BA (Hons) English Literature and Language Bachelor's degree at Westminster

Teaching and learning takes place in small groups, with students meeting their tutor on a weekly basis. The content of the tutorials is tailored to the group and used to develop a grasp and understanding of the degree as a whole at Level 4, to support the development of academic and research study skills, and to prepare for the synoptic essay.

This module gives you the knowledge and skills necessary to start analysing and describing the English language systematically (according to grammar, morphology and phonology) and prepares you for future modules at Level 5. The module develops your theoretical awareness of spoken and written mediums, how they are structured, and how they can be used as linguistic data. It also gives you a thorough understanding of the concepts of style, register and genre, and introduces you to some of the main

This module introduces a series of 'keywords' that have been historically central to the study of literature, and explores these in relation to specific critical approaches to, and theoretical understandings of, literary works.

This module investigates how language works in texts, and how texts produce their effects through examination of writers' lexical and grammatical choices. Students analyse how writers' linguistic choices indicate the attitudes of characters and narrators, and represent characters as powerful or passive. Students discover how analysing the language of literary texts differs from the approaches taken by literary scholars.

This module examines English around the world as an international, intra-national, native, second, and foreign language. It considers the distinctive features of these varieties and the social and cultural implications of English as a global language. British varieties of English may be referred to as examples in the introductory part of the module but are not the main content or part of the assessment.

This module introduces some of the most exciting developments in poetry over the last 200 years. It examines how poetry intervenes in the modern world, exploring the role poetic form plays in the poet's critique of key social and political issues. Spanning work from William Wordsworth to Frank O'Hara, Emily Dickinson to Nat Raha, the module considers issues such as the role of poetry and the poet, the politics of form, poetry's engagement with political resistance, social reform, gender, the bod

This module samples a generic mix of Shakespeare's plays and provides a broad introduction to contemporary Shakespeare study. The specific forms of Shakespearean drama are explored not only in their early modern contexts, including the performance practices of the time, but also in terms of other key approaches and topics in current Shakespeare performance, criticism and theory.

This core module is central to the English Literature and Language degree, supporting you in the development of your ability to synthesise your studies on your core and option modules throughout your second year of study. Teaching and learning take place in small groups; you will meet your tutor on a weekly basis. The content of the tutorials is partly tailored to the needs of the group, and partly used to develop a wider synoptic engagement with the degree as a whole (working towards the final

This module focuses on the role of the reader to the process of textual interpretation. You will be introduced to topics in cognitive poetics to examine the ways in which readers combine their real-world knowledge and their understanding of characters to create discourse worlds, and how they respond to cues in texts to build an understanding of text worlds.

The module gives you an overview of the history of the English language and focuses on specific lexical and syntactic variants present throughout the ages. It considers texts as discourses in order to demonstrate the varied history of English in all its historical forms through to the present day.

The module provides you with the necessary tools to analyse spoken texts in terms of the phonological, lexical, morphosyntactic, and discourse features they display. Texts are analysed as products of discourse, that is, language that is situated in, and takes significance from, particular times and places, and is constructed with a particular purpose.

This module examines the development of different aspects of language in the early years. Within the module, you will focus on the development of (1) phonological abilities (how children perceive and produce words), (2) syntactic abilities (how children combine words to form phrases and sentences), (3) lexical and semantic abilities (how children build their vocabulary and map words and meanings), and (4) morphological abilities (how children acquire inflections). It also discusses theories whic

This module introduces you to the key debates and concepts that have been central to the formation of current understandings of memory, and its relationship to culture, history, and representation. Sample topics include slavery and its contemporary legacies; the Holocaust; and 9/11.

This module explores literature's claims to 'represent' reality. It focuses on the emergence, development and contestation of realist aesthetics in literature from the rise of the English novel in the 18th century to the present. It investigates how these aesthetics have been challenged and consolidated, and on the many forms of realism that now constitute literature as a result.

This module is an introduction to the theory and practice of learning and teaching and is designed for individuals with little or no teaching experience. You are introduced to major pedagogic theories which have been influential in recent decades and invited to look at them critically. The main currents of contemporary education are explored in relation to practice and extended to broader contexts such as community and outreach education. You are introduced to some techniques commonly used to en

This module examines the literature, society and politics of the Victorian period, an age of considerable change and upheaval. Through close consideration of a range of texts – including poems, novels and visual material – you'll consider responses to pressing social and political issues such as industrialisation and the 'Condition of England', scientific developments, faith and doubt, psychology and the mind, gender, sexuality, imperialism and the empire, and decadence and the fin de siècle.

This module examines the literary innovations of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, relating these developments to the period's central religious, social, and political upheavals. The module examines an array of literary and theatrical experimentation, emphasising works of the late Elizabethan period through to the English Revolution. It is organised in three thematic groups: religion, the social individual, and power and politics. The themes identify the transformations not only inspiring

This module interrogates cultural constructions of the present by putting the contemporary into conversation with the past. The module will historicise current social concerns and aesthetic forms to question how and why particular cultural flashpoints have become so important. In so doing, this module asks students to question the value of literature today.

This module is an independent study module in which you plan and carry out a small year-long research project into a language topic of your choice resulting in the writing of a dissertation. The choice of topic, project planning and final writing up is supported throughout the year by a designated supervisor who meets with you on an individual basis and through regular workshops run by the module leader.

In this module, you'll explore the English novel after 1950 through the lens of temporality. You'll examine how the legacy of modernism and the events of the Second World War challenged ideas about the relationship between past, present, and future. The module will guide you through the conceptual debates these challenges provoked and show how they influenced the shape and form of the novel. You'll focus particularly on novels that have most clearly experimented with formal conventions.