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What makes English Language and English Literature at Worcester special?

Studying a joint honours in degree in English Language and English Literature lets you develop a well-rounded understanding of how the spoken and written components of language shape how literature is produced. You’ll acquire analytical skills through examining speeches, texts, and prose through the frameworks of various theoretical concepts. As you develop a critical awareness of the relationship between texts and their contexts you will see how language shapes our worlds and brings thoughts to life.

The course provides a supportive learning environment through lectures, seminars, and workshops led by specialist staff. Students graduate with a broad range of communication skills transferrable across multiple industries.

Overview

Overview

Key features

  • Develop evaluation and reflection of linguistic and stylistic choices
  • Study diverse literatures emanating from the sixteenth through to the twenty-first centuries – and encompassing both ‘canonical’ and ‘marginal’ texts
  • Clear focus on the socio-cultural aspects of language use and an emphasis on the development of research skills with opportunities to present research outcomes through a student conference in the final year
  • Opportunities to play an active role in local and regional literature festivals, related events and a work project module
  • Integrated Certificate in English Language Teaching to Adults (CELTA), enhancing your professional portfolio  
  • Tailor your course to your individual needs with a joint honours degree 
Entry requirements

Entry requirements

104
UCAS tariff points

Entry requirements

104 UCAS tariff points

Other information

If you have any questions about entry requirements, please contact the Admissions Office on 01905 855111 or email admissions@worc.ac.uk for advice.

Further information about the UCAS Tariff can be obtained from the UCAS website.

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The modules enable students to follow a very broad range of subject areas, which gives excellent experience for the future

Kelly Laydon, English Language graduate

Course content

Course content

Our courses are informed by research and current developments in the discipline and feedback from students, external examiners and employers. Modules do therefore change periodically in the interests of keeping the course relevant and reflecting best practice. The most up-to-date information will be available to you once you have accepted a place and registered for the course. If there are insufficient numbers of students interested in an optional module, this might not be offered, but we will advise you as soon as possible and help you choose an alternative. 

Year 1

Mandatory

  • General Linguistics
  • Intro to TEFL: Language Awareness 
  • Intro to TEFL: Teaching Skills
  • Literary Forms and Genres
  • Ways of Reading, Ways of Writing
  • Writing Worcester Past and Present

Year 2

Mandatory

  • Exploding the Canon: Literary Theory and Practice
  • Sociolinguistic Theory and Practice 
  • TEFL: Access to CELTA

Optional

  • Language and Power
  • Work Placement Module
  • Movement and Migration
  • Politics, Sex and Identity in the Early Modern World
  • Shakespeare: Stage, Page and Screen
  • Gothic and Romantic Literature
  • Spaces of Modernity
  • Children’s Literature
  • Work Project Module

Year 3

Optional

  • World Englishes
  • Style and Identity
  • History of English
  • Advanced Language Analysis
  • Independent Research Project
  • Justice and Revenge: from Tragedy to the Western
  • Postcolonial Encounters
  • Writing and the Environment
  • War and Conflict
  • Gendering Voices
  • Literatures and Cultures: International Explorations
  • Queer Bodies, Queer Texts
  • Literature and Culture – Local Heritage
  • Metamorphoses: Literature and Adaptation
2 female students and 1 male student working at table

Joint Honours

Discover our full range of joint degrees and read about how your degree will be structured.

Find out more about studying a joint honours course
Teaching and assessment

Teaching and assessment

For more information about teaching, learning and assessment on this course, please see the course pages for English Language (joint honours) and English Literature BA (Hons).

Programme specifications

For comprehensive details on the aims and intended learning outcomes of the course, and the means by which these are achieved through learning, teaching and assessment, please download the latest English Language programme specification and English Literature programme specification documents.

Meet the team

You will be taught by a teaching team whose expertise and knowledge are closely matched to the content of the modules on the course.

Professor Nicoleta Cinpoes, Head of English, Media & Culture

Professor Nicoleta Cinpoes

Nicoleta Cinpoes joined the University of Worcester in 2007. She teaches Renaissance Literature, is International Exchanges Liaison for the Institute of Arts and Humanities and co-director of Worcester's Early Modern Research Group.

She has edited Doing Kyd: A Collection of Critical Essays on the Spanish Tragedy for Manchester University Press (2016) and is currently collaborating on a new Romanian translation of Shakespeare's complete works, writing introductions to Hamlet (2010), Titus Andronicus, Measure for Measure, The Merchant of Venice and The Comedy of Errors.

Professor Jean Webb, Professor of International Children's Literature

Professor Jean Webb

Jean Webb is Director of the International Forum for Research in Childrens Literature which provides a focus for literary, cultural and socio-historical scholarly enquiry into writing for children, internationally. She teaches a broad range of undergraduate modules on nineteenth and twentieth century literature, and is responsible for specialist modules in children's literature. She is also an experienced PhD supervisor and examiner.

