BA English Language and English Literature
About this course
English language and English literature studied together at Bangor University develop two complementary ways of understanding how language works and what it can do. English literature trains you to read texts with critical care, engaging with the formal, historical and cultural dimensions of poetry, fiction, drama and non-fiction across a wide sweep of periods and traditions. English language brings a different but complementary analytical rigour, examining the structures of language, how it is acquired and used, how it varies across communities and contexts, and how the study of grammar, discourse and meaning can deepen your understanding of texts and communication. This four-year programme develops your skills in both disciplines, giving you sufficient time to build genuine depth in each. You will read widely in literature across historical periods and in the original texts rather than summaries, developing the close reading and critical argument skills that literary study demands. Alongside this, you will study the linguistic systems of English, its grammar, semantics, pragmatics, phonology and sociolinguistics, learning to analyse language use with precision and to connect that analysis to the literary and cultural questions that the literature strand raises. A sandwich year, work placements and a year abroad are built into the programme, providing professional experience and international perspective at different stages. Graduates of English language and literature programmes find that the combination of analytical, communicative and cultural skills they develop is valued across many professional fields. Teaching in secondary schools is a common destination, and the dual qualification in language and literature is particularly relevant for the English curriculum. Publishing, editing, journalism, copywriting, communications, HR, the civil service, the charitable sector and education more broadly are further paths. Many graduates go on to postgraduate study in linguistics, literature, education, speech and language therapy or creative writing.
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