English Language

Course summary

The course is suitable if you enjoy analyzing language in real-world contexts and exploring how it changes, is learned, is shaped, and manipulated; the course has a lot to do with learning about life through language. This subject gives you a fuller and more perceptive sense of how language is acquired and used in several real-life contexts. The course often draws on contemporary sources from the media and you will become skilled at closely analyzing the changing patterns, structures, and techniques used in various contexts. You will consider, amongst other things, how we learn to speak, and how varying influences such as modern technology, gender, and power shape language. In addition, you will trace the path of the English language and consider some of the contextual influences that have caused language to change as well as learn how to write effective arguments on topical language issues.