BA (Hons) English Language in the Media

Would you like to focus on how language is used in historical, contemporary, and emerging forms of media? This degree scheme will allow you to analyse how language is used in newspapers, on websites, blogs, and social media, and how language differs depending on both the medium and genre. This degree is taught by staff highly rated in teaching and research in one of the largest and highly ranked Linguistics and English Language departments in the country.

You will begin your academic career with us on the core English Language module. How do you describe the English Language in terms of its grammatical and sound systems? How does it function in different contexts? How does language interact with society? As well as exploring these questions, you will explore newer and emerging fields such as conversation analysis, corporate communication, and corpus linguistics. Our Part I system allows you to select two other modules in your first year, giving you increased choice and flexibility. This might be linguistics, but it might also be a course offered by another department from across the university. This flexible system means you don’t have to fully commit to a three-year degree scheme quite yet, and you have the opportunity to review your choices throughout your degree.

In the second year, you’ll move on to core subjects such as English Phonetics, The Language of Advertising and Understanding Media. You can also pick from modules such as Stylistics and Corporate communication. As a third-year undergraduate, your options include Forensic Linguistics, Language and Identities and Language Change in English and Beyond. You’ll also write your dissertation, exploring a topic that you’re particularly interested in. This is overseen by a member of staff from our department who specialises in your particular area. Given the size of the department, our academics will be able to supervise pretty much any topic and fit your interests.

An English Language in the Media degree is well-suited for careers in journalism, publishing, broadcasting, and radio. It is well-suited for careers in education, publishing and information technology, and valued in fields involving international communication, such as science, trade and international relations. Past graduates have become speech therapists, computing consultants, chartered accountants, and social workers. Our English Language in the Media degree is particularly good preparation for a career in the media.

Careers

An English Language degree is suitable for careers at all levels in education as well as language related fields such as publishing, the media and information technology. It is also valuable in fields where international communication is important, like science, trade and international relations.

Recent graduates have gone onto work or train as teachers, speech therapists, computer programmers and consultants, bankers, chartered accountants, personnel managers, journalists and social workers. Our English Language in the Media degree is an ideal preparation for a career in the media, while studying abroad is a great way to make your CV stand out. A sizeable proportion of our graduates take up employment overseas.