English Language

Course summary

Why choose this course? Students develop their subject expertise by engaging creatively and critically with a wide range of texts and discourses. Students will create texts and reflect critically on their own processes of production while analyzing texts produced by others. The course is aimed at students who enjoy the investigative side of English, who are inquisitive, and who enjoy a scientific approach to the study of language. What will I learn? You will explore the study of the English language both as a medium of communication and as a topic in its own right, with an emphasis on your ability to pursue lines of inquiry, debate different views, and work independently to research aspects of language use. Language is seen as a creative tool for expression and social connection, as well as for individual cognition. The study of language as a symbolic system used to assert power in society is also fundamental to the scope of this course. The methods of analysis appropriate to the fields of English language/linguistics underpin all the elements of this specification, and these are applied to distinctive topic areas. There is also the opportunity for students to pursue their own independent lines of inquiry and topics for writing, with support from their teachers, in the non-exam assessment. Students will study a range of topics, starting with language basics and moving on to exploring different varieties of language. In their final year, students explore specialized areas such as Children's Language Acquisition and Historical Language Change.