English language and linguistics: undergraduate study

© Prof Ronald Carter

Table of contents

• English language and linguistics
• Analysing the language system
• Linking structure and function
• Analysing texts
• Approaches to the study of English

English language and linguistics

This article explores the balance between structural and functional approaches to the study of English language and linguistics in undergraduate courses. Undergraduate courses should provide students with the ability to describe the language accurately and systematically as well as provide the capacity to discuss its functions and uses, both in particular societies and in the wider world.

Analysing the language system

Undergraduate students of English language and linguistics need to be taught to analyse the language system of English accurately and systematically at different levels from sound patterns to grammar to the kinds of patterns which make a text cohere. They also need to understand how these different levels interlink to make messages that are understood by both readers and writers and by speakers and listeners. They need to understand the organisation of language as a written and as a spoken medium and they need to have at their disposal a language to talk about language --- a metalanguage --- that enables them to describe these different organisational systems replicably. Such a focus is mainly on the structure of language.

Linking structure and function

Undergraduate students also need to be able to link structure to function. They need to be able to describe the uses to which language is put. This means a focus on complete texts with a variety of social and cultural meanings and purposes: literary texts, advertisements, newspaper and magazine pieces; political rhetorics; everyday conversational exchanges.

Analysing texts

Analysing texts is not a neutral process but one in which human communicative acts are involved. Additionally, therefore, they need to consider the producers and receivers of such texts and their respective positioning, socially and ideologically. This in turn leads to language topics such as the relationship between language and gender, or between language and ideology and to questions such as 'Is there a literary language? or 'Is there a connection between advertising language and political persuasion?' At the same time students need to learn that language is not simply a system out there in the wider world but also has mentalistic functions and purposes linked to psychological processing. Such a focus raises questions about how a language is learned, about the relationship between language and mind and about whether computers can or cannot map the structure and functions of language.

Approaches to the study of English

There are many different ways in which English language and linguistics can be studied. One of the most effective and ever more widespread approaches to such study is through project-based investigation in which students collect their own naturally-occurring data in real contexts of use. They then use this data to describe and explain its patterns of organisation. The next step is to link formal choices of language patterns to particular patterns of use and meaning in the texts which they, importantly, as direct observers of language, have collected. The process of investigation often provides answers to questions or exploration of hypotheses which may not have arisen by more decontextualised approaches and by making students actively involved with and questioning of their own data skills and competencies are developed that can be of particular value in the wider community of work after graduation.

Referencing this article

Below are the possible formats for citing Good Practice Guide articles. If you are writing for a journal, please check the author instructions for full details before submitting your article.

• MLA style:
  Canning, John. "Disability and Residence Abroad". Southampton, 2004. Subject Centre for Languages, Linguistics and Area Studies Guide to Good Practice. 7 October 2008. http://www.llas.ac.uk/resources/gpg/2241.
• Author (Date) style:
  Canning, J. (2004). "Disability and residence abroad." Subject Centre for Languages, Linguistics and Area Studies Good Practice Guide. Retrieved 7 October 2008, from http://www.llas.ac.uk/resources/gpg/2241.