Language powers literature and is fundamental to everything we do: it helps us communicate ideas, express our feelings, persuade, and present ourselves to different audiences. English Language and Linguistics is therefore an ideal complement to literature, where an understanding of how language works is important. Combining theoretical and practical elements, the programme explores both the structure of language and its relationship with culture, society, and the mind. A broad choice of theoretical topics encompasses such areas as syntax, phonetics and phonology, morphology, sociolinguistics, language acquisition, semantics, pragmatics, literary stylistics and critical and cultural theory, while modules in language learning and teaching, creative and media writing, and language and media have a more vocational focus. Within the English and American Literature element of your degree, you study traditional areas (such as Shakespeare or Dickens) and examine American works.