Applied English Programme by Web-Based Distance Learning MA

This pod explores the psycholinguistic factors behind different forms of communication. You will examine: 

• how various species of animals communicate 
• what makes human language special
• the main forms of language that humans have developed - speech, writing and sign 

This pod explores the relationship between narrative and the mind. You will: 

• investigate a range of contemporary approaches to studying storyworlds, fictional minds, and narrative perspective 
• engage with theories of cognitive reception 
• examine emotion, ethics and empathy in relation to literary reading  

This pod explores the diverse field of discourse analysis, which focuses on the (co)-construction of meaning, identity, ideology, and power in spoken and written communication.

You will:

• grapple with the concept of ‘discourse’ from a theoretical standpoint
• consider the distinction between spoken and written discourse
• learn how to apply discourse analytical tools such as conversation analysis and critical discourse analysis
• develop your awareness of the role and implications of ethical considerations in data collection for discourse analysis.

By the end of this pod, you will have gained the knowledge and skills to conduct your own empirical research in the field of discourse analysis.

This pod explains the core concepts in linguistics – phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics.

You will:

• develop the skills to transcribe and analyse the sound patterns of spoken language
• learn how to describe languages in terms of form, structure and meaning
• consider how language is used in different socio-cultural contexts
• apply linguistic theories and analytical frameworks to the study of natural language.

By the end of this pod, you will understand the main principles of each of the six core concepts in linguistics and will have improved your critical analysis skills.

This pod explores the role of communication in the workplace, explaining how to linguistically examine spoken and written interaction in a range of professional contexts.

You will:

• examine key issues such as identity construction, workplace culture, and rapport at work
• identify different types of talk at work (e.g. small talk, humour), exploring the various functions of each
• analyse professional computer-mediated communication e.g. email, social networking sites, online reputation management
• apply multimodal critical discourse analysis to analyse professional promotional materials e.g. advertisments, websites.

By the end of this pod, you will have gained the knowledge and skills to critically evaluate the role played by language in the context of work.

This pod explores Second Language Acquisition (SLA), a wide-ranging sub-field within applied linguistics that examines how second languages are learned.  

You will explore the key aspects of this complicated area, including the main terms and theories that have been proposed to describe and understand the process of developing second language (L2) knowledge and skills.  

This pod introduces theory and research from the area of vocabulary studies. As a key aspect of second language (L2) competence, vocabulary includes a wide range of topics and issues.  

This pod: 

• explores the nature of lexical knowledge in an L2, addressing the key question of what is involved in knowing a word in terms of its form, meaning and use  
• discusses different categories of vocabulary, focusing on frequency of use 
• explores how to conduct vocabulary research 

You will begin to understand how vocabulary research has benefitted from corpora (large databases of language), which have given new insights into the structure of vocabulary, lexical patterning, and the role of formulaic language and multi-word units.  

Through considering a range of original ideas and research, you will also learn how to formulate and investigate research questions related to the key role of vocabulary in successful language learning and use.  

This pod introduces the study of corpus stylistics, a particular application of corpus linguistics which focuses on issues of style, especially in literature. You will examine the main principles that underlie corpus design and compilation, and critically reflect on these principles in relation to corpus-stylistic practice.

You will investigate the theoretical and methodological underpinnings of corpus-stylistic analysis, learn how to handle and process data using appropriate corpus tools and software, and consider the implications of corpus linguistics for literary-linguistic and literary-critical research.

This pod describes the relationship between culture and communication, giving an overview of the different issues involved. 

You will:

• study the theoretical and historical developments in the field of intercultural communication
• grapple with the concept of ‘culture’ and explore how it manifests itself in interaction
• learn how to apply theoretical frameworks and analytical tools to examine and describe communication across cultures
• consider how verbal and nonverbal communication interact in complex ways to impact intercultural communication.

By the end of this pod, you will have developed your understanding of the concept of culture, as well as its impact on communication. 

This pod describes English language teaching (ELT) methodology for a wide range of learners and contexts.

You will:

• examine the theoretical rationales and principles of syllabus design for ELT
• consider the features, benefits and drawbacks of ELT methodologies, such as variations of the communicative approach
• learn about alternative approaches to ELT such as humanism and the lexical approach
• analyse and reflect on ELT practices from both a theoretical and empirical perspective.

By the end of this pod, you will have gained the knowledge and skills to design an ELT syllabus and evaluate a range of approaches in ELT.

This pod explores the wide range of factors which influence second language acquisition (SLA) in different settings.

You will:

• examine a range of internal (e.g. age, gender, language transfer) and external factors (e.g. instruction and culture) in SLA
• evaluate research studies in SLA to consider the extent of the impact of different factors
• develop an understanding of the importance of multidisciplinary research in SLA
• reflect on your own experience of SLA either as a language learner or teacher.

By the end of this pod, you will have gained the knowledge and skills to design a research study to investigate one or more factors in SLA.

This pod introduces you to the broad field of historical pragmatics. This is the study of language usage patterns in the past, combining both language-internal as well as language-external factors to understand how forms of discourse have changed throughout history.

