Please note, this course is scheduled to launch in September 2011.

The MA in Literary Linguistics places the development of a vocabulary for linguistic description within the context of reflection on the ways in which texts construct and reflect dominant cultural and political understandings.

Drawing on a repertoire of approaches with which to undertake analyses of literary texts, the MA introduces a range of techniques appropriate to a variety of text types including prose fiction, poetry and drama. The course also considers recent developments in the study of literary linguistics which came out of the desire for social and contextual analysis in the study of language. Here the focus is on the situation of production and the reception of texts and discusses approaches including critical discourse analysis, cognitive poetics, text world theory as well as various techniques of analysis based in the study of pragmatic stylistics.

Course Structure and Content

The course has three core modules: Literary Linguistics I, Literary Linguistics II and A History of English. These introduce key approaches that have been taken to the linguistic study of literary texts through the history of the discipline, recent developments in the study of literary linguistics, and socio-historical/linguistic changes in English focusing on Old English, Middle English, Early Modern English and Modern Standard English as well as non-standard varieties and World-Wide English. In addition, you will identify a field of study of particular interest to you and write a dissertation.

Current students can view more information by selecting the module below.

• Translation Theory
• Creole Linguistics
• Cross-cultural communication
• Reading/Re-reading I
• Reading/Re-reading II 
• Re-reading Modernism 
• Victorian Explorations
• Reading London
• Syntax
• Phonetics
• Phonology

For an informal discussion about the MA Literary Linguistics programme please contact the course director Louise Sylvester L.Sylvester1@westminster.ac.uk