Intro

Our Language in Context MA is unique in offering students an engagement in interdisciplinary work crossing sociocultural and linguistic boundaries; as well as offering two distinct pathways to enable you to develop an advanced understanding of either sociocultural linguistics or pragmatics.

You will examine language use in a range of contexts, and explore various mechanisms of communication through a variety of analytical and theoretical frameworks. The interdisciplinary approach to language analysis enables an exploration of links to other disciplines, such as philosophy, cultural and political theory, and some aspects of psychology and cognitive sciences.

Learning about language from varied perspectives expands and enhances your skills base suitable both for a wide scope of potential careers and for doctoral research.

Key facts

Location Falmer

Full-time 1 year
Part-time 2–6 years

September and February start dates (for February starters the course will be 16-18 months due to summer break)

Find out about postgraduate events

Apply online

Please review the entry requirements carefully and if you have any questions do get in touch with us.

Apply now for your place

Course content

Course structure

The interdisciplinary nature of the course offers you an opportunity to explore language from a range of approaches through studying the Language in Context MA, or through two distinct pathways, giving you three options to choose from:

Language in Context
Language in Context (Pragmatics)
Language in Context (Sociocultural Linguistics)

Our courses are delivered using learning and teaching strategies that help improve your skills base, such as: group work, seminar and lecture participation, experiential work and data collection, tutorials and online learning environments.

Students conducting group work in the library

Language in Context

Students may wish to choose to explore a general pattern of study through which a range of interdisciplinary links are explored. Language in Context MA offers greater integration of such links, including open choices for dissertation content, and opportunities to study option modules related to language studies, such as creative writing, literacy studies, political philosophy, second language acquisition.

Students can choose from sociocultural modules as well as those that examine linguistic approaches to communication.

Modules

Dissertation

Choose six modules from:

Approaches to the Study of Meaning
Language, Philosophy, Mind
Language, Culture and Ideology
Language, Law and the State: The politics of force
Language of Gender and Sexuality
Independent Research Project
Approaches to Analysing Discourse
Non-Truth-Conditional Meaning: Semantics, Pragmatics and Ineffability
Analysing Big Data: Quantitative methods in language research
Modules from other MA programmes across the university

Students laughing in front of the computer

Pragmatics pathway

This pathway focuses on pragmatic, communicative and cognitive theories that grapple with a difficult question of how we communicate and how our mind ‘reads’ intentions behind our communicative acts. We further examine different approaches to semantics (a study of meaning) and pragmatics (a study of language use).

To complete this pathway, you choose six modules. Your dissertation will also need to reflect the pathway content. Your tutors offer detailed and continuous guidance on how to develop your research ideas in an appropriate way.

Modules

Dissertation

Options

Choose at least two from:

Approaches to the Study of Meaning
Language, Philosophy, Mind
Non-Truth-Conditional Meaning: Semantics, Pragmatics and Ineffability

Choose four from:

Language, Culture and Ideology
Language, Law and the State: The politics of force
Language of Gender and Sexuality
Independent Research Project
Approaches to Analysing Discourse
Analysing Big Data: Quantitative methods in language research
Modules from other MA programmes across the university

Sociocultural Linguistics pathway

This pathway centres around the role of language in sociopolitical and socioeconomic contexts. It helps students to explore inequalities both in and through language. The pathway focuses students’ research on examining how those inequalities shape our society and the way in which these inequalities are related to gender, race, sexuality, class; including the way in which our view of the world shapes language policy and planning.

To complete this pathway, you 'll choose six modules. Your dissertation will also need to reflect the pathway content. Your tutors offer detailed and continuous guidance on how to develop your research ideas in an appropriate way.

Modules

Dissertation

Options

Choose at least two from:

Language, Law and the State: The politics of force
Language of Gender and Sexuality
Approaches to Analysing Discourse
Analysing Big Data: Quantitative methods in language research

Choose four from:

Approaches to the Study of Meaning
Language, Philosophy, Mind
Language, Culture and Ideology
Independent Research Project
Non-Truth-Conditional Meaning: Semantics, Pragmatics and Ineffability
Modules from other MA programmes across the university

Module content

Approaches to the Study of Meaning
This module gives students the opportunity to examine two views from cognitive science and philosophy on the meaning of words and the role played by words in communication. This exploration involves evaluating how meanings vary according to context, and the relations between word meanings and concepts. You will explore lexical semantics and lexical pragmatics in more depth.

