English Language and Literature BA (Hons)

Study level: Undergraduate
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Interested in both Literature and Language? Our BA English Language and Literature degree combines the study of both and can help you to think about and analyse the world in new ways.

Year of entry

2023-24

Location

Coventry University (Coventry)

Study mode

Full-time
Part-time
Sandwich

Duration

3 years full-time
4 years sandwich
Flexible part-time

Course code

Q300

Start date

September 2023
January 2024

How to Apply
Book an Open Day
Download a prospectus
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Course overview

English Literature and Language should appeal to you if you have an interest in:

  • how language is used in everyday communication, including the digital world, and how it varies depending on who uses it, where, and why
  • the study of literary texts and literary genres from the Renaissance to the 21st century.
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Global Ready

An international outlook, with global opportunities
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Teaching excellence

Taught by lecturers who are experts in their field
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Employability

Career ready graduates, with the skills to succeed

Why you should study this course

  • You can develop transferable skills in criticism, analysis and interpersonal communication which are vital in many careers, such as the teaching, legal, media, marketing, financial and public sector professions.
  • You can develop further grounding in both linguistic and literary analysis, and develop your understanding of language use and literary genres and periods.
  • Through your study of English language, you will develop an understanding of how English works as a system of communication that helps to define ourselves, the societies we live in, and the whole world.
  • In English literature, you’ll have the opportunity to examine a range of fictional works from different countries and explore the ways in which the world is interpreted through them.
  • With links with a wide variety of potential employers such as secondary schools, magazines, newspapers and local charities you could receive further insights on how to enter your desired career path.

What you'll study

This course has a common first year.

The common first year enables you to work alongside students doing similar courses to you, to widen your knowledge and exposure to other subject areas and professions. You will have the opportunity to collaborate with other students, so you can share your insights and experience which will help you to develop and learn.

If you discover an interest in a specific subject you have studied, upon successful completion of your first year, you could swap degrees with another course in your common first year (subject to meeting progression requirements).

Common first year courses

  • English Literature BA (Hons)
  • English and Creative Writing BA (Hons)
  • English Language and Teaching English as a Foreign Language BA (Hons)

In the first year, the curriculum is shared across related courses allowing you to gain a broad grounding in the discipline before going on, in the second and third years, to specialist modules in your chosen field.

Modules

  • This module offers a chronological introduction to the spoken and written word through time, from the ancient world to contemporary language and literature. It prepares you to think about the historical, intellectual, linguistic, social and cultural conditions of the use of language and production of literature. You will study a range of non-fiction and literary texts.

    Compulsory

  • This module introduces you to the major conceptual-theoretical frameworks, thinkers and debates that they will need to understand in order to succeed on your chosen degree course. The module encourages an active and engaged approach to questions and ideas in the disciplines of English, Languages and TEFL.

    Compulsory

  • This module introduces you to the range of methods and tools that will support your individual and group research projects throughout your degree course. This includes the library’s physical and digital holdings and services; how to search the internet and online databases; how to design research questions; and how to make notes and manage time effectively.

    Compulsory

  • This module develops your awareness of the structure and organisation of ‘discourse’, i.e. language in use. It considers language in use in a range of contexts including everyday conversations, social media, comedy, and politics, looking beyond literal meaning to consider how interactions are manipulated and identities constructed.

    Compulsory

  • The aims of this module are to respond to the so-called ‘spatial turn’ in literary and cultural studies by introducing you to a range of theories of place and spatiality, and to cognate ideas of regional languages and literatures. You will be encouraged to apply these abstract ideas / contexts to a range of literary and other cultural works (such as films or art).

    Compulsory

  • You will publish an online ‘zine enabling you to showcase your first year work using the skills and knowledge you have acquired along the way. The content for the ‘zines might include short critical pieces, reflective essays or videos, pedagogical reports, comparative cultural and/or linguistic analyses, poetry or flash fiction. Workshops will help you to develop the necessary skills to successfully record and edit film and audio and create attractive online publications.