As a particular case-study, the pod explores the histories of medical and scientific writing. How have (language-external) developments in science and medical culture influenced (language-internal) changes in medical writing?

After completing this pod, you will have a greater understanding and appreciation of the linguistic aspects of these particular genres and registers of writing, and also the ability to adapt your knowledge to other genres and styles across history.

This pod explores the importance of intercultural (communicative) competence (IC) when communicating in professional and everyday contexts.

You will:

• examine the components of IC in different conceptual frameworks
• consider the importance of IC in contexts such as business, the language classroom, healthcare, and the media
• learn about the design and implementation of IC training programmes
• evaluate existing IC assessment instruments.

By the end of this pod, you will have developed your understanding of the importance of IC in today’s globalised world and in a range of contexts.

This pod explains the interdisciplinary field of interlanguage pragmatics (ILP) – a sub-field of both second language acquisition (SLA) and pragmatics. ILP explores how the speech acts of language learners compare to native speakers, and how pragmatic competence develops in a second language (L2). 

You will:

• understand the main research questions in the field of ILP
• consider the importance of pragmatic competence in a second language
• critically evaluate theoretical concepts and frameworks in ILP studies
• examine the effectiveness of methodological approaches to the teaching of L2 pragmatics.

By the end of this pod, you will have developed your understanding of the main theories and research areas in the field of ILP.  

This pod explores language and gender in a range of workplace settings.

You will:

• consider different perspectives from which to study language and gender
• learn how to apply theoretical concepts and analytical tools to analyse language and gender in professional contexts
• study gendered discourse in a range of professional contexts e.g. the media, politics, and healthcare
• examine research findings on the relation between language and gender in business meetings.

By the end of this pod, you will have gained the knowledge and skills to conduct a linguistic analysis of talk at work with a focus on issues related to gender.

This pod discusses key issues around learning and teaching vocabulary in a second language (L2). It focuses on how research findings from vocabulary studies inform language teaching, materials development and English language teaching methodology more broadly.  

This pod addresses topics such as: 

• incidental and intentional vocabulary learning 
• the role of vocabulary in syllabus design and language curriculum 
• assessing lexical knowledge in different learning contexts and using different tools 

By reviewing the key terms and theoretical approaches, you will learn how the field’s current understanding of L2 vocabulary learning and use can help inform teaching in line with research-based principles.  

The pod will also describe a range of teaching resources and tools based on empirical research findings, that support the learning and teaching of vocabulary.  

This pod provides a linguistic overview of metaphor, with a particular emphasis on Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT). Historical perspectives on metaphor are taken, from Aristotle to Ricoeur, leading up to our most current cognitive linguistic understanding of metaphor in language and thought. CMT and its associated approaches focus on the connection (or mapping) made between two different, often seemingly unrelated, semantic domains (like emotions and containers).

This pod examines how such metaphors gain prominence above and beyond the phrase or sentence, at the level of discourse. Domains of literary and political discourse are examined in detail to highlight how salient metaphor is in a range of language settings, and how significant it is for understanding human thought.

This pod introduces the study of narrative, one of the most universal forms of human communication. It discusses influential concepts and models to analyse how narratives are structured and presented, and to understand how they convey meaning.  

This pod provides the skills to plan, organise and evaluate the teaching on programmes for second language (L2) learners. It mainly covers the practicalities of teaching English as a foreign/second language (TESOL).  

You will consider various aspects of language teaching, allowing you to develop your own approach to supporting L2 learners in the classroom.  

This pod:

• discusses specific skills related to L2 ability (e.g. reading, listening, speaking, writing, sociolinguistic and pragmatic skills) 
• reviews and analyses the latest teaching techniques and practices 
• addresses L2 assessment, including the key principles of language assessment, the main types of language tests, and discussing different ways of testing the knowledge of L2 skills
• provides examples of lesson plans and teaching materials 

This pod explores the use of empirical methods of reader response in stylistics. It examines both experimental and naturalistic research methods and investigates the relationship between empiricism and introspection.  

You will discuss applications in relation to a range of literary texts, with practical illustrations and activities being presented alongside real reader-response data. Through the combined study of reader data and literature itself, you will consider the critical benefits and limitations of reader-response methods for stylistic practice, as well as reflecting on the future of empirical research in this discipline.   

This pod explores the diverse field of discourse analysis, which focuses on the (co)-construction of meaning, identity, ideology, and power in spoken and written communication.

You will:

• grapple with the concept of ‘discourse’ from a theoretical standpoint
• consider the distinction between spoken and written discourse
• learn how to apply discourse analytical tools such as conversation analysis and critical discourse analysis
• develop your awareness of the role and implications of ethical considerations in data collection for discourse analysis.

By the end of this pod, you will have gained the knowledge and skills to conduct your own empirical research in the field of discourse analysis.

This pod explains the core concepts in linguistics – phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics.

You will:

• develop the skills to transcribe and analyse the sound patterns of spoken language
• learn how to describe languages in terms of form, structure and meaning
• consider how language is used in different socio-cultural contexts
• apply linguistic theories and analytical frameworks to the study of natural language.

