English Language and Sociology BA (Hons)

University of Chester

A Combined Honours degree at Chester gives you the opportunity to study two subjects. You will spend a fairly even amount of time studying each subject area, with possible opportunities to declare a major – minor towards the end of your studies.

English Language

Unlock the power of words through the investigation and analysis of the fundamental structures and theoretical principles of English language and linguistics.

During this course, you will study the structures and theoretical principles of English and language in general, and use them to understand and analyse spoken

and written English discourse in context. This may include investigating sounds, word meanings, sentence structures, discourse analytical principles, child language acquisition, and language variation and change.

You will be offered a variety of assessment types, including standard essays, presentations, data collection projects, exercises, transcriptions, dissertation and

even blogs. This will equip you with the academic experiences you need to make the most of employment opportunities following your undergraduate degree and/or postgraduate study.

The course has been repeatedly praised by external examiners, who have noted the unusually broad range of expertise provided by the teaching team, which covers some of the most cutting-edge subjects in English language and linguistics, such as Corpus Linguistics (computer-assisted discourse analysis). Staff also have considerable expertise in the areas of sociolinguistics, historical linguistics, child language acquisition, models of grammar, critical discourse analysis, dialectology and comparative linguistics

Sociology

Sociology is the ‘science of society,’ and involves studying how processes of social change affect peoples’ everyday lives.

Through studying Sociology at Chester, you will be given the skills and support you need in order to develop a ‘sociological imagination’ of your own. You will be introduced to cutting-edge research and theoretical perspectives that will help you to challenge dominant understandings of social problems, issues and debates.

Sociology graduates pursue diverse career paths including in the public sector and civil service, politics and government, social work, charity and advocacy work, PR, advertising, market research, journalism, academia and teaching.

Our team has a wide range of backgrounds and experience. Modules are written in line with staff’s research interests, and include areas such as inequality and the welfare state, race and racism, gender identity and the body, globalisation, sustainability, protest and social change. How is ‘globalisation’ reshaping the world we live in? What are the major social divisions and conflicts affecting society today? How does the mass media influence our perception of these conflicts and divisions? These are just some of the questions you’ll look at.