    Compulsory

In year two, you will continue to develop the skills and knowledge you’ve learnt. We do this by embedding the following four principles into the curriculum and developing your:

  • Technical skills – digital fluency, backed with the right academic knowledge
  • Study skills – to be an adaptive, independent and proactive learner
  • Professional skills – to have the behaviour and abilities to succeed in your career
  • Global awareness – the beliefs and abilities to be a resilient, confident and motivated global citizen

In year two, you will develop more advanced knowledge and skills to do with: Shakespeare, gender and sexuality, and  new media, amongst others.

Modules

  • This module introduces you in some detail to a broad range of authors, texts, periods and genres from Medieval mystery plays, to later poems and plays, that both influenced and were influenced in turn by William Shakespeare. The module will explore and evaluate the reasons both for seeing Shakespeare as being at the heart of the English Renaissance, and for not seeing him as such.

    Compulsory

  • The aim of this module is to introduce you to the fundamental concepts in the study of language as a social phenomenon. Topics include: language variation in regional and social dialects; identity construction, incorporating gender, ethnicity, and age; social functions of languages and varieties; and the ways in which ideologies, cultural ways, speaking and social attitudes affect patterns of language use and their evaluation within institutions.

    Compulsory

  • This module will introduce you to the most important ideas and debates in gender and sexuality. Covering a wide range of texts, including fiction, poetry, essay, film, and philosophy, you will have the opportunity to engage with key concepts of gender and sexuality, and learn to apply them to other forms of writing.

    Compulsory

  • This module introduces key issues relevant to the study of language used in digital contexts. Indicative topics include: language attitudes and ideologies towards new media practices; online identities and communities; digital narratives; the language of blogs and wikis; micro-blogging practices and the meaning of hashtags; impoliteness and conflict in digital settings.

    Compulsory

  • This module will consider a range of literature that emerged in the twentieth century from across the Anglophone world. You will gain an understanding and knowledge of both traditional critical conceptions of a modernist period and modernist aesthetic, and alternative modernisms, as well as ideas of ‘late’ modernist work, and modernist inheritance.

    Compulsory

  • In its broadest sense, stylistics is a field of study in which linguistic theories are used to identify and describe the distinguishing features (or style) of a text. The aim of this module is to equip you with an understanding of the linguistic models and analytic techniques that can be used to describe, analyse and interpret a range of literary, as well as non-literary, texts.

    Compulsory

After the end of the second year, you have the option to take either a Professional Placement year2 (in the UK, or abroad) or a Study Abroad year2, and if you do so, you will take a non-credit bearing module which will help you learn from and reflect upon your experiences.

There’s no better way to find out what you love doing than trying it out for yourself, which is why a work placement2 can often be beneficial. Work placements usually occur between your second and final year of study. They’re a great way to help you explore your potential career path and gain valuable work experience, whilst developing transferable skills for the future.

If you choose to do a work placement year, you will pay a reduced tuition fee3 of £1,250. For more information, please go to the fees and funding section. During this time you will receive guidance from your employer or partner institution, along with your assigned academic mentor who will ensure you have the support you need to complete your placement.

Modules

  • This module2 provides you with an opportunity to reflect upon and gain experience for an approved placement undertaken during your programme. A placement should usually be at least 26 weeks or equivalent; however, each placement will be considered on its own merits, having regard to the ability to achieve the learning outcomes.

    Optional

  • This module2 provides you with an opportunity to reflect upon and gain experience for an approved international study/work placement undertaken during your programme. A work/study placement should usually be at least 26 weeks or equivalent; however, each placement will be considered on its own merits, having regard to the ability to achieve the learning outcomes.

    Optional

Year three aims to bring you to the level to enter the world of work by consolidating your knowledge and skills from years one and two. You could also work on a large final project in an area of your interest, with the support of a mentor and your Academic Personal Tutor.

You will be asked to choose optional modules totalling 120 credits in your final year.