By the end of this pod, you will understand the main principles of each of the six core concepts in linguistics and will have improved your critical analysis skills.

This pod explores Second Language Acquisition (SLA), a wide-ranging sub-field within applied linguistics that examines how second languages are learned.  

You will explore the key aspects of this complicated area, including the main terms and theories that have been proposed to describe and understand the process of developing second language (L2) knowledge and skills.  

This pod introduces theory and research from the area of vocabulary studies. As a key aspect of second language (L2) competence, vocabulary includes a wide range of topics and issues.  

This pod: 

• explores the nature of lexical knowledge in an L2, addressing the key question of what is involved in knowing a word in terms of its form, meaning and use  
• discusses different categories of vocabulary, focusing on frequency of use 
• explores how to conduct vocabulary research 

You will begin to understand how vocabulary research has benefitted from corpora (large databases of language), which have given new insights into the structure of vocabulary, lexical patterning, and the role of formulaic language and multi-word units.  

Through considering a range of original ideas and research, you will also learn how to formulate and investigate research questions related to the key role of vocabulary in successful language learning and use.  

This pod introduces the study of corpus stylistics, a particular application of corpus linguistics which focuses on issues of style, especially in literature. You will examine the main principles that underlie corpus design and compilation, and critically reflect on these principles in relation to corpus-stylistic practice.

You will investigate the theoretical and methodological underpinnings of corpus-stylistic analysis, learn how to handle and process data using appropriate corpus tools and software, and consider the implications of corpus linguistics for literary-linguistic and literary-critical research.

This pod describes English language teaching (ELT) methodology for a wide range of learners and contexts.

You will:

• examine the theoretical rationales and principles of syllabus design for ELT
• consider the features, benefits and drawbacks of ELT methodologies, such as variations of the communicative approach
• learn about alternative approaches to ELT such as humanism and the lexical approach
• analyse and reflect on ELT practices from both a theoretical and empirical perspective.

By the end of this pod, you will have gained the knowledge and skills to design an ELT syllabus and evaluate a range of approaches in ELT.

This pod explores the wide range of factors which influence second language acquisition (SLA) in different settings.

You will:

• examine a range of internal (e.g. age, gender, language transfer) and external factors (e.g. instruction and culture) in SLA
• evaluate research studies in SLA to consider the extent of the impact of different factors
• develop an understanding of the importance of multidisciplinary research in SLA
• reflect on your own experience of SLA either as a language learner or teacher.

By the end of this pod, you will have gained the knowledge and skills to design a research study to investigate one or more factors in SLA.

This pod introduces you to the broad field of historical pragmatics. This is the study of language usage patterns in the past, combining both language-internal as well as language-external factors to understand how forms of discourse have changed throughout history.

As a particular case-study, the pod explores the histories of medical and scientific writing. How have (language-external) developments in science and medical culture influenced (language-internal) changes in medical writing?

After completing this pod, you will have a greater understanding and appreciation of the linguistic aspects of these particular genres and registers of writing, and also the ability to adapt your knowledge to other genres and styles across history.

This pod explores the importance of intercultural (communicative) competence (IC) when communicating in professional and everyday contexts.

You will:

• examine the components of IC in different conceptual frameworks
• consider the importance of IC in contexts such as business, the language classroom, healthcare, and the media
• learn about the design and implementation of IC training programmes
• evaluate existing IC assessment instruments.

By the end of this pod, you will have developed your understanding of the importance of IC in today’s globalised world and in a range of contexts.

This pod explains the interdisciplinary field of interlanguage pragmatics (ILP) – a sub-field of both second language acquisition (SLA) and pragmatics. ILP explores how the speech acts of language learners compare to native speakers, and how pragmatic competence develops in a second language (L2). 

You will:

• understand the main research questions in the field of ILP
• consider the importance of pragmatic competence in a second language
• critically evaluate theoretical concepts and frameworks in ILP studies
• examine the effectiveness of methodological approaches to the teaching of L2 pragmatics.

By the end of this pod, you will have developed your understanding of the main theories and research areas in the field of ILP.  

This pod discusses key issues around learning and teaching vocabulary in a second language (L2). It focuses on how research findings from vocabulary studies inform language teaching, materials development and English language teaching methodology more broadly.  

This pod addresses topics such as: 

• incidental and intentional vocabulary learning 
• the role of vocabulary in syllabus design and language curriculum 
• assessing lexical knowledge in different learning contexts and using different tools 

By reviewing the key terms and theoretical approaches, you will learn how the field’s current understanding of L2 vocabulary learning and use can help inform teaching in line with research-based principles.  

The pod will also describe a range of teaching resources and tools based on empirical research findings, that support the learning and teaching of vocabulary.  

This pod provides a linguistic overview of metaphor, with a particular emphasis on Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT). Historical perspectives on metaphor are taken, from Aristotle to Ricoeur, leading up to our most current cognitive linguistic understanding of metaphor in language and thought. CMT and its associated approaches focus on the connection (or mapping) made between two different, often seemingly unrelated, semantic domains (like emotions and containers).

