Communications and Linguistics BA (Hons)

Some optional modules may be studied on the City campus.

Core modules

Applying Methods in Linguistics

This module will introduce you to a range of methods of data collection, project design and data analysis. You’ll acquire the skills and methods which will help prepare you for your dissertation in the final year. At the end of the module, you’ll be required to produce a research proposal in response to a simulated real-world briefing.

Mirror Mirror on the Wall: Explorations of Identity and Selfhood

Today the concept of ‘identity’ stands as a key term within many different academic disciplines, including geography, history and philosophy, as well as sociology and psychology. However, there is a considerable gap or discrepancy between common sense and more formal academic understandings of identity. This module aims to introduce you to these important debates – starting with our common sense and moving steadily towards more radical understandings of the nature of identity and selfhood.

Humanities in the workplace

This module will give you a taste of live industry experience. You will complete a placement for a minimum of 37 hours and write a report around your experience including clear work-based learning objectives.

Linguistics optional modules

Communication Disorders

The Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists estimates that 2.5 million people in the UK have a communication disorder. Of this number, 800,000 people have a disorder that is so severe that it’s hard for anyone outside their immediate families to understand them.

This module will introduce you to the full range of developmental and acquired communication disorders that make up these large numbers.

Sociolinguistics

Language variation refers to the way in which language changes in response to different social practices. Common sense tells us that language varies with situation and in the course of this module we will explore the different aspects of language variation, drawing on your own experiences and perceptions of language use. For instance we are aware of different accents and dialects across the country; we can all vary our language depending on whether we are talking to an adult or a child.

The aim of this module is to raise your awareness of the linguistic consequences of the contexts of culture and situation.

Language and Discrimination

Whether it’s racial abuse on social media, prejudice against regional accents in schools, or sexist advertising campaigns, discrimination is a social issue that affects us all in one way or another. This module examines how discrimination is encoded in language use in a range of institutional and everyday contexts, in order to equip you with the necessary tools to identify and challenge societal inequality in all its forms.

Discourse Analysis

Discourse analysis is the study of naturally occurring language across extended texts, both spoken and written. The module begins by surveying the various approaches and issues within discourse analysis, before introducing a critical element to analysis and finally applying the methods across a range of discourse types. The module aims to provide a systematic linguistic toolkit for analysing discourse, and to show how the tools can be applied to a wide range of spoken and written texts. It also aims to offer a solid grounding for all of the third year modules in the Discourse pathway.

Communications optional modules

Advertising, Public Relations and Journalism 1: The New Creativity

This module explores at a practical and theoretical level the new modes of creativity which are transforming working methods in the contemporary economy. You'll study the histories of advertising, public relations and journalism. You'll look at the intersections between economic developments, forms of communicative and media technology and the evolution of modern psychology and sociology that have resulted in a proliferation of new types of creativity.

Communications and Creativity Toolkit

On this module you'll learn new skills and discover new ways of expanding your understanding of communications and creative industries. You'll combine insights from a range of disciplines and creative practices to generate a 'toolkit' for both the intellectual understanding of communications and creativity, and the practical development of creative practices in various forms.

Gender and Sexuality

‘Gender’ and ‘sexuality’ are key terms within psychology, social theory and ordinary everyday life. They are terms with which all of us are familiar. However, as this module will show, despite this familiarity, these concepts are highly complex – and, indeed, contested. During this module you'll look at the ways in which gender and sexuality have been theorised from a range of different social scientific perspectives.

Media and Culture in Asia

This module provides an insight into contemporary media development and cultural change in East Asia, placing this in the context of broader historical, economic and cultural debates. It will examine a wide range of media forms including print media, broadcasting, film and new media technologies, assessing their cultural impact in East Asian societies. It will explore contemporary issues of media development and policy and it will relate these to longer historical contexts.

Digital Identities: The Politics of Communication in the Globalised World

This module will develop your understanding of core themes in the study of communications and media. Four interlinking blocks of study take you from the formation of the communicating self through to further examinations of social, digital and global facets of contemporary communications.

Some optional modules may be studied on the City campus.

Core module

Dissertation

The final year dissertation module enables you to undertake a sustained, single piece of independently researched work on a topic of your choice, under expert supervision.