Modules

  • This module aims to explore the modern phenomenon of graphic novels and narrative with the rise of new twenty-first century genres within the comics medium while fostering new genres and ways to communicate. Modern comic creators are winning awards and acclaim in the worlds of art and literature as they communicate unique stories and interpretations of the modern world.

    Optional

  • The aim of this module is to develop your awareness of the psycholinguistic processes of language storage and retrieval. It will also look at how artificial intelligence in machines simulates human linguistic behaviour and will question whether this linguistic behaviour in machines constitutes true intelligence.

    Optional

  • This module surveys Gothic literature and cultural production, from its eighteenth-century origins to the film, television and video games of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. You will look to gain a lively appreciation of the Gothic’s enduring relevance in times of climate crisis, geopolitical unrest, and rapid technological change.

    Optional

  • This module takes a sociolinguistic approach to the study of language and globalisation. Topics include: language attitudes and ideologies, bilingualism and multilingualism, identities in a globalised world, the politics of English as a lingua franca, language globalisation and social media, tourism discourse, food and lifestyle discourses, linguistic landscapes and workplace communication.

    Optional

  • This module provides an opportunity for you to exercise independent learning and research skills in the final semester of your degree. You will be able to conceive, plan and carry out an individual programme of discipline-specific research under the supervision of a member of staff, leading to the ultimate submission of a final project in the form of a dissertation, portfolio, or artefact, as appropriate.

    Optional

  • This module aims to introduce you to the literature, philosophy, and theory of the Enlightenment exploring both eighteenth-century debates about progress and modernity (and their relationship with conceptions of culture, gender, status, race and nationality) as well as the contemporary significance of ideas about Enlightenment.

    Optional

  • This module embraces the great diversity of works of fantasy, gothic and science fiction and will explore their relationship to each other, place them within literary traditions and examine the ways in which such popular writing is essentially intertextual and cross-generic.

    Optional

  • The aim of the module is to enable you to take a critical perspective with regard to language, and to recognise how language is instrumental in constructing an ideologically framed view of reality – cultural, social and political. You will, through your examination and deconstruction of texts, acquire the tools to unravel the complexities inherent in language as it is used as a medium of communication and as a means of giving definition to experience.

    Optional

We regularly review our course content, to make it relevant and current for the benefit of our students. For these reasons, course modules may be updated.

How you'll learn

This course can be offered on a part-time basis. Whilst we would like to give you all the information about our part-time offering here, it is tailored for each course each year depending on the number of part-time applicants. Therefore, the part-time teaching arrangements vary. Request further information about part-time study.

Teaching contact hours

We understand that everyone learns differently, so each of our courses will consist of structured teaching sessions, which can include:

  • On campus lectures, seminars and workshops
  • Group work
  • Self-directed learning
  • Work placement opportunities2

The number of full-time contact hours may vary from semester to semester, however, on average, it is likely to be around 12 contact hours per week in the first and second year dropping to around 10-12 contact hours per week in the third and final year as you become a more independent learner.

Additionally, you will be expected to undertake significant self-directed study of approximately 15 hours each week, depending on the demands of individual modules.

Part of university life is undertaking self-directed learning. During a typical week you will have time that allows you to work independently to apply the skills and knowledge you have learnt in taught or facilitated sessions to your projects or assignment briefs. This self-directed learning allows you to use your research skills, consolidate your knowledge or undertake collaborative group work.

As an innovative and enterprising institution, the university may seek to utilise emerging technologies within the student experience. For all courses (whether on-campus, blended, or distance learning), the university may deliver certain contact hours and assessments via online technologies and methods.

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are prepared for courses due to start in or after the 2023/2024 academic year to be delivered in a variety of forms. The form of delivery will be determined in accordance with Government and Public Health guidance. Whether on campus or online, our key priority is staff and student safety.

Assessment

This course will be assessed using a variety of methods which will vary depending upon the module.

Assessment methods can include:

  • Formal examinations
  • Phase tests
  • Essays
  • Group projects
  • Presentations
  • Reports
  • Projects
  • Coursework
  • Individual Assignments

The Coventry University Group assessment strategy ensures that our courses are fairly assessed and allows us to monitor student progression towards achieving the intended learning outcomes.