This pod examines how such metaphors gain prominence above and beyond the phrase or sentence, at the level of discourse. Domains of literary and political discourse are examined in detail to highlight how salient metaphor is in a range of language settings, and how significant it is for understanding human thought.

This pod provides the skills to plan, organise and evaluate the teaching on programmes for second language (L2) learners. It mainly covers the practicalities of teaching English as a foreign/second language (TESOL).  

You will consider various aspects of language teaching, allowing you to develop your own approach to supporting L2 learners in the classroom.  

This pod:

• discusses specific skills related to L2 ability (e.g. reading, listening, speaking, writing, sociolinguistic and pragmatic skills) 
• reviews and analyses the latest teaching techniques and practices 
• addresses L2 assessment, including the key principles of language assessment, the main types of language tests, and discussing different ways of testing the knowledge of L2 skills
• provides examples of lesson plans and teaching materials 

This pod explains the core concepts in linguistics – phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics.

You will:

• develop the skills to transcribe and analyse the sound patterns of spoken language
• learn how to describe languages in terms of form, structure and meaning
• consider how language is used in different socio-cultural contexts
• apply linguistic theories and analytical frameworks to the study of natural language.

By the end of this pod, you will understand the main principles of each of the six core concepts in linguistics and will have improved your critical analysis skills.

This pod explores the relationship between narrative and the mind. You will: 

• investigate a range of contemporary approaches to studying storyworlds, fictional minds, and narrative perspective 
• engage with theories of cognitive reception 
• examine emotion, ethics and empathy in relation to literary reading  

This pod presents cognitive poetics, where you will be introduced to the ‘cognitive turn’ in literary studies, exploring topics such as: 

• figure and ground 
• prototypicality 
• embodiment 
• cognitive deixis 
• negation  
• scripts and schemas 

All of the above inform our understanding of how we read, process and understand literary texts.    

This pod introduces the study of corpus stylistics, a particular application of corpus linguistics which focuses on issues of style, especially in literature. You will examine the main principles that underlie corpus design and compilation, and critically reflect on these principles in relation to corpus-stylistic practice.

You will investigate the theoretical and methodological underpinnings of corpus-stylistic analysis, learn how to handle and process data using appropriate corpus tools and software, and consider the implications of corpus linguistics for literary-linguistic and literary-critical research.

This pod introduces you to the broad field of historical pragmatics. This is the study of language usage patterns in the past, combining both language-internal as well as language-external factors to understand how forms of discourse have changed throughout history.

As a particular case-study, the pod explores the histories of medical and scientific writing. How have (language-external) developments in science and medical culture influenced (language-internal) changes in medical writing?

After completing this pod, you will have a greater understanding and appreciation of the linguistic aspects of these particular genres and registers of writing, and also the ability to adapt your knowledge to other genres and styles across history.

This pod explores the use of linguistic frameworks to investigate literary texts. Through practical analysis and interactive tasks, you will consider a variety of linguistic explorations of poetry, prose and drama from a wide range of historical periods.  

You will: 

• critically apply and evaluate key approaches to language and literature 
• investigate the notions of literariness and interpretation
• consider the scope and validity of stylistics, in relation to literature and literary studies 

This pod provides a linguistic overview of metaphor, with a particular emphasis on Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT). Historical perspectives on metaphor are taken, from Aristotle to Ricoeur, leading up to our most current cognitive linguistic understanding of metaphor in language and thought. CMT and its associated approaches focus on the connection (or mapping) made between two different, often seemingly unrelated, semantic domains (like emotions and containers).

This pod examines how such metaphors gain prominence above and beyond the phrase or sentence, at the level of discourse. Domains of literary and political discourse are examined in detail to highlight how salient metaphor is in a range of language settings, and how significant it is for understanding human thought.

This pod introduces the study of narrative, one of the most universal forms of human communication. It discusses influential concepts and models to analyse how narratives are structured and presented, and to understand how they convey meaning.  

This pod explores stylistic, cognitive and narratological approaches to studying digital fiction. It examines literary texts which are specifically designed to be read on a screen. 

You will focus on the language of hypertext fiction, ludic narratives, interactive film and app-based fiction. We will also explore the literatures of social media and investigate the experience of reading and engaging with digital texts. 

This pod gives a thorough overview of the literary-linguistic framework ‘Text World Theory’. It mainly focuses on the application and development of the framework over the last twenty years.  

You will: 

• explore contemporary advances in text-world research, examining topics from language in the classroom, through to the emotional experience of engaging with literary texts 
• apply, expand and critically evaluate the framework 
• explore a range of Text-World-Theory applications to discourse (both literary and otherwise) 

 consider the future potential of text-world published research 

This pod explores the language of dystopian literature. Through taking a stylistic approach, it will: 

• examine the language which characterises dystopian narratives 
• explore a range of textual examples from across periods 
• investigate the evolution and hybridity of contemporary dystopia 

By applying a variety of literary-linguistic frameworks and approaches, you will examine the construal of dystopian worlds, the conceptualisation of dystopian minds, and the experience of dystopian reading.  

