature through the lens of feminist and queer studies. It covers texts from the tenth to sixteenth centuries which either trouble or resist categories such as male/female; heterosexuality/homosexuality and Christian/Muslim/Jewish, or which disrupt heteronormative narratives and time. The module reads and workshops medieval poetry, drama, prose and art from a wide variety of genres in relation to key queer and feminist theorists. It covers early examples of what we would now term gay, lesbian, bisexual and asexual narratives; cross-dressing and trans narratives; female masculinity; the relationship between gender, race and oppression in the medieval imagination and early evidence of the emergence of what we now consider ‘queer’ art forms, such as camp and drag performance.

This module explores the ways postcolonial texts challenge dominant discourses of 'race', gender, sexuality, class, disability, and religion. Students will study a range of texts by authors of colour from Britain, the U.S. and other parts of the world and consider the intersections between different constructions of identities in literature and culture. Postcolonial cultural theory and critical race theory will be central to this module, alongside feminism and disability studies. Guest speakers will contribute towards the module at various points. Alongside the set texts on the module, students will be encouraged to bring literary and cultural texts from their own experiences to the classes, and to feed into the assessment. Students will have the opportunity to work together to produce a digital artefact which communicates their expert knowledge of this topic to audiences beyond academia.