Language, Culture and Ideology
This module enables you to explore cultural, political and other ideologies and to examine how these are constituted, encoded or endorsed in language. You will have an opportunity to challenge some of the myths, prejudices and perceptions of people and cultures through language. They will compare and contrast these with some more complex, sophisticated and theoretically more formal ideologies that have influenced our societies.

Language, Philosophy, Mind
This module addresses different positions at the centre of the debate between semantics and pragmatics: the balance between the two in the interpretation of utterances, and the question of whether the two are complementary, non-overlapping disciplines. The module focuses predominantly on the Minimalism/Contextualism debate in modern Philosophy of Language, and content is based on the work of Bach, Borg and Recanati.

Non-Truth-Conditional Meaning: Semantics, Pragmatics and Ineffability
This module explores a range of non-truth-conditional phenomena: expressive meaning and paralinguistic features of communication such as interjections and intonation. It explores these phenomena from a range of theoretical perspectives, including speech act semantics, Gricean conventional implicature and Relevance Theory.

Language, Law and the State: The politics of force
When police brutality becomes front-page news, language plays a pivotal role in how interactions between the public, the police and the State are perceived. This has consequences as to how those perceptions influence the narratives both in the courtroom and in the media surrounding those who find themselves on the ‘wrong’ side of the law. This module will draw on examples from around the world to explore the role of the State in criminalisation of protest and social movements, and look at how the questions of justice, democracy and state power are represented in and through language.

Language of Gender and Sexuality
This module develops your understanding of language as it relates to gender and sexuality. Elements of feminist and queer social theories will be drawn upon in order to develop a contemporary model of the relationship between language and (intersectional) social identities that is attentive to the symbolic and material.

Independent Research Project
This module is designed to give you a unique opportunity to work with a chosen supervisor on a project of your choosing. This will enable you to build on their existing experience and work in a research environment, which will provide opportunities to gain skills in the areas of research collaboration, proposals and project writing, research-led supervision and subject specialisation.

Approaches to Analysing Discourse
This module explores a number of approaches to the analysis of spoken and written discourse and evaluates them critically in relation to a wide array of discourse genres in a variety of media.

Analysing Big Data: Quantitative methods in language research
This module provides the methodological skills for quantitatively analysing and understanding large text datasets. You will identify suitable datasets and find statistically significant language patterns using several different techniques (for example, concordances, collocations, and keywords). You'll learn the importance of each technique and its role by investigating topics that include racism, sexism, violence, and migration. Students will gain valuable transferable and employability skills in using quantitative data analysis software and understanding those results within the broader sociocultural context.

Dissertation
This project enables you to engage in independent research study, involving critical examination of a research problem, and represents an original contribution to academic debate in a relevant area.

A range of option modules offered across the university enables you to experience postgraduate study in an area not directly related to your subject. Some of those choices are in the areas of creative writing, literacy studies, political philosophy, second language acquisition. For further detail, please contact the course team.

Meet the team

Dr Tim Wharton, course leader

The focus of Tim's research is pragmatics, the study of utterance interpretation, and his current work reflects the increasingly cross-disciplinary of research into communication and cognition. For example, he is particularly interested in the role the spontaneous interpretation of the emotional states of others play in the way we hearers understand speakers. This has resulted in international collaborations with philosophers, cognitive scientists and affective scientists. Read about Tim, and his work.

While Tim spends an increasing amount of time on research, he loves teaching and believes passionately that teaching is as much about inspiring enthusiasm and confidence as it is about imparting knowledge and analytical techniques. Wherever possible he avoids the traditional teaching formats, where an academic talks at a group of students. He believes what students have to say is just as important (if not more important) than anything he has to offer.

You can read more about Tim Wharton here.

Other teaching staff on the course

How this course is delivered

How will my course be taught?
For the academic year that starts in September 2022 we’re planning for all students to be taught face-to-face on campus, enhanced by some online learning.