This pod focuses on the language  of multimodal texts. Moving beyond traditional written presentations of narrative, multimodal texts experiment with more than one semiotic mode. They can incorporate graphics, creatively manipulate typeface, or feature tactile elements, all of which contribute to the reading experience. Through a mixture of stylistic, cognitive and narratological approaches, you will explore literary texts which manipulate narrative across modes, ranging from B. S. Johnson's infamous book-in-a-box through to contemporary transmedial literature and interactive fictions. 

This pod explores the artistic movement of surrealism. You will focus on its emergence and high point between the two world wars, though the later influence of surrealism will also be considered.  

The emphasis of this pod is on the form and technique of literary surrealist writing in English. You will explore forms of creative production, particularly in relation to the surrealists’ own understanding of language and linguistics.  

You will also consider surrealist output from a literary-linguistic and cognitive poetic perspective. This allows you to explore a view of surrealism and surrealist activity from the current understanding of language and linguistics.  

This pod explores the use of empirical methods of reader response in stylistics. It examines both experimental and naturalistic research methods and investigates the relationship between empiricism and introspection.  

You will discuss applications in relation to a range of literary texts, with practical illustrations and activities being presented alongside real reader-response data. Through the combined study of reader data and literature itself, you will consider the critical benefits and limitations of reader-response methods for stylistic practice, as well as reflecting on the future of empirical research in this discipline.   

This pod explores the diverse field of discourse analysis, which focuses on the (co)-construction of meaning, identity, ideology, and power in spoken and written communication.

You will:

• grapple with the concept of ‘discourse’ from a theoretical standpoint
• consider the distinction between spoken and written discourse
• learn how to apply discourse analytical tools such as conversation analysis and critical discourse analysis
• develop your awareness of the role and implications of ethical considerations in data collection for discourse analysis.

By the end of this pod, you will have gained the knowledge and skills to conduct your own empirical research in the field of discourse analysis.

This pod explores the role of communication in the workplace, explaining how to linguistically examine spoken and written interaction in a range of professional contexts.

You will:

• examine key issues such as identity construction, workplace culture, and rapport at work
• identify different types of talk at work (e.g. small talk, humour), exploring the various functions of each
• analyse professional computer-mediated communication e.g. email, social networking sites, online reputation management
• apply multimodal critical discourse analysis to analyse professional promotional materials e.g. advertisments, websites.

By the end of this pod, you will have gained the knowledge and skills to critically evaluate the role played by language in the context of work.

This pod describes the relationship between culture and communication, giving an overview of the different issues involved. 

You will:

• study the theoretical and historical developments in the field of intercultural communication
• grapple with the concept of ‘culture’ and explore how it manifests itself in interaction
• learn how to apply theoretical frameworks and analytical tools to examine and describe communication across cultures
• consider how verbal and nonverbal communication interact in complex ways to impact intercultural communication.

By the end of this pod, you will have developed your understanding of the concept of culture, as well as its impact on communication. 

This pod explores the importance of intercultural (communicative) competence (IC) when communicating in professional and everyday contexts.

You will:

• examine the components of IC in different conceptual frameworks
• consider the importance of IC in contexts such as business, the language classroom, healthcare, and the media
• learn about the design and implementation of IC training programmes
• evaluate existing IC assessment instruments.

By the end of this pod, you will have developed your understanding of the importance of IC in today’s globalised world and in a range of contexts.

This pod explores language and gender in a range of workplace settings.

You will:

• consider different perspectives from which to study language and gender
• learn how to apply theoretical concepts and analytical tools to analyse language and gender in professional contexts
• study gendered discourse in a range of professional contexts e.g. the media, politics, and healthcare
• examine research findings on the relation between language and gender in business meetings.

By the end of this pod, you will have gained the knowledge and skills to conduct a linguistic analysis of talk at work with a focus on issues related to gender.

In this pod you will study the writings of Alexander Pope in the wider literary and historical contexts of the early eighteenth century. You will explore Pope’s poetry in a range of forms and genres including epistles, essays, mock-classics, pastorals, translations, imitations, satires, and literary commentaries. In these works you will learn about the connections between classicism and modernity, and humour and politics.

You will analyse Pope’s contribution to the development of those literary forms, and through a study of his work will reflect on early eighteenth-century literary culture. 

This pod explores the relationship between narrative and the mind. You will: 

• investigate a range of contemporary approaches to studying storyworlds, fictional minds, and narrative perspective 
• engage with theories of cognitive reception 
• examine emotion, ethics and empathy in relation to literary reading  

This pod presents cognitive poetics, where you will be introduced to the ‘cognitive turn’ in literary studies, exploring topics such as: 

• figure and ground 
• prototypicality 
• embodiment 
• cognitive deixis 
• negation  
• scripts and schemas 

All of the above inform our understanding of how we read, process and understand literary texts.    

This pod introduces the ways in which popular constructs of ‘madness’ are represented in literature and theatre from the nineteenth century to the present day. In tracing how these popular representations of ‘madness’ have developed over time, you will critique the relevant medical, political and social discourses with which they engage.

Through your analysis of this interplay between public discourse and private experience you will draw on debates surrounding patriarchal authority and female agency, individual and collective responsibility and the role of culture in determining what it means to be ‘mad’.

