MA/Diploma English Language Studies

About the course

1 year full-time/2 years part-time

You'll study the social, cultural and historical complexities of the English language. There are two pathways available: The Literary Linguistics Pathway examines a range of approaches to literary linguistic study including cognitive poetics, corpus stylistics and narratology; the Social and Historical Approaches Pathway gives you the opportunity to investigate complex real-world language problems in different social and historical contexts.

Entry requirements

You'll need a first or 2:1 undergraduate degree in linguistics, English language and/or literature.

English language requirements

Overall IELTS grade of 7.0 with a minimum of 6.0 in Reading, 6.5 in Writing, 6.0 in Listening and 6.0 in Speaking, or equivalent.

Entry requirements for international students

Core modules

• Texts and Contexts
• Research Methods
• Language and Literature in the Workplace

Optional modules

• Literary Linguistics Pathway
• Literary Language
• Narrative and Cognition
• Literary Language: History and Culture
• Social and Historical Approaches Pathway: Language and History
• Language and Interaction

Teaching

• Seminars
• Workshops
• In the second semester you'll have the opportunity to pursue a work placement at a local school, museum, library or business

Assessment

• Essays
• In-class presentations

Fees and funding

Financial information for postgraduate taught courses

Any questions?

If you'd like to know more about any aspect of our courses, contact us:

Jackie Elkington
E: j.elkington@sheffield.ac.uk
T: +44 (0)114 222 0211

Where your masters can take you

Our courses will prepare you for a range of careers. For an academic career, you may choose to continue to PhD study, either at Sheffield or elsewhere. Your skills will be useful in many other jobs. Our past graduates are working in teaching (primary, secondary, FE, HE and TESOL), publishing, marketing, librarianship, fund-raising and charity administration.

Why your masters matters

You'll benefit from our expertise in language acquisition, historical language studies, applied linguistics, literary linguistics, discourse analysis and sociolinguistics. Our enthusiastic staff publish internationally. We have a lively research culture and collaborate with scholars in Sheffield and beyond.

Our courses will introduce you to the latest ideas and concepts in English language studies and linguistics. You'll have the opportunity to explore these ideas in your own research.

Along with the School of Modern Languages and Linguistics, we established the new University Centre for Linguistic Research to gather and support postgraduate linguistics research across the University.

Within the School of English, we hold weekly research seminars which give you the chance to hear about the latest developments. We have strengths in many fields, from language variation and change, psycholinguistics and syntax to conversation analysis, dialectology and the language–literature interface.

Our resources

We have specialist recording equipment for fieldwork and experimental work. Interactive computer-based workshops will introduce you to corpus-linguistic technology.

The University library subscribes to several electronic databases including JStor, Early English Texts online and Eighteenth-century Collections online. For more advanced reading, there's a regular free minibus service to the British Library at Boston Spa.

Apply now

You can apply for postgraduate study using our Postgraduate Online Application Form. It is a quick and easy process.

Postgraduate Online Application Form