The University of Birmingham is a public research university located in Edgbaston, Birmingham, United Kingdom. It received its royal charter in 1900 as a successor to Queen's College, Birmingham, and Mason Science College, making it the first English civic or 'red brick' university to receive its own royal charter. The University have a long and proud history of firsts, at the University of Birmingham; they were the first – and are now one of the largest - civic universities in the UK.

At Birmingham, the institution teach and research across the full breadth of academic disciplines, creating a vibrant community with multi-disciplinary opportunities for research and education. The University is a truly international community consisting of more than thousands of staff, students, and alumni. The student community is not only one of the largest of any UK university, it is highly diverse, with 82 per cent of home undergraduate students from state schools, 32 per cent from a BAME background, and 35 per cent in the first generation of their family to attend university.

You will study four core modules and two optional modules before completing your 15,000 word dissertation.

Core modules
You will study four core modules:

Describing Language
This module provides a grounding in the analysis of the lexis and grammar of English. You are introduced to essential concepts and terminology in the field, and gain practice in analysing naturally-occurring language using the models (e.g. pattern grammar) discussed. There is some emphasis on the application of such analysis to the study of language in social context.
Assessment: 2 x 2,000-word essays

Discourse Culture and Intercultural Communication
This module aims to lead students to consider discourse production and reception as they are conditioned by their interactional, social, historical, political and cultural contexts and, in doing so, develop their awareness of what is involved in ‘situated’ discourse. Grounded in a view that culture is to a significant extent discursive – that is, based upon and realised by the ways in which we talk to each other about ‘ourselves’ and about ‘others’ – we take a critical linguistic and intercultural approach to our subject matter, hoping to draw upon the variety of students’ own cultural backgrounds as a basis for discussion and contrastive analysis.

The module will provide a critical overview of major theories in Discourse Studies and Intercultural Communication, but also aims to develop more practical, analytic skills – training students to identify patterns of organisation and discursive strategies in authentic written and oral texts, drawn from various sources (e.g. media, advertising, political speeches / interviews, casual conversation, etc.). We thus hope to enable students to develop a critical understanding of key concepts in, and approaches to, Discourse Analysis and of how language reflects, mediates or – arguably – creates our (various) everyday realities. Further, we aim to develop awareness of the increasing need for – and the problems involved in – communication across cultural boundaries of language(s), style(s) and value(s) in the context of ‘globalisation’.

Assessment: 4000-word essay, or report on a small-scale research project concerning some aspect of interdiscursive / intercultural communication.

Research Methods in Applied Linguistics
This module aims to provide you with a grounding in approaches to and methods of research in Applied Linguistics.
Assessment: 4,000-word essay

Sociolinguistics
This module explores the relationship between language and society, examining how variation in language structure is distributed across different aspects of society, for example, the correlation between the use of particular linguistic forms and social class groups, genders, age groups and geographical areas. The module considers the associations that develop between aspects of a speaker's identity and different linguistic forms, the role of prestige (overt and covert), stigmatisation and the significance of one's social networks and communities, and how these facets of variation lead to changes in the English language.
Assessment: One 4,000-word final project report or essay

Optional modules
You will also choose two optional modules from a range which may include the following:

Bilingualism and Multilingualism in the TESOL Classroom
Business Discourse and Communication
Corpus Assisted Language Learning
English as an International Language
Language and Gesture
Language and Politics
Language and New Media
Language, Gender and Identity
Language Teaching Training
Multimodal Communication
Lexicography
Psycholinguistics in TESOL
For more information, see our English Language and Linguistics module descriptions.

Dissertation
In addition to your taught modules, you will conduct a piece of independent research with the support of a supervisor, culminating in a 15,000-word dissertation.

Academic Writing Course
In addition, you will be offered a course in Academic Writing. Those whose first language is not English are particularly encouraged to follow this course.

Please note that the optional module information listed on the website for this programme is intended to be indicative, and the availability of optional modules may vary from year to year. Where a module is no longer available we will let you know as soon as we can and help you to make other choices.

You will need to book the accommodation after you have been accepted.

You can choose to live on campus or off campus in private accommodation.

• Make a booking online after you have been accepted (in this case please let us know your choice when you apply).
• Register when you arrive - its not possible to reserve a room before arriving. You can arrive a few days before and book it