You will have the opportunity to apply these theoretical frameworks through close analysis of significant literary works by writers such as Willkie Collins and Sarah Waters, and of high-profile theatrical productions which include Nell Leyshon’s Beldam and Peter Brook’s Marat/Sade.

This pod explores literary retellings of traditional fairy tales. It takes a global approach to the study of fairy tale traditions and their literary adaptations from around the world.  

Focusing on fiction and poetry from the 1970s to the present, you will study the historical and political contexts behind the late-twentieth-century revival of fairy tale literature. In particular, we examine literature’s engagement with feminist movements of the era, as gender and feminist theory provide the major theoretical framework of this pod.  

You will gain skills in using the Aarne-Thompson-Uther system of folk and fairy tale classification, along with the work of prominent fairy tale scholars like Jack Zipes and Cristina Bacchilega. You will also contribute to a collaborative anthology of fairy tale literature, and learn about the theories and practicalities of anthologising texts.

This pod introduces the study of corpus stylistics, a particular application of corpus linguistics which focuses on issues of style, especially in literature. You will examine the main principles that underlie corpus design and compilation, and critically reflect on these principles in relation to corpus-stylistic practice.

You will investigate the theoretical and methodological underpinnings of corpus-stylistic analysis, learn how to handle and process data using appropriate corpus tools and software, and consider the implications of corpus linguistics for literary-linguistic and literary-critical research.

This pod introduces the most important (and necessary) form of written communication in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries - correspondence. You will: 

• examine the function of letters and other correspondence in both literary texts and the everyday 
• explore how to transcribe letters and how to use them as a primary resource 
• explore how to embed correspondence in your studies of the long nineteenth century  

Fear of death and what would come afterwards haunted writers throughout the Middle Ages. This pod introduces some of the key ways in which late medieval writing depicted and explored the nature of dying and death.

Covering a range of late medieval literature, you will evaluate the idea of a ‘good death’, and the influence of this on conceptions of identity, illness, faith, memory and emotion, to explore how medieval writers and readers thought about death, dying and the place of the dead in the culture of the living.

This pod presents a theoretical and critical introduction to ecocriticism and to environmental writing. It takes in broad chronological and generic perspectives, introducing the ways in which environmental ideas manifest themselves in poetry, fiction and the ‘new nature writing’, and considers writing from 1800-present.

The pod also takes a world literature approach to both the category of ecocriticism and the category of environmental writing – the theoretical approaches come from diverse national contexts, as does the writing itself, taking in not only anglophone writing from the UK, the United States, Australia and India, but also from writing in translation.

This pod provides an overview of Ethical Criticism, with its blend of moral philosophy, politics, and literary analysis, through the lens of two twentieth-century writers: Henry James and Samuel Beckett.

You will analyse literary texts with the theoretical frames supplied by ethical critics such as Martha Nussbaum and J. Hillis Miller to the study of late Henry James; and cultural critics Theodor Adorno, David Cunningham and Steven Connor who interrogate the aesthetic and ethical concept of “meaning” in the novels and plays of Samuel Beckett.

This pod analyses a range of texts from the late eighteenth century to the present day. You will focus on understanding the cultural contexts of the texts in question, as well as tracing the influence of the Gothic through time and various cultural traditions.  

You will explore: 

• the origins of the Gothic 
• its aesthetic dimensions and thematic concerns 
• how it relates to its historical context
• ways in which it undermines, explores or challenges wider intellectual and cultural movements like Rationalism and the Enlightenment

This pod explores a range of Anglophone literature from the Indian sub-continent, written during the last decades of the British Empire and the growth of post-independence India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.  

You will analyse poetry and fiction by Indian authors, developing an understanding of the historical and cultural contexts for this literature, as well as the approaches and readings suggested by postcolonial theories.  

This pod focuses in particular on the connection between literary texts and wider political debates around nationalism, caste, sex and gender.  

This pod explores the use of linguistic frameworks to investigate literary texts. Through practical analysis and interactive tasks, you will consider a variety of linguistic explorations of poetry, prose and drama from a wide range of historical periods.  

You will: 

• critically apply and evaluate key approaches to language and literature 
• investigate the notions of literariness and interpretation
• consider the scope and validity of stylistics, in relation to literature and literary studies 

This pod provides a linguistic overview of metaphor, with a particular emphasis on Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT). Historical perspectives on metaphor are taken, from Aristotle to Ricoeur, leading up to our most current cognitive linguistic understanding of metaphor in language and thought. CMT and its associated approaches focus on the connection (or mapping) made between two different, often seemingly unrelated, semantic domains (like emotions and containers).

This pod examines how such metaphors gain prominence above and beyond the phrase or sentence, at the level of discourse. Domains of literary and political discourse are examined in detail to highlight how salient metaphor is in a range of language settings, and how significant it is for understanding human thought.

DH Lawrence was a major modernist figure and a writer deeply rooted in Nottinghamshire.  

