Language under the microscope

For the first few months, we will be breaking the English Language down into its finest components exploring how words are formed, how words can be manipulated to make sentences and how sentences are placed together to create whole texts. Be prepared for lots of new terminology! We will be looking closely at a different range of genres, contexts and text types ranging from text messages to 999 phone calls. By the end of this term you will be linguistic experts! The beauty of this particular module is that its context is, effectively, the linguistic world we inhabit. Sources on which we can practise your analytical skills range from articles to blogs to sexist adverts to the Jack the Ripper letters to political speeches – and to everything in between.

We start this module at the most obvious starting point......WORDS. Explore where our words come from....