International experience opportunities

This course has a multicultural and international outlook, and we use a range of international texts and authors. You may also obtain international professional experience if you decide to undertake an optional placement year2.

Entry requirements

Typical offer for 2023/24 entry.

Requirement What we're looking for
A level BCC
GCSE Minimum 5 GCSEs graded 9-4 to include English.
BTEC DMM
IB Diploma 27 points
Access to HE The Access to HE Diploma. Plus GCSE English at grade 4 / C or above.

We recognise a breadth of qualifications, speak to one of our advisers today to find out how we can help you.

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Are you eligible for the Fair Access Scheme?

We believe every student should have the opportunity to dream big, reach their potential and succeed, regardless of their background. Find out more about our Fair Access Scheme.

Select your region to find detailed information about entry requirements:

Europe

Americas

Middle East

South Asia

South East Asia

East Asia

Africa

Russia and Central Asia


You can view our full list of country specific entry requirements on our Entry requirements page.

Alternatively, visit our International hub for further advice and guidance on finding in-country agents and representatives, joining our in-country events and how to apply.

English language requirements

  • IELTS: 6.0 overall (with at least 5.5 in each component area)

If you don't meet the English language requirements, you can achieve the level you need by successfully completing a pre-sessional English programme before you start your course. 

For more information on our approved English language tests visit our English language requirements page.

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Fees and funding

2023/24 tuition fees.

Student Full-time Part-time
UK £9,250 per year Request fee information
International £16,800 per year Not available

If you choose to do a work placement2, you should consider travel and living costs to cover this. There is also a tuition fee3 of £1,250 that will cover your academic support throughout your placement year.

For advice and guidance on tuition fees and student loans visit our Undergraduate Finance page and see The University’s Tuition Fee and Refund Terms and Conditions.

We offer a range of International scholarships to students all over the world. For more information, visit our International Scholarships page.

Tuition fees cover the cost of your teaching, assessments, facilities and support services. There may be additional costs not covered by this fee such as accommodation and living costs, recommended reading books, stationery, printing and re-assessments should you need them. Find out what's included in your tuition costs.

The following are additional costs not included in the tuition fees:

  • Any optional overseas field trips or visits: £400+ per trip.
  • Any costs associated with securing, attending or completing a placement (whether in the UK or abroad)

  • We carry out an initial fee status assessment based on the information you provide in your application. Your fee status determines your tuition fees, and what financial support and scholarships may be available to you. The rules about who pays UK (home) or international (overseas) fees for higher education courses in England are set by the government's Department for Education. The regulations identify all the different categories of student who can insist on paying the home rate. The regulations can be difficult to understand, so the UK Council for International Student Affairs (UKCISA) has provided fee status guidance to help you identify whether you are eligible to pay the home or overseas rate.

    If you meet all the criteria required by any one category, including any residence requirements, your institution must charge you the home rate. You only need to find one category that you fit into.

Facilities

Students will benefit from studying on our well-equipped, modern campus4.

Faculty arts humanities new building illustration

Arts and Humanities Building

We are currently in the process of a major redevelopment of our Faculty of Arts and Humanities buildings. The building will be open to the public, as well as students, and will feature an expansive gallery space.

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The Library

You will benefit from our support designed to help you succeed and our industry-relevant teaching and resources. These include our modern library and computing facilities, dedicated careers advice and Students’ Union.

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Confucius Institute

The School of Humanities is home to the Confucius Institute. This is a collaboration created through a partnership with Jiangxi University of Finance and Economics, which aims to promote an understanding of the Chinese language and culture.

