BA English Language and Russian / Course details

Year of entry: 2024

Course description

Our BA English Language and Russian course is ideal for analytical minds who want to delve into the science of language - an everyday phenomenon which impacts our lives on an individual and a global scale.

English Language covers the history of the English language and the variation between English dialects in the UK and further afield.

You will acquire the skills required for analytical language study alongside the means to apply those skills to the study of historical and present-day English.

In addition, you will practise key transferable skills, such as essay writing and how to give a presentation.

The course allows students to achieve near-native proficiency in Russian and to study the language within its cultural and historical context.

Language study offers much more than just language fluency. You'll explore diverse aspects of the culture, society, history, politics and literature of the countries in which Russian is spoken, helping you to develop intercultural awareness and communication skills - both highly valued by employers.

You'll benefit from excellent teaching, student support and cutting-edge study facilities, as well as from the vibrancy and cultural diversity of Manchester itself, Western Europe's most multilingual city.

With placement options available at partner universities and in professional environments in Russian-speaking countries, a compulsory third year abroad gives our undergraduate students unforgettable and invaluable personal and professional experience.

The course unit details listed below are those you may choose to study as part of this programme and are referred to as optional units. These are subject to change and are the latest example of the curriculum available on this programme. Although language units may show here as optional, they are a mandatory part of your modern languages degree and you will take the units relevant to your level of language in each year of study. It Is compulsory to study language at all levels of your modern languages degree.

Special features

Study or work abroad

Your year abroad will offer the opportunity to gain first-hand experience of life in a Russian-speaking country, and further develop your language skills.

Learn from language experts

Language courses are mainly taught by native speakers of each language, giving you a richer learning experience.

Access outstanding resources

You'll have the opportunity to access cutting-edge resources, including one of the largest holdings of linguistics texts in the UK, and to conduct research using English manuscripts held in our prestigious Special Collections.

Get involved with interesting projects

Our students are encouraged to take an active role in funded teaching-enhancement projects, whose outputs benefit them individually and collectively.

For example, some of our students have developed an online atlas of dialect variation in the UK and storyboards for the use in fieldwork.

Enjoy cultural activities

Join The University of Manchester Russian Society and enjoy a variety of social events, such as Russian evenings, cookery, pub crawls, quizzes, film nights and more.

Teaching and learning

You will learn through a mixture of formal lectures, seminars, and tutorials, spending approximately 12 hours a week in formal study sessions.

For every hour spent at university, you will be expected to complete a further two to three hours of independent study.

You will also need to study during the holiday periods.

The individual study component could be spent reading, producing written work, revising for examinations, or working in the University's Language Centre .

Coursework and assessment

You will be assessed in various ways, including:

  • written and oral examinations;
  • presentations;
  • coursework (which may include library research, linguistic fieldwork and data collection, or web-based research).

Many course units are assessed through a mixture of techniques.

In your final year, you can choose to write a dissertation.

Course content for year 1

English Language

  • You'll study the foundations of English grammar and be introduced to the history of English and varieties of English in the UK and further afield. You may also choose additional optional units, including those in which you learn about the study of meaning or of sounds, or learn how to investigate English using corpus methods.

Russian

  • During the first year of study, you develop crucial Russian language skills through dedicated grammar classes, oral practice with native-speaker lectors, language laboratory work, and a range of independent learning activities. Separate language pathways are offered for beginners and post A-level students.
  • Our first-year content courses provide a solid base for your further studies, helping you to acquire and improve on important study skills and giving you a thorough grounding in concepts and debates crucial to an understanding of Russian society and culture.
  • Topics and themes introduced in first-year content courses are explored in depth in optional content courses in the second and final years. As a result, these courses also help you to make informed choices for subsequent years of study based on your own interests.

You will take only the language units relevant to your level of language in each year of study.

Course units for year 1

The course unit details given below are subject to change, and are the latest example of the curriculum available on this course of study.

TitleCodeCredit ratingMandatory/optional
English Word and Sentence Structure LELA10301 20 Mandatory
Language, Mind and Brain LELA10201 20 Optional
The Sounds of Language LELA10322 20 Optional
Study of Meaning LELA10332 20 Optional
From Text to Linguistic Evidence LELA10401 20 Optional
100 Years of Revolution: Russia from Lenin to Putin RUSS10242 20 Optional
The Making of Modern Russia: Empire and Nation RUSS10251 20 Optional
Russian Language 1 RUSS51011 20 Optional
Russian Language 2 RUSS51022 20 Optional
Russian Language 3 RUSS51030 20 Optional
Russian Language 4 RUSS51040 20 Optional
Displaying 10 of 11 course units for year 1

Course content for year 2

English Language

  • Tailor your degree to suit your interests. While studying two compulsory units in subjects like language change, sociolinguistics, stylistics or pragmatics, you may additionally choose from a wide range of optional units tapping into academic expertise in specialist fields such as phonology and experimental phonetics, and psycholinguistics.

Russian

  • During the second year, you continue with your intensive study of Russian language.
  • You also choose from optional courses in a range of areas (such as Russian culture and thought, literature, translation studies, Central European and Balkan history and culture, and Polish language).
  • In addition, you begin to prepare for the compulsory year abroad, through meetings and consultations with our Residence Abroad Tutor and with final-year students who have recently returned from the year abroad.

