Queen's University Belfast

Source: https://www.qub.ac.uk/courses/undergraduate/english-linguistics-ba-qq31/ Parent: https://www.qub.ac.uk/courses/undergraduate/

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Undergraduate 2027

Undergraduate 2025

BA | Undergraduate

English and Linguistics

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Entry year : Academic Year 2027/28

Entry requirements : ABB

Attendance : 3 years (Full-time) \

UCAS Code : QQ31

Overview
Course content
Modules
Entry requirements
Careers
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Students undertaking English and Linguistics at Queen’s explore literatures in English in the widest possible sense. From the earliest writings in Anglo-Saxon to contemporary Irish, British, and ‘global’ literatures, students study English in its historical, cultural and ideological circumstances and material manifestations. Our language\ modules explore language structure and function; the day-to-day use of language, including in the media; and the major influences that have shaped English over the last millennium and a half.

English Studies at Queen’s brings to life an extraordinary heritage, as represented by Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney, where a new generation of award-winning writers and the brand new Seamus Heaney Centre (2024) continue a proud tradition.

Course highlights

Global Opportunities

English at Queen's offers a range of Study Abroad opportunities, from the Turing programme with a range of European partners, to the chance to study at a number of partner institutions in the United States and Canada. We welcome applications from European students who would like to attend Queen's under the Turing programme. This programme enables students from continental Europe, North America, and Australia to take time out from their own institution and spend either one semester or a full academic year at Queen's. We also offer Queen’s English students the chance to study for a full-year at one of our partner universities in Europe and North America thereby extending their 3-year degree into a 4-year degree.

Study USA: This involves 12 months studying business related courses at a U.S. church affiliated university or college. Places are available at one of over 100 institutions from Florida to Montana or California to North Carolina. You don´t need to be from a business background to apply: Study USA is open to full-time pre-final year students of any discipline from Queen's and other Northern Ireland higher education institutions. The Programme is intended to produce graduates with an international, business-orientated perspective capable of making a contribution in advancing the Northern Ireland economy. While on the programme, you will take 5 business related courses/modules along with another course of your choice. Study USA is accredited under the Degree Plus Award through the US Certificate in American Business Practice and well regarded by graduate employers. Applications are made online on the British Council Study USA website. The application form normally becomes available in late October/early November for participation in the programme the following academic year. Students must apply for the programme in their pre-final year and undertake Study USA just before final year.

Industry Links

As well as offering students on our work-based learning module the opportunity to take up placements in schools, business, the media and the arts, we regularly consult and develop links with a large number of employers including, for example, BBC Northern Ireland.

Career Development

Queen's is a member of the Russell Group and, therefore, one of the 20 universities most-targeted by leading graduate employers. Queen's students will be advised and guided about career choice and, through the Degree Plus initiative, will have an opportunity to seek accreditation for skills development and experience gained through the wide range of extra-curricular activities on offer.

Recognising student diversity, as well as promoting employability enhancements and other interests, is part of the developmental experience at Queen's. Students are encouraged to plan and build their own, personal skill and experiential profile through a range of activities including recognised Queen's Certificates, placements and other work experiences (at home or overseas), Turing study options elsewhere in Europe, learning development opportunities and involvement in wider university life through activities, such as clubs, societies, and sports. \ \ Queen's actively encourages this type of activity by offering students an additional qualification, the Degree Plus Award (and the related Researcher Plus Award for PhD and MPhil students).Degree Plus accredits wider experiential and skill development gained through extra-curricular activities that promote the enhancement of academic, career management, personal and employability skills in a variety of contexts. As part of the Award, students are also trained on how to reflect on the experience(s) and make the link between academic achievement, extracurricular activities, transferable skills and graduate employment. Participating students will also be trained in how to reflect on their skills and experiences and can gain an understanding of how to articulate the significance of these to others, e.g. employers. \ \ Overall, these initiatives, and Degree Plus in particular, reward the energy, drive, determination and enthusiasm shown by students engaging in activities over-and-above the requirements of their academic studies. These qualities are amongst those valued highly by graduate employers.