Students who started their course with us in 2021 are on campus for some face-to-face learning including tutorials, workshops, laboratory classes and studio sessions. They are also taking part in off-campus learning activities such as placements, field trips and study visits. And all of our campus facilities – libraries, learning spaces, restaurants, gyms and more are open.

Like all universities we are following government guidance and we are monitoring the pandemic very closely. Should Public Health advise it we have robust plans in place for additional safety measures to be introduced to enable everyone to continue learning on campus, and, as a last resort, for students to continue their learning remotely.

We will update you regularly on our teaching plans for the next academic year as you progress your application with us.

When does my course start?
The 2022 academic year begins on Monday 26 September 2022. Teaching for most courses starts the following week.

Many education courses, some health science courses including Medicine, and some postgraduate business courses have an earlier start date. Check your offer letter for the start date of your course.

Careers

The Language in Context MA prepares you for careers in professional writing, journalism and publishing, radio and TV, English Language Teaching, speech and language therapy, law, politics, sociology, forensic and anthropological linguistics. The course is also an essential preparatory tool for doctoral research and academic careers.

Students conducting mock interviews in front of a video camera

Entry criteria

Entry requirements

Degree and experience
Applicants should normally have an undergraduate honours degree (usually at 2:2 level or above), or equivalent in a relevant subject area, such as: linguistics, English language, literature, philosophy, sociology, politics, history, cultural theory, teaching English as a foreign language, journalism, creative writing, media studies.

Applicants without these backgrounds will be considered on the basis of appropriate experience in one of the above areas, or some professional experience in the following fields: teaching (also teaching English as a foreign language whilst demonstrating some familiarity with linguistic analysis and metalanguage), journalism, cultural and social policy, charity and campaigning work.

Applicants without a good first degree, or without these backgrounds, may be required to provide written evidence (for example an assignment from a form of a training course, or an essay set by the admissions team) of their analytical and reflective skills in writing.

Interview
Candidates may also be required to attend an interview. The interview will focus on the candidate’s potential to benefit from, and to contribute to, the programme of study. Candidates from overseas, or at some distance from Brighton, may elect to have a telephone and/or Skype interview.

English language requirements
IELTS 6.5 overall with a minimum of 5.5 in each element. Find out more about the other English qualifications that we accept.

International students whose language skills do not match the IELTS scores set out here should consider applying for this course through our Extended Masters programme.

International requirements and visas

International requirements by country
Country name
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 centre

For English language preparation courses.

Visit our International College

For degree preparation courses.

Visas and immigration advice

Applying for a student visa

Check out our step-by-step guidance.

Fees

Course fees

UK (full-time)7,866 GBP

International (full-time) 15,462 GBP

Scholarships, bursaries and loans

We offer a range of scholarships for postgraduate students. Bursaries and loans may also be available to you.

Find out more about postgraduate fees and funding.

What's included

You may have to pay additional costs during your studies. 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. A summary of the costs that you may be expected to pay, and what is included in your fees, while studying a course in the School of Humanities and Social Science in the 2021–22 academic year are listed here.

For some assessments you may be required to print large format posters for presentations at a cost of £5–£10 per poster.
Most coursework submissions are electronic but you may wish to print notes and should budget up to £100 for printing.
Course books are available from the university but you may wish to budget up to £200 to buy your own copies.
Some courses include an optional placement module for which students will need to cover the costs of travel to and from the placement and DBS checks as required.
For the Humanistic Psychotherapeutic Counselling PGDip and Psychotherapeutic Psychodynamic Counselling PGDip, the following course-related costs are not included in the tuition fee:
- Supervision fees: £1,170 for each full year. Estimated based on £45 per hour with fortnightly meetings. In some agencies, supervision will be provided at no cost. Where students have to pay, the cost will only begin when supervision begins.
- Personal counselling/therapy: £2,000–£2,800 over the course. Estimated based on £40 per hour.
For a number of courses you will have the opportunity to attend field trips and off-site visits. These are optional and are not required to pass your course but under normal circumstances we would expect a budget of approximately £150 per year will cover the costs of particular trips. The amount spent would be based on location and number of trips taken.
You will have access to computers and necessary software, however many students choose to buy their own hardware, software and accessories. The amount spent will depend on your individual choices but this expenditure is not essential to pass any of our courses.

