English Language BA(Hons)

Course in brief

Our English Language degree focuses on the interrelationship of language, identity and power, and on English as a global language.

If you are interested in how we use English differently when we speak, write, and how we share our experiences with different communities through language, then this degree is for you.

You will develop a strong understanding of the fundamentals of the English language, its historical development and role in constructing identities, social relations and practices. You will examine social and historical varieties of English and gain transferable skills in data collection and analysis, critical thinking, presentation, academic writing and independent research.

Our tutors have a strong research record and are dedicated to teaching excellence. They deliver the course content through lectures, seminars and workshops and regularly offer small group and individual tutorials. All modules are supported by active use of the university’s online learning environment.

Key facts

Location Brighton: Falmer

UCAS code Q300

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.

Applying for 2017

Places are available on this course for UK, other EU and international students.

Apply now with UCAS

Entry requirements

A-levels or BTEC
Entry requirements are in the range of A-level BCC–CCC (104–96 UCAS Tariff points), or BTEC Extended Diploma DMM–MMM. Our conditional offers typically fall within this range.

A-levels must include English language or combined English language and literature.

We will generally make you an offer if your predicted grades are at the top of this range. If your predicted grades are towards the lower end of this range we may still make you an offer if you have a good GCSE (or equivalent) profile or relevant non-academic achievements.

International Baccalaureate
27 points.

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 or grade 4)
At least English language and maths.

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, with its well-established arts and social scene.

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

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

Contact time through lectures and seminars is usually around nine hours each week. You will have plenty of opportunity and time for independent study and one-to-one or small group tutorials with tutors.

Options mean that you can tailor your degree to your individual interests or career ambitions and create a unique profile for yourself.

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

Year 1

In the first year, you will be introduced to the basic concepts and skills that will enable you to describe language and analyse texts. You will reflect critically on key debates around the English language (e.g. prescriptivism vs. descriptivism) and develop metalinguistic skills in grammatical analysis, text analysis, phonology and stylistics.

You will also gain an understanding of the development of the English language from Anglo Saxon times to the present day. In addition, you will look at how children acquire their first language, how language is used in the media and how the sound system of English works.

Modules

The Structure and Grammar of English
Text Analysis: Genre and Style
Perspectives on the History of the English Language
General Linguistics 1: Phonetics and Phonology
Language Acquisition and Development
The Language of Media

Year 2

In year 2, you will develop your understanding of the diversity of the English language and its uses. You will explore different regional varieties of English in the British Isles and the cultural and social influences that have determined their development.

A further aspect of English language in year 2 is the investigation of the impact of language on social identity and its role in power relations. You will also develop an understanding of the tools involved in researching language use, and you will study the characteristic differences between spoken and written forms of communication.

Modules

Language, Identity and Power
Researching English Language Use
Regional Englishes
Deconstruction: Language, Theory, Society

Options*

British Television Drama
Creative Writing: Process and Craft
Introduction to Journalism
Studying Travel Writing
Queer Writing
Literature in Practice
Literature and Art History
American Literature 1850–1960
Linguistics and Grammar: Concepts and Analyses
Mind and Language
Multilingualism
Sign Language Linguistics
Image and Text: The Language of Comics and Graphic Novels
Writing for Stage, Radio and Screen
Media in Practice
Television Studio Production
Photography – From Painting with light to Zeros and Ones
Video Documentary Project
Contested Stories
Foreign Language and Reflective Language Learning Project or Foreign Language at Advanced 3 Level

*Option modules are indicative and may change, depending on timetabling and staff availability

Final year

In the final year, you will consolidate your skills and knowledge through applying current analytic frameworks more critically to texts, understanding the theoretical viewpoints informing different approaches and evaluating the different kinds of insights generated. You will also explore the global spread of English and its development as a world language.

Years 2 and 3 will allow you to tailor your degree to your own interests or career ambitions and create a unique profile for yourself. The options are in the following areas: linguistics, English literature, media/film/photography, language teaching, creative writing, journalism and modern foreign languages.

Modules

World Englishes
Approaches to Analysing Discourse
Dissertation

Options*

English Language Teaching
Russian Literature and Culture
(Re)viewing Shakespeare
Apocalypse, Utopia, Dystopia
Literature and Philosophy
Post-war American Literature
Women's Writing and Feminist Theory
Adaptations
Approaches to the Study of Meaning
Creative Writing Project
Gothic: Texts and Contexta
Victorian Sexualities
Writing the Contemporary
Postcolonial Literatures
European Literature and Film
Culture Wars: Revisiting The Great Divide
Language, Cuture and Ideology
Language of Gender and Sexuality
Television News Production
Popular Culture – Europe and Beyond
From Script to Screen
Images of War
Autobiography and the Screen
Media Ethics and Conflict
Community Engagement: Theory in Practice
Foreign Language and Cultural Project

*Option modules are indicative and may change, depending on timetabling and staff availability

Staff profile

Dr Chrystie Myketiak

Dr Chrystie Myketiak examines language and discourse in their broader social contexts. Her interests include gender/sexuality and power/inequality with specialist research in mass shooter texts, the social performance of sex talk and narrative construction in clinical incident reporting.

Sarah Varney-Burch

An experienced English language teacher, Sarah has a BA in linguistics and an MA in TEFL. She teaches on the BA and MA programmes and is currently the course leader for this degree. She is completing a Doctorate in education, conducting research in the area of English for academic purposes.

Meet the rest of the English Language staff

Careers and employability

English Language graduates gain a broad range of skills applicable in a variety of occupations, such as journalism, teaching, lexicography, editing proofreading and speech and language therapy.

Graduates have also gone on to careers in law, publishing, radio or TV, and postgraduate studies in English Language or related areas.

Fees and funding

Your fees

UK/EU (full-time) 9,250 GBP

International (full-time) 12,660 GBP

The fees listed here are for full-time courses beginning in the academic year 2017–18. Tuition fees are payable for each year that you study with us.

Where UK/EU students are subject to regulated fees, the annual fee increase cannot exceed the UK government’s maximum regulated tuition fee limit set for the relevant year. For all other students, ie those not subject to regulated fees, tuition fees are subject to a maximum annual increase of the higher of 5% or RPI.

You can find out more about our fees in the 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, 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.

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.

Find out more on our Brighton accommodation webpages and if you have any questions, 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

The programme specification is the official university document for each course. They are updated each year, and give a very detailed breakdown of what your course might look like.

Programme specification