English Language and English Literature BA(Hons)

Course in brief

In English Language on this joint honours course, you’ll examine how our language works in different contexts and how it developed to become one of the most powerful languages in the world. In English Literature, you will study dynamic, powerful texts, consider relevant debates and theories, develop key analytical skills and a deep theoretical knowledge of genres and styles.

Our tutors have a strong research record and several staff have won prestigious Teaching Excellence awards. They deliver the course content through lectures, seminars and workshops and regularly offer small group and individual tutorials.

You can use the option choices to forge an individual pathway, tailored to your interests. You may choose a more practice-based degree with documentary making or creative writing modules or opt for a more theoretical path. You will develop skills for self-managed learning and are encouraged to take up volunteer placements and engage in the vibrant local literary events scene.

Key facts

Location Brighton: Falmer

UCAS code Q390

Full-time 3 years
With year abroad 4 years

Book your open day place

Meet our students, see our accommodation and find out more about your course.

Entry requirements

The entry requirements listed here are our typical offer for this course if you wish to begin studying with us in 2017. They should be used as a general guide.

We operate a flexible admissions policy – this means that you could receive a lower conditional offer than the typical offer, informed by our assessment of your complementary non-academic achievements and experiences. For courses that require interview or portfolio review, this may also be considered in the level of any conditional offer that follows if your application is successful.

A-levels
BBC which must include English literature or combined English language and literature

BTEC
DMM

International Baccalaureate
28 points, specified subjects

Access to HE Diploma
pass with 60 credits overall. Humanities, history or politics courses preferred. At least 45 credits at level 3.

GCSE (minimum grade C)
at least three subjects including English language and mathematics or a science.

Foundation degree/HND
may enable you to start the course in year 2

For non-native speakers of English
IELTS 6.0 overall, with 6.0 in writing and a minimum of 5.5 in the other elements.

International equivalencies

International equivalencies by country

Albania
Algeria
Argentina
Australia
Austria
Bahrain
Bangladesh
Belarus
Belgium
Bermuda
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Botswana
Brazil
Bulgaria
Burma (Myanmar)
Cameroon
Canada
Chile
China
Colombia
Croatia
Cyprus
Czech Republic
Denmark
Ecuador
Egypt
Estonia
Finland
France
Germany
Ghana
Greece
Guyana
Hong Kong
Hungary
Iceland
India
Indonesia
Iran
Iraq
Ireland
Israel
Italy
Jamaica
Japan
Jordan
Kazakhstan
Kenya
Kosovo
Kuwait
Latvia
Lebanon
Liechtenstein
Libya
Lithuania
Luxembourg
Macedonia
Malaysia
Malawi
Malta
Mexico
Moldova
Montenegro
Morocco
Namibia
Nepal
Netherlands
New Zealand
Nigeria
Norway
Oman
Pakistan
Palestinian National Authority
Philippines
Poland
Portugal
Qatar
Romania
Russian Federation
Saudi Arabia
Serbia
Sierra Leone
Singapore
Slovakia
Slovenia
South Africa
South Korea
Spain
Sri Lanka
Syria
Sweden
Switzerland
Taiwan
Tanzania
Thailand
Tunisia
Turkey
Uganda
Ukraine
United Arab Emirates
United States
Uzbekistan
Venezuela
Vietnam
Yemen
Zambia
Zimbabwe

We can help you meet our English language or academic entry requirements.

Visit our language institute

For English language preparation courses.

Visit our International College

For academic preparation courses.

Course in detail

Why study with us?

You’ll study at our Falmer campus on the edge of Brighton and the South Downs, with its outstanding modern facilities and easy access to the city centre, and its well-established arts and social scene.

Our talented teaching team create a dynamic and supportive environment where you will be challenged and helped to learn and grow. They will guide you to think critically and creatively, develop detailed methods of analysis and interpretation and precisely communicate your ideas.

You will be able to use skills acquired through this course and enhance your individual professional and personal development by taking advantage of volunteer placements with local community projects and city schools by becoming involved with local events.

Guest speaker sessions will give you the chance to meet inspirational writers like bestselling novelist Peter James and scriptwriter and alumnus Graham Duff.

There are chances for your work to reach a wider audience through submissions to online journal brightONLINE, subject-related student societies such as the Literature Society and Brighton University Drama Society (BUDS) and by taking part in a collaborative anthology and a graduate show.

You'll gain vital transferable skills including personal organisation, independent research, team working, communication and presentation that you can use throughout your career.

This joint honours degree provides good grounding for many different industries including publishing and journalism, but equally provides a solid foundation for further study or research.

Year 1

You will study a diverse range of genres and approaches that will introduce you to the study of English literature at degree level. You will develop the critical and theoretical tools that will help you to enhance your analytical reading and practical writing skills. Your first year will also engage you in the principal concepts that are relevant to your study of English language. The core English language modules will enable you to develop the meta language to describe language features and their use in different genres. You will also explore the historical perspective of the development of the English language.