You can chat with our enquiries team if you have a question or need more information. Or check our finance pages for advice about funding and scholarships as well as more information about fees and advice on international and island fee-paying status.

Info

The fees listed here are for full-time courses beginning in the academic year 2022–23.

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 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-time 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.

Location

Campus where this course is taught

Falmer campus

Set in the South Downs, our Falmer campus is around four miles from Brighton city centre. 7,000 students are based here taking subjects including criminology, English, education, nursing and medicine, paramedic science, psychology and sociology. Brighton and Hove Albion's Amex stadium and beautiful Stanmer Park are right next door.

Specialist learning facilities at Falmer include the curriculum centre used by teaching and education students, which houses over 30,000 teaching resources and clinical skills and simulation suites used by health students. Psychology students learn in our applied cognition and flexible creative method labs.

Falmer campus has two halls of residence on site, as well as a library, restaurant, cafes, and a students' union shop and bar.

The campus sports centre has a fitness suite, activity studios and a sports hall. There is also a floodlit astroturf football pitch, netball and tennis courts.

Cycle lanes link Falmer with our other campuses and the city centre and there is a BTN BikeShare hub on site. There are regular bus services to the city centre and other campuses. Falmer train station is right next to campus and a nine minute journey to central Brighton.

Newly refurbished atrium in the Checkland Building

Accommodation

Brighton: Falmer

We guarantee an offer of a place in halls of residence to all eligible students who apply by 30 June.

Halls of residence
We have halls of residence across Brighton in the city centre, Moulsecoomb, Varley Park and Falmer.

You'll be prioritised for accommodation in the halls that are linked to your teaching base, subject to availability.
Falmer campus is linked to the halls on Falmer campus and at Varley Park. All halls are self-catered.
- Paddock Field and Great Wilkins halls are on Falmer campus and offer a range of rooms
- Varley Park offers a mix of rooms. It is around two miles from Moulsecoomb campus and four miles from the city centre. Public transport in the city is excellent.

Private renting
There's plenty of support if you opt for private renting. This is an option which offers choice and flexibility – enabling you to choose where you live and who with. Every summer we provide online events and resources, as well as other advice services, for students looking for a place to live and people to share with.

Outside views at Falmer accommodation

Extensive facilities at Falmer sports centre

Students dining at Westlain

Local area

About Brighton

The University of Brighton is at the heart of our city's reputation as a welcoming, forward-thinking place which leads the way when it comes to the arts, music, sustainability and creative technology. Brighton is home to a thriving creative community and a digital sector worth £1bn a year to the local economy, as much as tourism.

Many of the work-based learning opportunities offered on our courses such as placements and guest lectures are provided by businesses and organisations based in the city.

You can also get involved with city festivals and events such as the Brighton Festival, the Fringe, Brighton Digital Festival, Brighton Science Festival, the London to Brighton bike ride, and the Great Escape festival of new music to name but a few. Other annual highlights include Pride, the Brighton Marathon, and Burning the Clocks which marks the winter solstice.

You'll find living in Brighton enriches your learning experience and by the end of your course you will still be finding new things to explore and inspire you.

It's only 50 minutes by train from Brighton to central London and less than 40 minutes to Eastbourne. There are also daily direct trains to Bristol, Bedford, Cambridge, Gatwick Airport, Portsmouth and Southampton.

Maps

Falmer campus

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Sport at Brighton

Sport Brighton

Sport Brighton brings together our sport and recreation services. As a Brighton student you'll have use of sport and fitness facilities across all our campuses and there are opportunities to play for fun, fitness or take part in serious competition.

Find out more about Sport Brighton.

Sports scholarships

Our sports scholarship scheme is designed to help students develop their full sporting potential to train and compete at the highest level. We offer scholarships for elite athletes, elite disabled athletes and talented sports performers.

Find out more about sport scholarships.

Cricket Academy

New for September 2023, our Cricket Academy offers aspiring players the opportunity to continue their cricket development alongside studying for a degree. The programme offers a world-class training environment with the highest quality coaching.

Find out more about the Cricket Academy.