English and Modern Languages

专业详情

The English side of the course offers you a choice of options covering a comprehensive span of literature written in the English language from its origins in Anglo-Saxon through to works produced in English-speaking countries across the world in the present day. The Modern Language study will give you practical linguistic training, encourage you to think coherently about language as a subject of study and introduce you to the extensive and fascinating literatures and thought written in European Languages.

The English Faculty is the largest in the UK, and the Modern Languages Faculty is one of the largest, with teaching staff including major scholars in all areas of the respective subjects. Library provision at Oxford is excellent: all students have access to the English Faculty Library, the Taylor Institution Library (for languages), the Bodleian Library, including the Weston Library’s collection of manuscripts and rare editions and their own college libraries, as well as many online resources.

The course is extremely flexible. In the first year you will do practical work in your chosen language and study a selection of important texts from its literature. On the English side, you will be introduced to the conceptual and technical tools used in the study of language and literature, and to a range of different critical assumptions and approaches. You will also do tutorial work on either early medieval, Victorian or modern literature originally written in English. In the second year, a variety of options will be available. Work in your modern language will continue alongside the study of literature from a wide range of periods in English and in your language. The third year of this four-year course is spent abroad. On your return, you will choose from a range of special option papers in both English and Modern Languages, and in comparative literature. The final-year dissertation provides an opportunity to write an extended research piece either on a chosen topic in English language or literature, or a comparative topic bringing together studies in both English and your chosen language.