OR

Humanities Research Project

Explore your interests in a way that draws on both subject areas. Combine the knowledge and skills you have gained in each of your subjects to complete an interdisciplinary piece of research. You can deliver your project either as a written dissertation or through an alternative creative format such as a publication, film, podcast, website, or performance, supported by a shorter essay.

Linguistics optional modules

Psycholinguistics

This module will allow you to look at language from a psychological perspective. This will relate the psychology of language to theories of learning, mind and brain as well as dealing with particular aspects of society and culture. By the end of this module you’ll be aware of the central issues of psycholinguistic research and will have an understanding of the various methodologies and experiments which have been carried out within this field of study.

Language, Gender and Sexuality

This module will explore key aspects of the study of language and gender, such as theories of language and gender (difference, dominance, discursive approaches), sexist language and language change, language and gender in different contexts (e.g. in the media, in books etc.). It will offer insight into the ways in which research on language and gender has developed and diversified since the 1970s, and in particular how it has responded to the 'post-structuralist challenge' and the shift to discourses and to gender identities. The module will provide you with an opportunity to explore and critically evaluate the discursive construction of both femininities and masculinities, in theoretical and practical ways.

Clinical Linguistics

In this module you’ll be invited to apply your knowledge of language structure and function to a clinical context. A range of child and adult communication disorders will be examined. You’ll be introduced to the anatomical, physiological, psychological, audiological and neurological pathologies that underlie disorders of foetal development (e.g. cleft palate), disorders of cognitive development (e.g. Down's syndrome and autism), congenital disorders (e.g. cerebral palsy), acquired neurological disorders (e.g. stroke, brain tumour, dementia, motor neurone disease, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's disease, head trauma), acquired speech disorders (e.g. glossectomy, dysarthria), hearing disorders (genetic and infection-related), disorders of fluency (e.g. stammering) and disorders of voice (e.g. puberphonia in adolescent males, laryngectomy, vocal nodules and polyps).

Forensic Linguistics

Communications optional modules

Advertising, Public Relations and Journalism 2: Convergence and Creativity in the Digital Age

This module continues to develop your appreciation of the history, practice and theory of advertising, public relations and journalism. An important recent evolution of these forms in the digital age is characterised by what is known as ‘convergence’. This concept encapsulates the way individuals working in these sectors increasingly have to take on a variety of roles which cut across the traditional boundaries of each sector and learn to use a variety of working practices and technologies.

As well as continuing to study theoretical and critical academic perspectives on these developments, you'll take part in workshops to help you further develop the writing, digital literacy and image analysis/creation skills that are central to success in these areas.

Self in Crisis: Power, Prejudice and Otherness

This module brings together a range of debates in contemporary society about the nature of identity or selfhood that centre around claims that it is, in various ways, in a profound state of crisis. One part of this module will consider these ideas through a social-psychological examination of one of the most frightening crises of the 20th Century – the Nazi attempt to exterminate the Jews.

DJ Cultures: History, Theory and Technique

From obscure roots, the art of DJing has in recent decades exploded into the limelight as a major form of popular culture. No prior experience of DJing is required to take this module, which combines a basic ‘taster’ introduction to DJ technology and the practical techniques of DJ performance with a theoretical consideration of various styles of DJing, their histories, their related musical experiences and their wider cultural significance and influence.

Humanity in the Natural World

This module helps you to look at the relation between humanity and nature from psychological, cultural, and historical perspectives. You’ll examine questions such as: Is industrial civilisation simply an extension of nature? Is the 'environmental crisis' a symptom of a deeper alienation from the natural world? You'll also consider whether capitalism and technology are inherently destructive to nature, and will assess the possibility of 'greening' industrial civilisation.

Political Communications and Society

The module will look at the ways in which the political establishment, and individuals engage in politics, communicate with society in times of war and peace. You'll focus mainly on British and American politics but some light will be shed on other countries across the world.

What's New: the future of media communications

This module looks at innovations and challenges that face media communications professionals as they look to the future. Using practical assessments such as blog writing, producing a radio advertisement and making an audio slideshow, students will advance their media skills in preparation for future employment as digital, multi-media producers. You will examine the issues, ideas and debates which contemporary journalism and marketing have to engage with, such as the funding and accessibility of news on the internet, the nature and trends of popular content, new styles and forms of presentation and the blurring of fantasy and reality in digital communications.