This pod: 

• studies Lawrence in the context of his literary contemporaries 
• analyses his fiction and poetry in relation to literary realism and modernist experimentation
• considers his work within wider contexts, such as gender and suffragism, and the First World War 

This pod introduces the study of narrative, one of the most universal forms of human communication. It discusses influential concepts and models to analyse how narratives are structured and presented, and to understand how they convey meaning.  

This pod introduces you to the rich variety of Old English literature in its original language, covering heroic poetry, elegy, biblical adaptations and hagiography, and riddles and charms.

You will begin by covering the art of translation with its aims and challenges. The particular difficulties of translating from Old English are addressed and a range of tools and approaches provided. We cover a range of genres, and you will develop your understanding Old English poetic form, as well asknowledge of the context of early medieval England.

In this pod you will consider how theatre and performance engage with concepts of place, space and site. In so doing, you will draw on theoretical, practical and personal paradigms to understand how notions of place, space and site are represented, read, received and practiced within the context of theatre and performance.

Beginning with definitions of place, space and performance you will then move onto applying these concepts to the diegetic space contained within the play text. From here you will explore how theatrical space contributes to the process by which we decipher and experience theatre, before considering this dynamic in relation to site-specific performance.

Before the advent of the printing press texts circulated in hand-written copies. Each manuscript was therefore unique and tells us about the tastes and habits of medieval readers. This pod introduces you to some of the specific skills and areas of knowledge necessary for working with, and editing, late medieval manuscripts.

Focusing on a fifteenth-century manuscript copy of Gower’s Confessio Amantis, you will develop and apply skills in transcription (palaeography), examine editorial choices, learn how to compile a glossary and provide an explanatory commentary.

This pod offers you the materials and approaches to investigate the relationships between religion (specifically Christianity) and fantasy literatures. The pod centres on the case study of the CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien, exploring the ways Narnia and Middle Earth present different religious visions. It sets these authors in their historical and intellectual contexts, allowing for close focus on how their milieu affected their beliefs and their fiction.

The pod also provides a longer chronological perspective on the roots of fantasy tropes in the Bible, The Divine Comedy, Paradise Lost and Pilgrim’s Progress. You will be encouraged to develop a critical approach to the embodiment of ideologies in fictional symbols, and to attend to the dialectic between the “real” and “supernatural” in fiction.

This pod studies the literatures and contexts of Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines. You will learn about how literary texts overlap with their national contexts and literary traditions, as well as how they engage with the Southeast Asian region more broadly.  

With a focus on twentieth and twenty-first-century texts written in English, this pod compares different national and literary manifestations of: 

• colonialism and postcolonialism 
• multiculturalism and multilingualism 
• globalisation 
• climate catastrophe  
• political oppression 

You will also analyse literary texts in relation to academic debates around Eurocentrism, decolonising academia and trauma theory.

This pod explores the literary representations of utopia and dystopia. It traces the evolution of speculative fiction from Thomas More’s Utopia of 1516, through to later writers such as HG Wells, Ursula K. Le Guin and JG Ballard.  

You will consider how specific visions engage with their historical contexts, as well as theoretical discussions of utopia and dystopia, and questions of form and genre. 

This pod explores stylistic, cognitive and narratological approaches to studying digital fiction. It examines literary texts which are specifically designed to be read on a screen. 

You will focus on the language of hypertext fiction, ludic narratives, interactive film and app-based fiction. We will also explore the literatures of social media and investigate the experience of reading and engaging with digital texts. 

This pod gives a thorough overview of the literary-linguistic framework ‘Text World Theory’. It mainly focuses on the application and development of the framework over the last twenty years.  

You will: 

• explore contemporary advances in text-world research, examining topics from language in the classroom, through to the emotional experience of engaging with literary texts 
• apply, expand and critically evaluate the framework 
• explore a range of Text-World-Theory applications to discourse (both literary and otherwise) 

 consider the future potential of text-world published research 

This pod explores the language of dystopian literature. Through taking a stylistic approach, it will: 

• examine the language which characterises dystopian narratives 
• explore a range of textual examples from across periods 
• investigate the evolution and hybridity of contemporary dystopia 

By applying a variety of literary-linguistic frameworks and approaches, you will examine the construal of dystopian worlds, the conceptualisation of dystopian minds, and the experience of dystopian reading.  

This pod focuses on the language  of multimodal texts. Moving beyond traditional written presentations of narrative, multimodal texts experiment with more than one semiotic mode. They can incorporate graphics, creatively manipulate typeface, or feature tactile elements, all of which contribute to the reading experience. Through a mixture of stylistic, cognitive and narratological approaches, you will explore literary texts which manipulate narrative across modes, ranging from B. S. Johnson's infamous book-in-a-box through to contemporary transmedial literature and interactive fictions. 

This pod explores the artistic movement of surrealism. You will focus on its emergence and high point between the two world wars, though the later influence of surrealism will also be considered.  

The emphasis of this pod is on the form and technique of literary surrealist writing in English. You will explore forms of creative production, particularly in relation to the surrealists’ own understanding of language and linguistics.  

You will also consider surrealist output from a literary-linguistic and cognitive poetic perspective. This allows you to explore a view of surrealism and surrealist activity from the current understanding of language and linguistics.  

