English Literature and Linguistics BA(Hons)

Course in brief

This degree explores the human capacity for language from the perspectives of how language works and is structured as a system (linguistics), and how it is used as an expressive tool by writers, including poets, novelists and dramatists (literature).

You will engage in contemporary debates about language and have the chance to explore a variety of topics from women’s writing and feminist theory to language use and the psychology and philosophy of language.

The degree will teach you transferable skills in research methods and text analysis, critical thinking and communication. You will also have the opportunity to spend a year abroad at a partner university and to gain professional work experience with local community projects and organisations.

Key facts

Location Brighton: Falmer

UCAS code Q321

Full-time 3 years
With year abroad 4 years

Book your open day place

Apply now with UCAS

Start in 2018: how to apply

Entry criteria

Entry requirements

A-level 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 should usually include English literature or combined English language and literature, or alternatively, one of the following subjects; psychology, philosophy, modern foreign language, physics, maths.

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.

Studied before or got relevant experience?
A qualification, HE credits or relevant experience may count towards your course at Brighton, and could mean that you do not have to take some elements of the course or can start in year 2 or 3.

For non-native speakers of English
IELTS 7.0 overall, with 7.0 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 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.

Course structure

Full-time students typically have nine hours of contact time per week through lectures, seminars and workshops. You are also expected to carry out independent study in the form of reading, research and some collaborative work with other students, which is particularly useful for developing transferable skills.

The course can be studied on a part-time basis and offers flexibility to students with family, work and other commitments. Whatever the mode of study, you benefit from a flexible and supportive learning environment that includes personal tutoring and academic support.

There is an opportunity to study abroad for one academic year, with a range of countries and universities to choose from. Students return to the University of Brighton to complete their final year of study.

Our courses are reviewed and enhanced on an ongoing basis in order to make sure that what you learn with us is relevant and that your course enables you to develop appropriate skills. When you apply to study with us, we will inform you of any new developments in your chosen programme through our applicant portal.

Year 1

In year 1, you learn about the different approaches to literary analysis. You also cover the essential topics in linguistics, as you explore language acquisition, meaning and context through the Introduction to Pragmatics module, and word formation and sentence structure through the Morphology and Syntax module.

Modules

Narrative Literary Texts
English Poetry in Context
Literature and Theory
General Linguistics 1: Phonetics and Phonology
General Linguistics 2: Morphology and Syntax
Introduction to Pragmatics

Year 2

Year 2 enables you to further explore the links between the two subject areas. For example, you will have opportunities to work with nineteenth and twentieth century literary texts while considering how spoken and written texts vary in their form and message.

Modules

The Nineteenth Century in Literature
British Literature and Twentieth-century History
Mind and Language
Deconstruction: Language, Theory, Society

Options*

Two from:

Videogame Cultures
Studying Travel Writing
Linguistics and Grammar: Concepts and Analyses
Sign Language Linguistics
Regional Englishes
Introduction to Journalism
Television Studio Production
Documentary Filmmaking: Theory and Practice
Image and Text: The Language of Comics and Graphic Novels
Science Fiction: Screens, Texts, Theories
British Television Drama
American Literature 1850–1960
Creative Writing: Process and Craft
Multilingualism
Writing for Stage, Radio, Screen
Photography: From Painting with Light to Zeroes and Ones
Contested Stories

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

Final year

The final year represents the culmination of the degree, where your skills and knowledge are consolidated in the dissertation project. You can choose from a range of literature and linguistics modules according to areas of personal interest.

Modules

Dissertation

Options*

Four from a wide selection, including:

Pragmatics, Meaning and Truth
Language, Philosophy, Mind
Non-truth-conditional Semantics
Russian Literature and Culture
Conflict, Migration, Borders
Literature and the World Wars
Women's Writing and Feminist Theory
Restoration Dramas
Gothic: Texts and Contexts
Victorian Sexualities
Brighton Rocks: The City in Literature and Film
Writing the Contemporary
Post-war American Literature
Postcolonial Literatures
European Literatures and Film
Adaptations
(Re)viewing Shakespeare
Literature and Philosophy
Apocalypse, Utopia, Dystopia
Culture Wars: Revisiting the Great Divide
Community Engagement in Practice
Creative Writing Project
English Language Teaching
Popular Culture
From Script to Screen
Media, Ethics and Conflict
Approaches to Study of Meaning
Language, Culture and Ideology
Language of Gender and Sexuality
Images of War
The Camera and I: Personal Documentary

You must choose at least one literature-related module and one linguistics-related module.

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

Hear what our students have to say about their experiences of the Community Placement module.

Course statistics

Unistats and key information sets

Unistats enable you to compare information when choosing a UK university course. All UK universities publish Unistats data on their website.

Programme specification

The programme specification is the approved description of each course. They are updated following course changes, and give a detailed breakdown of the content and structure of the course.

Programme specification

These charts give an indication of how much time you will spend on different activities at each level of the course, and an indication of the balance of assessment by coursework, and written and practical exams. For courses with option modules, actual proportions will depend on the modules you choose.

Find out more about how the academic year and degree courses are organised, and about learning and assessment activities you might get to grips with at Brighton. More specific information about this course is detailed in the programme specification (linked above). You can find out also about the range of support we offer to help you adjust to university life.

Overall workload

Assessments

Careers and employability

The English Literature and Linguistics BA(Hons) helps you to develop skills in critical thinking, linguistic analysis, data analysis and collection, and statistics. You could go on to further study – for example through our Linguistics MA or Creative Writing MA – or pursue a career in teaching, speech and language therapy, journalism, publishing, social media, marketing or public relations.

Fees and funding

Your fees

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

International (full-time) 12,900 GBP

The fees listed here are for full-time courses beginning in the academic year 2018–19.

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.

You can find out more about our fees in 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

Forward-thinking and welcoming, the city of Brighton & Hove is a community of creative and diverse people who share values like sustainability and inclusivity – just like its university.

Miles of pebble beaches, hundreds of bars, restaurants and clubs, a packed calendar of culture, music and sport and great independent and high street shopping attract visitors from all over the world. By the end of your course you’ll still be finding new things to enjoy about the city.

The Brighton Festival, England’s largest arts festival, takes place every May – as does the Great Escape Europe’s leading industry showcase for new music, 300 bands perform over three days at venues across the city. Major events celebrate Pride, digital culture, cinema, photography, food and the winter solstice. Our own Brighton Graduate show is a highlight, turning the university into the largest exhibition space in the south east as we celebrate the outstanding creativity of our students.

As a student here you’ll have a unique opportunity to experience what the city has to offer. Volunteering and placement opportunities enable you to play your part in the events, organisations and communities that make Brighton such a compelling place to be.

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.

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Accommodation

Brighton

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

Grand Parade is in central Brighton and has one hall of residence, Phoenix Brewery, within walking distance.
Moulsecoomb is two miles from the city centre and also has one hall of residence, Moulsecoomb Place, on campus.
Varley Park offers the biggest choice of student accommodation with ten halls of residence.
Falmer campus has two halls of residence: Great Wilkins and Paddock Field.
Varley Park and Falmer are around four miles from Brighton centre; there are good public transport services nearby.

Aside from halls, you have the option of Unihomes, which we let out to our students on behalf of private landlords. We recommend Unihomes and House Share when you’re balancing learning with placements, shifts and other commitments, because they give you more choice and flexibility.

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 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

Find out more

Language, literature and linguistics news

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