The programme aims to develop students' engagement with the language, history, literature, culture and society of the country. Through intense training in the target language students will acquire near-native fluency. The programme offers society the resource of intellectually trained individuals capable of acting as conduits of knowledge and understanding between British and non-British cultures. By enhancing the linguistic, literary, and critical faculties of individual students, the programme prepares them to contribute to a society in which an understanding of texts of all kinds is crucially important. Students undertaking this programme will be exceptionally well placed to pursue post-graduate research. Graduates will also be very well placed to enter employment where linguistic skills are of special value, e.g. education, translating and interpreting, international business, the civil service, the non-governmental sector, the creative industries.