- UCAS course code
- QL16
- UCAS institution code
- M20
BA Linguistics and Social Anthropology / Course details
Year of entry: 2024
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Course description
With its diverse local communities, Manchester is an ideal site for carrying out research on linguistic variation and multilingualism.
We have two laboratories, where you'll have the chance to use ultrasound imaging, laryngography and eye tracking technology.
You'll also be able to learn quantitative methods and use large language corpora, skills which you'll then be able to apply to other fields throughout your life.
In Social Anthropology, you will study a range of topics relating to society, culture, religion, identity and diversity, and will be introduced to methods and topics in anthropological research.
Manchester anthropologists look at the social implications of reproductive and information technologies while analysing the social meanings of consumer behaviour and studying violence, poverty, and the means for resolving conflicts and alleviating human suffering.
Special features
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 study abroad during Year 2.
We have partnerships with many institutions throughout Europe and across the globe.
Learn from experts
You will learn from staff who conduct anthropological research around the world.
We focus on economic and political issues and have also become specialists in visual and sensory media, the impact of new reproductive and genetic technologies, AIDS, sexuality and masculinities, race, cities, migration and infrastructures, urban and border politics, and crafts, play and worship.
Our strengths in Linguistics include, among others, phonetics and phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics and pragmatics, historical linguistics, forensic linguistics, and quantitative corpus-based approaches.
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.
Teaching and learning
You'll be taught through a mixture of:
- formal lectures;
- tutorials;
- one-to-one supervision.
You'll spend approximately 12 hours each week in formal study sessions and further time in 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.
You can also study a modern language.
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 Social Anthropology, you will receive a strong foundation in key concepts, approaches and questions.
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 |
---|---|---|---|
English Word and Sentence Structure | LELA10301 | 20 | Mandatory |
Study Skills | LELA10601 | 0 | Mandatory |
Key Ideas in Social Anthropology | SOAN10321 | 10 | Mandatory |
Intro to Ethnographic Reading | SOAN10322 | 10 | Mandatory |
Language, Mind and Brain | LELA10201 | 20 | Optional |
The Sounds of Language | LELA10322 | 20 | Optional |
Study of Meaning | LELA10331 | 20 | Optional |
History and Varieties of English | LELA10342 | 20 | Optional |
From Text to Linguistic Evidence | LELA10402 | 20 | Optional |
Power and Culture: Inequality in Everyday Life | SOAN10301 | 10 | Optional |
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Course content for year 2
In Social Anthropology, you will look more in depth at the anthropological contribution to thematic areas of the study of human life, as well as developing your research skills.
Your course units will cover subjects including kinship and social life, anthropology of religion, political and economic anthropology and issues in contemporary social anthropology.
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 |
---|---|---|---|
Language, Mind and Brain | LELA10201 | 20 | Optional |
The Sounds of Language | LELA10322 | 20 | Optional |
Study of Meaning | LELA10331 | 20 | Optional |
History and Varieties of English | LELA10342 | 20 | Optional |
From Text to Linguistic Evidence | LELA10402 | 20 | Optional |
Phonology | LELA20012 | 20 | Optional |
Analysing Grammar | LELA20021 | 20 | Optional |
Typology | LELA20032 | 20 | Optional |
Societal Multilingualism | LELA20101 | 20 | Optional |
Quantitative Methods in Language Sciences | LELA20231 | 20 | Optional |
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Course content for year 3
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 |
---|---|---|---|
Phonology | LELA20012 | 20 | Optional |
Analysing Grammar | LELA20021 | 20 | Optional |
Typology | LELA20032 | 20 | Optional |
Societal Multilingualism | LELA20101 | 20 | Optional |
Semantics | LELA20282 | 20 | Optional |
Pragmatics: Meaning, Context, and Interaction | LELA20291 | 20 | Optional |
The Changing English Language | LELA20401 | 20 | Optional |
Variationist Sociolinguistics | LELA20502 | 20 | Optional |
Psycholinguistics | LELA20961 | 20 | Optional |
Stylistics of English | LELA21512 | 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.
You will also enjoy access to the one of the largest ethnographic film libraries in Europe for your anthropological studies.
Find out more on the facilities page.