History and Modern Languages

History and modern languages is a combination that reflects a natural intellectual affinity: both disciplines are concerned with how people understood the world in particular places and times, and each enriches the other. History develops the skills of analysing sources, understanding causation, and constructing evidence-based arguments about how and why events unfolded as they did. A modern language, studied to degree level, opens direct access to literary and historical sources in their original form, to the culture of the countries concerned, and to professional contexts where linguistic competency has real value.

Historians who know French, German or Spanish can engage with archival and scholarly material from those traditions in ways that translation can never fully replicate.

At the University of Southampton you will study history alongside French, German or Spanish over four years of full-time study. You will have access to historians who work across a wide range of periods, from the Classical world to the present, and across many geographical areas, allowing you to build a degree that reflects your particular historical interests. The language component develops your communicative proficiency alongside your understanding of the culture, literature and history of the countries where it is spoken.

The typical tariff of 136 reflects a programme that is demanding in both its historical and linguistic content and that rewards intellectual breadth and commitment over the full four years.

Graduates work in the civil service, international organisations, education, journalism, publishing, heritage, the diplomatic service, human resources, law and a wide range of professional roles where the combination of historical analysis and language ability is genuinely useful. The foreign language competency is particularly valuable in international roles, in organisations that operate across European borders, and in academic or cultural institutions with significant foreign-language collections or programmes. Many graduates go on to postgraduate study in history, modern languages, area studies, international relations or education.