Bachelor of Arts (BA)

BA English Language and French

Investigate the sounds, words and grammar of the English language in combination with French study.
  • Duration: 4 years
  • Year of entry: 2025
  • UCAS course code: QR31 / Institution code: M20
  • Key features:
  • Study abroad
  • Study with a language

Full entry requirementsHow to apply

Fees and funding

Fees

Tuition fees for home students commencing their studies in September 2025 will be £9,535 per annum (subject to Parliamentary approval). Tuition fees for international students will be £26,500 per annum. For general information please see the undergraduate finance pages.

Policy on additional costs

All students should normally be able to complete their programme of study without incurring additional study costs over and above the tuition fee for that programme. Any unavoidable additional compulsory costs totalling more than 1% of the annual home undergraduate fee per annum, regardless of whether the programme in question is undergraduate or postgraduate taught, will be made clear to you at the point of application. Further information can be found in the University's Policy on additional costs incurred by students on undergraduate and postgraduate taught programmes (PDF document, 91KB).

Scholarships/sponsorships

Course unit details:
Analysing Grammar

Course unit fact file
Unit code LELA20022
Credit rating 20
Unit level Level 2
Teaching period(s) Semester 2
Available as a free choice unit? Yes

Overview

This course builds on “English Word and Sentence Structure” to deepen students’ knowledge of the grammatical analysis of a language. Empirically, it covers a comprehensive set of morpho-syntactic and word order phenomena. The data comes mainly from English, but some phenomena require data from other languages. We consider how more abstract generalisations can be made over the data and how these generalisations can be captured with formal tools.

Pre/co-requisites

Unit title Unit code Requirement type Description
English Word and Sentence Structure LELA10301 Pre-Requisite Compulsory
Pre-req of LELA10301

Compulsory Pre-Requisite: LELA10301: English Word and Sentence Structure. Students who do not meet this pre-requisite must gain academic approval before they can enroll.

Aims

The principal aims of the course unit are as follows:
  • to introduce students to language data that illustrate some central properties of morpho-syntax;
  • to introduce the students to the basic principles and formal tools of Lexical-Functional Grammar;
  • to show the students how to apply the tools of Lexical-Functional Grammar to the data sets in order to capture generalisations;
  • to give students a sense of what can be gained by constructing an abstract model for a complex dataset

Knowledge and understanding

By the end of this course students will:

  • understand the crucial properties of a core set of morpho-syntactic data;
  • learn how data in formal grammar is used, grammatically judged and presented professionally:
  • apply formal tools in syntax to data sets.

Intellectual skills

 By the end of this course students will:

  • make generalisations over complex data sets;
  • acquire abstract concepts;
  • understand the value of constructing an abstract model for a complex dataset;
  • understand that if they read a complex argument a second time, they understand it better than the first time they read it.

Practical skills

By the end of this course students will:

  • manipulate the tools of a formal system;
  • analyse unfamiliar language data and detect patterns;
  • understand that if they read a complex argument a second time, they understand it better than the first time they read it.

Transferable skills and personal qualities

All intellectual and practical skills listed above are transferrable. Personal skills that will be developed include independence, perseverance, working to a deadline, time management, and the confidence to trust your own intelligence. 

Assessment methods

Exam 70%
Assignments 30%
Homework assignments N/A

Feedback methods

Feedback method

Formative or summative

Discussion board on Canvasformative
Oral feedback through tutorial discussionsformative
Global feedback on assignmentsformative and summative
Individual meeting with lecturer on requestformative
Feedback on examformative and summative

 

Recommended reading

Obligatory reading:
 
Börjars, Kersti, Rachel Nordlinger & Louisa Sadler 2019. Lexical-Functional Grammar: an introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Study hours

Scheduled activity hours
Assessment written exam 2.5
Lectures 22
Tutorials 11
Independent study hours
Independent study 164.5

Teaching staff

Staff member Role
Richard Zimmermann Unit coordinator

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