Modules

The Structure and Grammar of English
Text Design: Genre and Style
Narrative Literary Texts
Perspectives on the History of the English Language
English Poetry in Context
Literature and Theory

Year 2

You will study literature from the sixteenth century to the present, with a strong emphasis on historical and cultural contexts. The second year also provides an essential grounding in understanding language in society and how it varies according to both context and the user. The focus of several Year 2 modules is also on enabling independent study and research in preparation for the skills required in your Year 3 dissertation or creative project.

Modules

Language, Identity and Power
The Nineteenth Century in Literature
Researching English Language Use
British Literature and Twentieth-century History

One from:

Studying Travel Writing
Queer Writing
Creative Writing
Regional Englishes
Television Studio Production
Documentary Filmmaking: Theory and Practice
Contested Stories
Literature and Art History
British Television Drama
French (Foundation, Elementary, Intermediate, Advanced)
German (Foundation, Elementary, Intermediate, Advanced)
Spanish (Foundation, Elementary, Intermediate, Advanced)

One from:

Creative Writing
Introduction to Journalism
Image and Text: The Language of Comics and Graphic Novels
Writing for Stage, Radio and Screen
Media in Practice
American Literature 1850–1945
Literature in Practice
Photography

Final year

You will study postcolonial literature, with a particular emphasis on literature from Africa, Asia and the Caribbean. Building on the knowledge developed over the first and second year, you will study different approaches to analysing how different types of discourse are constructed. You will also identify a topic for your self-motivated research project – a critical dissertation or a creative and analytical piece.

Modules

Dissertation OR Creative Project
World Englishes OR Approaches to Analysing Discourse

One from:

Creative Writing Project
Apocalypse, Utopia, Dystopia
Postcolonial Literatures
Post-war American Literature
European Literatures
Women's Writing and Feminist Theory
Gothic: Texts and Contexts

One from:

Television News Production
Russian Literature and Culture
Language of Gender and Sexuality
From Script to Screen
English Language Teaching
Culture Wars: Revisiting the Great Divide

One from:

Victorian Sexualities
Writing the Contemporary
Russian Literature and Culture
Script to Screen
Television News Production
Popular Culture: Europe and Beyond
Images of War
Autobiography and the Screen
(Re)viewing Shakespeare
Language, Culture and Ideology
Literature and Philosophy
European Literatures and Film
Adaptations
Media Ethics and Conflict
Community Engagement in Practice
French (Foundation, Elementary, Intermediate, Advanced)
German (Foundation, Elementary, Intermediate, Advanced)
Spanish (Foundation, Elementary, Intermediate, Advanced)

Staff profile

Dr Jess Moriarty

Course leader

Jess Moriarty is founder of the Work Write Live programme. She designs courses on, and teaches, creative and imaginative writing, writing for personal development and confident speaking and writing. Her research uses autobiography and poetry to explore the potential of making the academic writing process more personal.

Student views

Rosanna Wood

"Having lecturers who are really passionate about what they teach is great, it makes such a difference when you know that they love their subject and are enthusiastic about it.

"You can make the course what you want it to be, focusing on texts you’re really inspired by, choosing assignments which allow for plenty of creativity and tailoring your degree to be more language- or literature-based by taking the options which interest you the most.

"I loved the city and the feel of Brighton. It is such a vibrant, exciting place to live, especially for a literature student with all its theatre, poetry evenings, short story nights and the arts festival. I studied one module where local poets, writers, actors and comedians came in to give workshops to help us learn about writing creatively in different ways for different purposes, and each one of them could recommend things to read, but they could also tell you where to go in Brighton to find out more and meet other writers.

"I would love to teach literature at secondary and college level if I could. I hope to stay on at Brighton to do a PGCE course after my degree and then go on to be a teacher.”

Careers and employability

The creative and analytical skills you learn during this degree can be applied to a wide range of industries, especially when combined with the ability to gather, understand and present information in an engaging and logical way.

The skills obtained by our graduates are particularly well suited to work in research, publishing, journalism, media and public sector roles.

The University of Brighton’s dedicated careers service offers ongoing support and advice to help you acquire the skills to stand out to potential employers.

Fees and funding

Your fees

UK/EU (full-time) 9,000 GBP

International (full-time) 13,800 GBP

The fees listed here are for full-time courses beginning in the academic year 2016–17. Further tuition fees are payable for each subsequent year of study and are subject to an annual increase of no more than 5% or RPI (whichever is the greater). The annual increase for UK/EU students, who are subject to regulated fees, will increase no more than the statutory maximum fee. Further details regarding tuition fees are available from the university’s student contract and tuition fee policy (pdf).

The tuition fee you have to pay depends on a number of factors including the kind of course you take, and whether you study full- or part-time. If you are studying part-time you will normally be charged on a pro rata basis depending on the number of modules you take.

What's included in the fee?