Careers and opportunities

On successful completion, you will be able to:

  • Demonstrate advanced knowledge and understanding of literary works from selected periods and geographic regions
  • Interrogate and critically evaluate the arguments of others and to formulate and construct critical arguments of their own
  • Analyse and critically assess a range of theoretical approaches used in literary and language studies
  • Identify and critically comment upon the typical features of literary genres including poetry, fiction, drama, the short story, prose non-fiction
  • Demonstrate an advanced awareness of the diverse contexts (including social, cultural and historical) of literary production and language use
  • Research subject-based materials to an advanced standard using specialist digital tools and methods
  • Identify how language underpins intercultural and interpersonal interactions and transactions and varies according to context and identity
  • Demonstrate a systematic understanding of the history, evolution, spread, and nature of the English language
  • Communicate effectively in professional, academic and social contexts, and across a range of mediums including in person, on paper and online.

Once you successfully complete this course, you have choices of a variety of different career pathways that meet your particular interests.

A degree in English can open up a wide range of career options over and above the professions associated with English, such as journalism, publishing, marketing, public relations, advertising, teaching, the civil service or the media.

We’re committed to preparing you for your future career and aim to give you a competitive edge in the graduate job market. The university's dedicated employability support, the Talent Team, provides a wide range of support services to help you plan and prepare for your career.

Where our graduates work

Recent graduates of Coventry University English Literature courses have gone on to work within education, marketing and public relations, journalism or research coordination for companies including Warwickshire County Council, Studiosity and the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games.

Many students have also gone on to pursue master’s level study. The course also aims to develop other abilities, such as thinking critically and analytically and researching, collating and organising data, a number of previous students have gone on to find responsible positions as financial specialists, HR managers or press officers in companies such as Deutsche Bank, and PWC.

Further study

You can choose to continue your studies at Coventry University with the English Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics MA, English and Education Management MA or English Literature MA. You may be entitled to an alumni discount on your fees if you decide to extend your time with us by progressing from undergraduate to postgraduate study.

How to apply

  • Coventry University together with Coventry University London Campus, CU Coventry, CU London, CU Scarborough and Coventry University Online come together to form part of the Coventry University Group (the “University”) with all degrees awarded by Coventry University. 

    1Accreditations

    The majority of our courses have been formally recognised by professional bodies, which means the courses have been reviewed and tested to ensure they reach a set standard. In some instances, studying on an accredited course can give you additional benefits such as exemptions from professional exams (subject to availability, fees may apply). Accreditations, partnerships, exemptions and memberships shall be renewed in accordance with the relevant bodies’ standard review process and subject to the university maintaining the same high standards of course delivery.

    2UK and international opportunities

    Please note that we are unable to guarantee any UK or International opportunities (whether required or optional) such as internships, work experience, field trips, conferences, placements or study abroad opportunities and that all such opportunities may be subject to additional costs (which could include, but is not limited to, equipment, materials, bench fees, studio or facilities hire, travel, accommodation and visas), competitive application, availability and/or meeting any applicable travel COVID and visa requirements. To ensure that you fully understand the visa requirements, please contact the International Office.

    3Tuition fees

    The University will charge the tuition fees that are stated in the above table for the first Academic Year of study. The University will review tuition fees each year. For Home Students, if Parliament permit an increase in tuition fees, the University may increase fees for each subsequent year of study in line with any such changes. Note that any increase is expected to be in line with inflation.

    For International Students, we may increase fees each year but such increases will be no more than 5% above inflation. If you defer your course start date or have to extend your studies beyond the normal duration of the course (e.g. to repeat a year or resit examinations) the University reserves the right to charge you fees at a higher rate and/or in accordance with any legislative changes during the additional period of study.

    4Facilities

    Due to COVID-19, some facilities (including some teaching and learning spaces) and some non-academic offerings (particularly in relation to international experiences), may vary from those advertised and may have reduced availability or restrictions on their use.

    Student Contract

    By accepting your offer of a place and enrolling with us, a Student Contract will be formed between you and the university. The 2023/24 Contract is currently being updated so please revisit this page before submitting your application. The Contract details your rights and the obligations you will be bound by during your time as a student and contains the obligations that the university will owe to you. You should read the Contract before you accept an offer of a place and before you enrol at the university.

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