English Language and Linguistics with Intercalated Year

English Language and Linguistics is a degree that approaches language as a scientific and humanistic subject of study in its own right, rather than simply as a medium for understanding literature. It investigates how English works as a system: its sounds, grammatical structures, meanings, and the ways speakers use it in social contexts. It asks how language is acquired by children, how it varies across regions and communities, how it changes over time, and how it shapes and is shaped by human thought, identity, and communication.

These are genuinely difficult and fascinating questions, and linguistics brings to them the rigour and precision of scientific inquiry.

At the University of Warwick, this four-year, full-time degree with an intercalated year gives you the chance to immerse yourself in the English language and explore how it shapes human communication, thought, and experience. You will apply linguistic theory to real-world communication challenges, drawing on world-leading research in English language, linguistics, psychology, education, and culture. The intercalated element includes a sandwich year and the options of a year abroad and work placements, providing professional and international experience that complements your academic study.

You will develop as an independent scholar, a critical thinker, and an effective communicator, with quantitative and qualitative research skills that are applicable in a wide range of professional contexts.

English Language and Linguistics graduates work in careers spanning teaching, speech and language therapy, publishing, journalism, computational linguistics, language technology, the civil service, communications, and academic research. The discipline's combination of scientific rigour and humanistic insight is valued wherever clear communication, careful analysis of language, and understanding of how people use words to achieve purposes are important. Postgraduate study in linguistics, applied linguistics, speech and language therapy, or language technology provides routes to more specialised professional and research roles.