Established first as a Combined Honours course in 2009, English Language at Chester celebrates 10 years as a Single Honours course in 2020-21.
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) and Cognitive Stylistics (how readers' minds process literary and non-literary discourse). 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.
NSS 2019 results have placed the English Language course high above the sector average in terms of lecturers' ability to explain things (100%), opportunities to explore concepts in depth (97%), and advice and guidance offered by staff (96%). Students comment positively upon how approachable the teaching staff is (100%), and how they feel that staff value students’ opinions (96%).
As part of a Combined Honours course, the English Language can be combined very fruitfully with numerous other subjects across the University, including education, psychology, journalism, modern languages, politics, religious studies, and many more.