English Literature and Linguistics BA(Hons)

International equivalencies

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

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.

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
• Modern Foreign Languages (Spanish, German, French)

*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
• Modern Foreign Languages (Spanish, German French)

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.

Location

Campus where this course is taught

Accommodation

Maps

Accommodation

University building

Falmer campus and Brighton and Sussex Medical School map