Internationally Renowned Experts

Professor Mark Burnett is a leading scholar of Shakespearean adaptations and their global contexts and his most recent monograph is ‘Hamlet’ and World Cinema, published by Cambridge University Press in 2019. He is the founder and director of the Sir Kenneth Branagh Archive.

Professor Marilina Cesario is an expert on Anglo-Saxon science and collaborates widely with astrophysicists in reassessing our understanding of pre-modern scientific thinking.

Professor Andrew Pepper is an internationally recognised expert on crime fiction as a transnational and transhistorical phenomenon and the author of five crime novels. His research explores the relationship between crime, capitalism, security and race and he has authored and edited numerous books, including Unwilling Executioner: Crime Fiction and the State (Oxford University Press, 2016).

Dr Edel Lamb is an expert on childhood and early modern literature and she is currently completing the first book-length study of writing by girls in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

Dr Alex Murray is an expert in Victorian and modernist literature. He is editor of the international journal, Cusp: Late 19th-/Early 20th-Century Cultures, and his most recent monograph, Decadent Conservatism: Aesthetics, Politics, and the Past, was published by Oxford University Press in 2023.

Dr Gail McConnell is a renowned critic of poetry and an award-winning poet whose first collection, The Sun is Open, published by Penned in the Margins (2021) was the winner of the John Pollard Foundation international poetry prize and the Christopher Ewart-Biggs memorial prize (2022).

Dr Marc Richards’ research and teaching interests are primarily in theoretical and comparative English and Germanic syntax, with further interests in historical linguistics and language change. He is currently completing a monograph on the nature of long-distance dependencies across clause boundaries.

Professor Nick Laird is a recipient of the Betty Trask and Eric Gregory Awards, whose most recent collection is Up Late (Faber, 2023). The central sequence from Up Late won the Forward prize for the best single poem. He is a regular contributor to The New Yorker and the New York Review of Books.

Professor Glenn Patterson is the Rooney Prize and Betty Trask Prize-winning author of ten novels. He is the Director of the Seamus Heaney Centre and writes regularly for BBC Radio Three and Four, The Guardian. His co-authored screenplay for Good Vibrations was nominated for a BAFTA for Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer.

Student Experience

From Personal Tutors to peer mentoring, we work closely with students to ensure they are supported at every stage of their degree.

With Degree-Plus, students have the opportunity to burnish their academic achievements with employment-facing placements and projects.

A thriving cultural scene organised by our undergraduate and postgraduate communities, from the English Society and Poetry and Pints to the Lifeboat and the Yellow Nib, makes studying English at Queen’s a unique proposition.

Students can work with our visiting Fulbright Scholars, leading US academics who spend a semester at Queen’s each year.

https://www.qub.ac.uk/directorates/degreeplus/

https://www.facebook.com/QubEnglishSociety

Further Study Opportunities

Students can apply for cognate postgraduate taught modules in the Faculty such as:\ \ MA in Linguistics\ MA in English Literary Studies\ MA in Media and Broadcast Production\ MA in Poetry: Creativity and Criticism\ MA in Creative Writing\ MSc in Software Development (conversion course)\ MLaw (conversion course)\ PGCE in Education\ \ Alternatively, we offer a research-led MRes in Arts and Humanities.

Graduate stories from English MA students\ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qNMKqex50o

Shirley-Anne McMillan, BA English graduate\ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3c_qt_vKD1k

Graduate stories from English MA students\ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qNMKqex50o

Shirley-Anne McMillan, BA English graduate\ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3c_qt_vKD1k

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[##### Your Future Career

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[##### Student Accommodation

The most affordable, purpose-built student accommodation in Belfast.](https://www.qub.ac.uk/accommodation/)

Course location

Arts, English and Languages

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