Course units for year 2

The course unit details given below are subject to change, and are the latest example of the curriculum available on this course of study.

TitleCodeCredit ratingMandatory/optional
Russophone Literature and Society, 1800-2000s RUSS20700 20 Mandatory
Language, Mind and Brain LELA10201 20 Optional
The Sounds of Language LELA10322 20 Optional
Study of Meaning LELA10332 20 Optional
From Text to Linguistic Evidence LELA10401 20 Optional
Phonology LELA20012 20 Optional
Analysing Grammar LELA20022 20 Optional
Typology LELA20032 20 Optional
Societal Multilingualism LELA20101 20 Optional
Quantitative Methods in Language Sciences LELA20231 20 Optional
Semantics LELA20281 20 Optional
Pragmatics: Meaning, Context, and Interaction LELA20291 20 Optional
Experimental Phonetics LELA20341 20 Optional
The Changing English Language LELA20402 20 Optional
Variationist Sociolinguistics LELA20502 20 Optional
Psycholinguistics LELA20962 20 Optional
Stylistics of English LELA21512 20 Optional
100 Years of Revolution: Russia from Lenin to Putin RUSS20242 20 Optional
The Revolutions of 1989 and their Aftermaths: Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia RUSS20471 20 Optional
Between East and West: Culture, Empire and Nation in Russia RUSS20842 20 Optional
Russian Language 3 RUSS51030 20 Optional
Russian Language 4 RUSS51040 20 Optional
Russian Language 5 RUSS51050 20 Optional
Spanish Linguistics SPLA20772 20 Optional
LEAP Polish 1 (A1) ULPL51010 20 Optional
LEAP Polish 2 (A2) ULPL51020 20 Optional
Displaying 10 of 26 course units for year 2

Course content for year 3

Your third year of study is spent abroad  under approved conditions.

Course content for year 4

English Language

  • Have complete freedom of choice among a wealth of different course options spanning subjects as diverse historical linguistics, sociolinguistics, child language development, formal semantics and syntax, and forensic linguistics.
  • You will also have the option of writing a dissertation, where you explore and write about a particular topic in depth.

Russian

  • The compulsory element of your studies consists of an advanced Russian language course, which focuses on oral proficiency, translation from and into Russian and composition in Russian.
  • Optional courses in subjects including Business Russian, Soviet and post-Soviet cinema, Russian popular culture, Russian and Soviet politics and history and memory in post-socialist Eastern Europe round out your studies.
  • You may also choose to complete a dissertation, which is supervised by an appropriate member of staff within Russian and East European Studies. In researching and writing your dissertation, you explore in depth a subject of particular interest to you. The topic of your dissertation may be related to one of the final-year optional courses, but this is not obligatory.

Course units for year 4

The course unit details given below are subject to change, and are the latest example of the curriculum available on this course of study.

TitleCodeCredit ratingMandatory/optional
War, Memory and Politics of Commemoration in Eastern Europe HIST31842 20 Optional
Dissertation in Modern Languages and Cultures LALC30000 40 Optional
Phonology LELA20012 20 Optional
Analysing Grammar LELA20022 20 Optional
Typology LELA20032 20 Optional
Societal Multilingualism LELA20101 20 Optional
Semantics LELA20281 20 Optional
Pragmatics: Meaning, Context, and Interaction LELA20291 20 Optional
The Changing English Language LELA20402 20 Optional
Variationist Sociolinguistics LELA20502 20 Optional
Psycholinguistics LELA20962 20 Optional
Stylistics of English LELA21512 20 Optional
Dissertation LELA30000 40 Optional
Topics in the Study of Meaning in English LELA30032 20 Optional
Cognitive Linguistics LELA30182 20 Optional
Topics in Language Development LELA30672 20 Optional
Language Policy and Planning LELA30752 20 Optional
Historical Syntax LELA30962 20 Optional
Forensic Linguistics LELA31632 20 Optional
Romance Linguistics LELA32001 20 Optional
Quantitative Methods in Language Sciences LELA32011 20 Optional
Experimental Phonetics LELA32021 20 Optional
Computational Linguistics LELA32051 20 Optional
Discourse as Social Practice LELA32061 20 Optional
Russian Translation: Theory and practice RUSS30442 20 Optional
Culture, Media and Politics in the Soviet Union and post-Soviet Russia RUSS30601 20 Optional
Russian Language 5 RUSS51050 20 Optional
Spanish Linguistics SPLA20772 20 Optional
LEAP Polish 2 (A2) ULPL51020 20 Optional
LEAP Polish 3 (A2/B1) ULPL51030 20 Optional
Displaying 10 of 30 course units for year 4

Facilities

As well as making use of the wider University library network, you will have access to the University Language Centre , a modern open learning facility where you can study independently and make use of a library and audio-visual resources.

There are also language laboratories and multimedia facilities.

For your English language studies, you will benefit from access to a wide range of technical facilities, online resources, and unique collections at the John Rylands Library.

Learn more on the facilities pages for  Linguistics and English Language  and  Modern Languages and Cultures .

Disability support

Practical support and advice for current students and applicants is available from the Disability Advisory and Support Service. Email: dass@manchester.ac.uk