
- UCAS course code
- QQ10
- UCAS institution code
- M20
BA English Language and English Literature / Course details
Year of entry: 2021
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Course description
Our BA English Language and English Literature joint honours course will enable you to delve into the science of language while exploring a wide range of texts dating from a variety of periods.
You will be taken on a broadly chronological journey of English Literature from the Anglo Saxon period through to the present day.
In addition, you will investigate the sounds, words and grammar of the English language, and you will discover where English comes from, how it developed over time, how it varies across the UK and further afield, and how it is used in different situations.
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. You will practise key transferable skills such as essay writing and how to give a presentation.
You can also broaden the scope of your studies to investigate the interaction between psychology and language (psycholinguistics), child language development, and explore a range of methodological approaches used in study of English Language and English Literature.
You will become part of a thriving community of students, lecturers and writers at The University of Manchester, based in the heart of a UNESCO City of Literature that has produced some of the world's greatest writers and has a thriving literature and arts scene, including major events like Manchester Literature Festival.
Aims
We aim to:
- give you the opportunity to explore the nature of human language in its individual and social context, as represented in particular by English;
- enable you to engage with a significant range of literary genres, and some non-literary genres, including those associated with film and music, with texts in the English language from the British Archipelago, the United States and other English-speaking communities, ranging historically from Anglo-Saxon times to the present day;
- help you develop an in-depth understanding of the structural, historical, and cultural aspects of English;
- enable you to think analytically and develop a range of academic, presentational and organisational skills that are both appropriate to the subject and transferable to the wider context of employment and life-long learning.
Special features

Placement year option
Apply your subject-specific knowledge in a real-world context through a placement year in your third year of study, enabling you to enhance your employment prospects, clarify your career goals and build your external networks.
Study abroad
You may apply to spend one semester studying abroad during Year 2. Exchange partners are offered through the Erasmus Exchange scheme (in Sweden) and the Worldwide Exchange scheme (eg USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Singapore).
Literature events
Manchester Literature Festival holds literary events across Manchester throughout the year, many in partnership with the University. The Centre for New Writing also hosts a regular public event series, Literature Live, which brings contemporary novelists and poets to the University to read and engage in conversation.
Unique collections
John Rylands Library on Deansgate is part of the University and offers the rare opportunity to see a Gutenberg bible, Shakespeare folios and other archival treasures.
Meet like-minded students
You can get to know your fellow students outside of your course by joining the English Society or volunteering to work on the student-run Sonder Magazine. Learn more on the Societies page.
Teaching and learning
You'll be taught through a mixture of:
- formal lectures
- tutorials
- seminars.
You'll spend approximately 12 hours each 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.
In your independent study time, you may be reading, producing written work, revising for examinations or working as part of a team of students.
Coursework and assessment
Our courses are assessed in various ways, for example, written examinations, oral presentations and different types of coursework.
Coursework may include library research, linguistic fieldwork and data collection, or web-based research.
In your final year, you can choose to write a dissertation.
Course content for year 1
In English Language, you'll study the foundations of English grammar and will be introduced to the history of English and the variations of English in the UK and further afield.
In English literature, you will sample a wide variety of literature and cultural theory and develop a solid basis of knowledge and skill which you'll build on in your second and third years.
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.
Title | Code | Credit rating | Mandatory/optional |
---|---|---|---|
Reading Literature | ENGL10021 | 20 | Mandatory |
English Word and Sentence Structure | LELA10301 | 20 | Mandatory |
History and Varieties of English | LELA10342 | 20 | Mandatory |
Mapping the Medieval | ENGL10051 | 20 | Optional |
Theory and Text | ENGL10062 | 20 | Optional |
Literature and History | ENGL10072 | 20 | Optional |
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 |
Course content for year 2
You will tailor your degree to suit your interests in both areas. Choose from a wide range of optional English language units, from the history of English to variation in contemporary English, from semantics and pragmatics (the study of meaning in and out of context) to psycholinguistics.
In English Literature, you can tailor your studies by selecting from a wide range of options: from medieval and early modern literature to Victorian, 20th century and contemporary writing and film.
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.
