By some measures English is the most widely understood language spoken in the world today, dominating the fields of trade, diplomacy, science and popular culture, a far cry from the million or so speakers of Early English a thousand years ago. But it is also the language your two-year-old brother or sister, nephew or niece, son or daughter is acquiring and it is the language being learnt as a second language by millions around the world. Our BA in English Language will introduce you to the tools and methods used to explore and describe all these aspects of English and more in a systematic and rigorous way.
On this English Language course you will have the opportunity to learn about the grammatical structure of English (e.g., how words and sentences are formed), how meaning is made, interpreted and extended across whole discourses, how sounds are formed, produced, and understood, and how language use varies across speakers and groups and how it changes over time. You will also explore the history of English, the development and emergence English dialects and World Englishes, how English is used in society (e.g., how socio-cultural variables shape the use of English) and the role of English in society, in education and as a global lingua franca.
In addition, you will also will also have the opportunity to take specialized modules that will help to develop your awareness understanding of the more advanced and applied aspects of English language and linguistics. We offer modules in the following topics: child language acquisition, language and communication, discourse analysis, corpus linguistics, language and communication, psycholinguistics, language variation and change, historical linguistics, languages in contact, language technologies / NLP, bilingualism and multilingualism, TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language), an introductory module on speech and language therapy, as well as other subjects based on the expertise of our teaching staff.