Contemporary Craft and English Language

Contemporary craft and English language is a degree that brings together hands-on creative making with the systematic study of language as a human phenomenon. Contemporary craft is a practice rooted in the traditions of making, including ceramics, textiles, metalwork, jewellery and mixed-media work, now understood in dialogue with design thinking, material culture studies and the contemporary art world. English language as a linguistic discipline is concerned not with literature but with how language works: its structures and systems, its variation across communities and contexts, its acquisition by children and second-language learners, and its use in social interaction.

At Liverpool Hope University, this three-year programme places these two disciplines in productive relationship with each other. The craft strand, which the university describes as focused on hands-on design and making within a supportive community of emerging makers, develops your practical and design capabilities across materials and processes, building toward a distinctive creative practice. The English language strand develops your understanding of phonetics, morphology, syntax, semantics, sociolinguistics and discourse analysis, providing a rigorous scientific perspective on the medium of human communication.

The programme includes a sandwich year, a year abroad and work placement opportunities, providing structured routes to develop professional and international experience in both aspects of your degree.

The combination is unusual and trains complementary forms of precision: the material precision of craft work and the analytical precision of linguistic study. Both require close attention, careful iteration and the development of a discriminating eye.

Graduates go on to careers as craft practitioners, designers, makers, language teachers, speech and language therapists (with further training), workshop facilitators, arts educators, community arts workers and in publishing, communications and education. Further study in craft, linguistics, education or a related area is also a natural route.