Title | Code | Credit rating | Mandatory/optional |
---|---|---|---|
American Literature and Social Criticism, 1900-Present | AMER20481 | 20 | Optional |
Chaucer: Texts, Contexts, Conflicts | ENGL20231 | 20 | Optional |
Writing, Identity and Nation | ENGL20491 | 20 | Optional |
Medieval Metamorphoses | ENGL21022 | 20 | Optional |
Renaissance Literature | ENGL21151 | 20 | Optional |
Old English: Writing the Unreadable Past | ENGL21161 | 20 | Optional |
Satire and the Novel: English Literature of the Long Eighteenth Century | ENGL21182 | 20 | Optional |
Language, Mind and Brain | LELA10201 | 20 | Optional |
The Sounds of Language | LELA10322 | 20 | Optional |
Study of Meaning | LELA10332 | 20 | Optional |
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Course content for year 3
You will have complete freedom of choice among a wealth of different course options in both subjects. You will also have the opportunity to write a dissertation on English Language. For the English Literature component, you will be enrolled on the long essay unit (worth 20 credits).
You will be able to choose from a range of English Language units including:
- Phonology
- Historical syntax
- Language change across the lifespan
- Language contact
- Language development
- Second language acquisition
- Speech communities.
For the English Literature component, your remaining units will be selected from four lists as shown below.
List A:
- Revenge Tragedy: Wild Justice on the English Renaissance Stage
- The Word: Performing, Writing, Reading the Bible, c1380-c1611
- Transnational Shakespeare: Texts, Places, Identities
- Troy Stories
- Things that Talk: Nonhuman Voices in Anglo-Saxon Literature and Culture
- From Henry V to Game of Thrones : Imagining the Early Modern.
List B:
- Crime and the Law in 18th and 19th Century Literature
- Eros: Love Poetry in the Nineteenth Century
- Lord Byron
- Writing Workers/Workers Writing
- Gothic: Politics, Sexuality and Identity in British Gothic Writing, 1789-1900
- Imagining the Body in the Long Eighteenth Century: Materiality, Mortality and Disease
- LOL: The Serious Business of Comedy in Fiction, Theatre, and Film.
List C:
- The Great War: Culture, History, Theory, Contemporary Post-Colonial Fiction and Film
- Ulysses
- Crossing Over with Tilda Swinton: Feminist and Queer Theories of Cinema, Politics and Culture
- Culture and Conflict: Neoliberalism and Cultural Production
- Gendered Experiments: Women's Innovative Writing in the Twentieth Century
- Dante in Modernism
- Contemporary Irish Poetry and Fiction
- Kipling, Forster and India
- Creative Writing: Fiction (Competitive Entry)
- Creative Writing: Poetry (Competitive Entry).
List D :
- Conspiracy Theories in American Culture
- American Crime Fiction
- Genre, Commerce, Ideology
- Beat Writing
- Love American Style
- Occupy Everything.
Course units for year 3
The course unit details given below are subject to change, and are the latest example of the curriculum available on this course of study.
Title | Code | Credit rating | Mandatory/optional |
---|---|---|---|
Climate Change & Culture Wars | AMER30572 | 20 | Optional |
Progressivism in the United States | AMER30581 | 20 | Optional |
Beat Writing | AMER30792 | 20 | Optional |
Long Essay | ENGL30002 | 20 | Optional |
Creative Writing: Fiction | ENGL30121 | 20 | Optional |
Creative Writing: Fiction | ENGL30122 | 20 | Optional |
Narrative Theory and Victorian Fiction | ENGL30171 | 20 | Optional |
Culture and Conflict: Neoliberalism and Cultural Production | ENGL30261 | 20 | Optional |
Creative Writing: Poetry | ENGL30901 | 20 | Optional |
Irish Fiction Since 1990 | ENGL30942 | 20 | Optional |
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Facilities

You will access resources to enhance your learning, including an extensive collection of linguistics texts and our psycholinguistics and phonetics laboratories, with facilities for:
- signal analysis
- speech synthesis
- laryngography
- electropalatography.
In addition, you will have access to a wide range of other facilities to enhance your studies at Manchester, including the University Library and John Rylands Library.
You will also have the opportunity to enjoy Manchester's many other cultural assets for both study and recreational purposes, including the Whitworth Art Gallery and Manchester Museum.
Find out more on the Facilities pages for English Language and English Literature .