Dr Lucy Arnold

Dr Lucy Arnold is a specialist in Contemporary literature, with particular research interests in contemporary gothic, narratives of haunting, contemporary women’s writing and psychoanalytic criticism. Her teaching experience spans a wide range of periods and genres but focusses on twentieth and twenty-first century literature. Her published work to date has concerned the writing of Booker Prize winning novelist Hilary Mantel, with her monograph, Reading Hilary Mantel: Haunted Decades, published with Bloomsbury in 2019.

Dr Sharon Young

Dr Sharon Young is a  Fellow of the HEA and her teaching interests include, Renaissance, Restoration and eighteenth-century literature, women's poetry, and literary theory.

Sharon's research focuses mainly on women's poetry of the early modern period, Renaissance revenge tragedy and women's manuscript culture. Sharon has published on female poets and the critical debates of the early eighteenth century and Mary Leapor. 

Dr Whitney Standlee, Senior Lecturer in English Literature

Dr Whitney Standlee

Dr Whitney Standlee is a specialist in literature of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, with particular research interests in Irish women’s writing and migrant literature. Her publications include two recent books on the subject of Irish women’s writing.

Whitney teaches on a range of core and elective modules at all levels, all of which deal at least in part with nineteenth- and early twentieth century literature.

Careers

Careers

Our English Language and English Literature degree provides continuous opportunities to develop employability skills and includes work experience options, on an optional work project module. There is a range of opportunities to study for a semester abroad in Europe and the USA in the second semester of the second year. 

Many graduates of English Language and English Literature will take a postgraduate education course as a fourth year of study and enter the teaching profession. Others will find that the skills acquired through the study of English Language are particularly highly regarded in all professions where good communication skills are prized such as publishing, journalism, public relations, human resources and web-based communication.

Graduates also often take a certificate in TEFL and become teachers of English as a second language at home or abroad. Those graduates who achieve particularly good results in their first degree may choose to progress to a Masters course, which will then often lead to a career as a researcher or further study to PhD. Many students progress to careers requiring good communication skills such as Public Relations or develop research careers with media or publishing companies.

Two students are walking next to each other and smiling

Careers and Employability

Our Graduates pursue exciting and diverse careers in a wide variety of employment sectors.

Find out how we can support you to achieve your potential
Costs

Fees and funding

Full-time tuition fees

UK and EU students

The Government has announced that it will increase tuition fees and maintenance loans by 3.1% from the 2025/26 academic cycle. Subject to approval, the University intends to increase our tuition fees in line with this and as per our terms and conditions. This means that from September 2025 the standard fee for full-time home and EU undergraduate students enrolling on BA/BSc/LLB degrees and FdA/FdSc degrees will be £9,535 per year.

For more details on course fees, please visit our course fees page.

International students

The standard tuition fee for full-time international students enrolling on BA/BSc/LLB degrees and FdA/FdSc degrees in the 2025/26 academic year is £16,700 per year.

For more details on course fees, please visit our course fees page.

Part-time tuition fees

UK and EU students

The Government has announced that it will increase tuition fees and maintenance loans by 3.1% from the 2025/26 academic cycle. Subject to approval, the University intends to increase our tuition fees in line with this and as per our terms and conditions. This means that from September 2025 the tuition fees for part-time UK and EU students on BA/BSc/LLB degrees and FdA/FdSc degrees will be £1,190.83 per 15-credit module, £1,587.77 per 20-credit module, £2,381.66 per 30-credit module, £3,175.55 per 40-credit module, £3,572.50 per 45-credit module and £4,763.32 per 60 credit module.

For more details on course pages, please visit our course fees page.

Additional costs

Every course has day-to-day costs for basic books, stationery, printing and photocopying. The amounts vary between courses.

If your course offers a placement opportunity, you may need to pay for an Enhanced Disclosure & Barring Service (DBS) check.

Accommodation

Finding the right accommodation is paramount to your university experience. Our halls of residence are home to friendly student communities, making them great places to live and study.

We have over 1,000 rooms across our range of student halls. With rooms to suit every budget and need, from our 'Traditional Halls' at £131 per week to 'Ensuite Premium Halls' at £228 per week (2025/26 prices).

For full details visit our accommodation page.
How to apply

How to apply

English Language and English Literature BA (Hons) - QQ23 

UCAS is the central organisation through which applications are processed for entry onto full-time undergraduate courses in Higher Education in the UK.

Read our How to apply pages for more information on applying and to find out what happens to your application.

UCAS Code

QQ23

Apply Via UCAS

Get in touch

If you have any questions, please get in touch. We're here to help you every step of the way.

Admissions Office

admissions@worc.ac.uk
01905 855111

Dr Sharon Young

Admissions Tutor, English Literature
s.young@worc.ac.uk
01905 542428

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