When costs such as health or DBS checks, field trips or use of specialist materials are incurred as a mandatory requirement of the course they are included in your tuition fee.

You may incur additional costs depending on the optional modules or activities you choose. The cost of optional activities is not included in your tuition fee and you will need to meet this cost in addition to your fees. Before you apply check with the school that provides your course using the contact details in the Find out more tab (at the end of this page) for advice about what is included and what optional costs you could face so you can budget accordingly.

See our finance pages for advice about funding and scholarships as well as further information about fees and advice on international and island fee paying status.

Location and living here

Location

About Brighton

Brighton has been called the happiest place in the UK, and it’s easy to see why. With five miles of pebble beach, more than 300 pubs and a packed festival calendar, Brighton is the ideal place to spend your student years.

Arts and culture: The Royal Pavilion is the most famous landmark in Brighton, opening its doors to around 400,000 tourists every year. Right next door is the Brighton Dome, the south coast’s premier multi-arts venue, and the Brighton Museum & Art Gallery, which holds a diverse collection of decorative arts, textiles and archaeological artefacts.

Festivals: The Brighton Festival is now the largest arts festival in England and a major milestone in the international cultural calendar. Meanwhile, The Great Escape has been established as the UK’s leading event for new music, with over 300 bands playing 30 venues across the city over three days.

Nightlife: Aside from the many nightclubs that line the city’s seafront, student favourites include The Haunt, Concorde 2 and Patterns, which attract leading bands and DJs from around the world. If you don’t feel like dancing, you can take your pick from the many hundreds of pubs and bars that dot the city centre.

Shopping: The quirky North Laine district houses Brighton’s finest collection of boutique shops and independent cafes, while the narrow, winding streets of the South Lanes house collections of jewellery and antiques. Churchill Square is the city’s main shopping centre and serves all of your high street needs.

Sports: Brighton’s seaside location offers the perfect opportunity to try paddle boarding, kayaking and windsurfing. Further into the city, The Level has a skate park for skateboarders and BMX riders to practise their skills.

Campus where this course is taught

Falmer campus

Surrounded by the South Downs National Park and just five miles from the centre of Brighton, our Falmer campus has benefited from over £60million of investment over the past 10 years. 7,000 students are based here, studying subjects including English, education, social science, nursing and medicine.

Recent developments include the Falmer Sports Centre – with its fitness suites and sports hall – and the innovative Checkland Building, which has natural ventilation systems and an insulating green roof.

Falmer has also recently installed more than 600 solar panels, which reduce the campus’s carbon emissions by more than 80 tonnes. The renovation has made us one of the top universities in the UK for on-site renewable energy production.

Accommodation

Brighton

Our Brighton halls of residence are located across the city in Grand Parade, Moulsecoomb, Varley Park and Falmer.

Our Grand Parade campus is in central Brighton and has one hall of residence, Phoenix Brewery, within walking distance. We have around 300 rooms available in Phoenix Brewery, which are all ensuite and self-catered.

Moulsecoomb is two miles from the city centre and also has one hall of residence, Moulsecoomb Place, on campus. All accommodation in Moulsecoomb Place is catered, offering breakfast and an evening meal during term time. There are more than 150 rooms available here, with six to eight rooms per flat.

Varley Park offers the biggest choice of student accommodation with ten halls of residence. The site is four miles from Brighton centre but within walking distance of Falmer train station. You can also catch a free bus service to Grand Parade, Moulsecoomb and Falmer campuses, which is operated by local bus service The Big Lemon.

Falmer campus has two halls of residence: Great Wilkins and Paddock Field. Great Wilkins offers 150+ self-catered single rooms and one-bed couples flats, while Paddock Field offers 450+ catered and self-catered single rooms only. All rooms in Falmer are en-suite.

Aside from halls, you have the option of Unihomes, which we let out to our students on behalf of private landlords. The rent covers all utilities and includes £5,000 of contents insurance for your personal belongings.

You can also choose to join the many students who live away from campus in private rented accommodation. We have a list of high-quality, university-endorsed private sector accommodation and can help you find housemates to move in with.

If you have any questions about accommodation in Brighton, our accommodation team will be happy to help. You can contact them by email at accommodation@brighton.ac.uk or by telephone on 01273 644100.

Paddock Field

Moulsecoomb Place

Maps

Accommodation

University building

Falmer campus and Brighton and Sussex Medical School map

Unistats

Unistats and key information sets

Unistats is an organisation that collects specific data about university courses in the UK which enables you to compare information that is important in your decision-making when choosing a university. All universities publish Unistats data on their online course pages.

Wherever we can we have provided extra information here to help put the data into context so that it is as useful as possible when you are making decisions.

Programme specification

Programme specifications are the official university documents that describe each course in detail. They reflect the course as it is being taught to students who started their course in this academic year. They are updated every summer, and give a very detailed breakdown of what your course might look like.

Programme specification