Course Overview

This recently introduced MA is an innovative programme specifically designed to give you the competence to undertake empirical work in discourse studies by drawing on both linguistic and social theory. The MA enables you to explore discourse in areas such as politics, business and media, whilst developing skills in a range of analytical methods. Support for your studies is provided by the non-credit Postgraduate Academic Study Skills module which runs in terms 1, 2 and 3.

Core modules:

  • Introduction to Discourse Studies
  • Critical Discourse Analysis
  • Pragmatics
  • Research Methods in Linguistics and English Language
  • Dissertation

Plus two optional modules from:

  • Corpus Linguistics
  • Gender and Language
  • Language, Literacies and Digital Communication
  • Sociolinguistics
  • Stylistics

There is some flexibility to increase the scope of the dissertation and to reduce or add optional modules if you have already covered a core area in depth. In exceptional circumstances we permit high achieving students with significant experience of discourse analysis to achieve the MA entirely through dissertation.