This pod provides a rigorous introduction to the fundamentals of Middle English language, poetics, and textual transmission. The primary texts include lyrics on love, religion and politics, giving insight into the major literary and cultural concerns of the period, and into this important genre.

The pod will train you to undertake linguistic analysis of these texts, and you will acquire the skills to explore how formal aspects of poetry communicate meaning. You will consider the ways in which Middle English lyric poetry was read in its early manuscript context and how modern editorial practice shapes the experience of modern readers.

This pod explores the use of empirical methods of reader response in stylistics. It examines both experimental and naturalistic research methods and investigates the relationship between empiricism and introspection.  

You will discuss applications in relation to a range of literary texts, with practical illustrations and activities being presented alongside real reader-response data. Through the combined study of reader data and literature itself, you will consider the critical benefits and limitations of reader-response methods for stylistic practice, as well as reflecting on the future of empirical research in this discipline.   

When we think of Romanticism, particular authors might immediately come to mind. But what happens when we shift the focus from those who wrote, to those who read and bought books? Should we pay attention to the books which sold well, instead of those which are seen as being worthy of study?  

This pod interrogates the facts and fictions of bookselling in the Romantic period, providing insights and questions which will be useful when studying all aspects of literary history.   

In this pod you will consider questions such as: 

• Where does the vampire myth come from, and how did it make its way into contemporary Western culture?  
• What were the early vampire texts and how do they relate to modern representations of the vampire?  
• Why do we study vampires, and what do they tell us about ourselves?  

You will also study theories around the Gothic, adaptation, gender and sexuality. These will provide backgrounds for critical analysis of vampire literature, cinema and television. 

This pod provides a detailed study of world literatures in the twenty-first century. You will: 

• look at key developments and trends in the study and theory of world literatures 
• consider how these affect the ways in which we read contemporary literary texts from around the world 
• study the historical development of different global economic and political systems from colonialism to the present day

Focusing on the novel, we will look at texts with origins in Pakistan, Morocco and the UK - all of which have English as a common language.  

This pod explores the relationship between narrative and the mind. You will: 

• investigate a range of contemporary approaches to studying storyworlds, fictional minds, and narrative perspective 
• engage with theories of cognitive reception 
• examine emotion, ethics and empathy in relation to literary reading  

This pod presents cognitive poetics, where you will be introduced to the ‘cognitive turn’ in literary studies, exploring topics such as: 

• figure and ground 
• prototypicality 
• embodiment 
• cognitive deixis 
• negation  
• scripts and schemas 

All of the above inform our understanding of how we read, process and understand literary texts.    

This pod introduces the ways in which popular constructs of ‘madness’ are represented in literature and theatre from the nineteenth century to the present day. In tracing how these popular representations of ‘madness’ have developed over time, you will critique the relevant medical, political and social discourses with which they engage.

Through your analysis of this interplay between public discourse and private experience you will draw on debates surrounding patriarchal authority and female agency, individual and collective responsibility and the role of culture in determining what it means to be ‘mad’.

You will have the opportunity to apply these theoretical frameworks through close analysis of significant literary works by writers such as Willkie Collins and Sarah Waters, and of high-profile theatrical productions which include Nell Leyshon’s Beldam and Peter Brook’s Marat/Sade.

This pod explores literary retellings of traditional fairy tales. It takes a global approach to the study of fairy tale traditions and their literary adaptations from around the world.  

Focusing on fiction and poetry from the 1970s to the present, you will study the historical and political contexts behind the late-twentieth-century revival of fairy tale literature. In particular, we examine literature’s engagement with feminist movements of the era, as gender and feminist theory provide the major theoretical framework of this pod.  

You will gain skills in using the Aarne-Thompson-Uther system of folk and fairy tale classification, along with the work of prominent fairy tale scholars like Jack Zipes and Cristina Bacchilega. You will also contribute to a collaborative anthology of fairy tale literature, and learn about the theories and practicalities of anthologising texts.

This pod introduces the study of corpus stylistics, a particular application of corpus linguistics which focuses on issues of style, especially in literature. You will examine the main principles that underlie corpus design and compilation, and critically reflect on these principles in relation to corpus-stylistic practice.

You will investigate the theoretical and methodological underpinnings of corpus-stylistic analysis, learn how to handle and process data using appropriate corpus tools and software, and consider the implications of corpus linguistics for literary-linguistic and literary-critical research.

This pod presents a theoretical and critical introduction to ecocriticism and to environmental writing. It takes in broad chronological and generic perspectives, introducing the ways in which environmental ideas manifest themselves in poetry, fiction and the ‘new nature writing’, and considers writing from 1800-present.

The pod also takes a world literature approach to both the category of ecocriticism and the category of environmental writing – the theoretical approaches come from diverse national contexts, as does the writing itself, taking in not only anglophone writing from the UK, the United States, Australia and India, but also from writing in translation.

This pod provides an overview of Ethical Criticism, with its blend of moral philosophy, politics, and literary analysis, through the lens of two twentieth-century writers: Henry James and Samuel Beckett.

You will analyse literary texts with the theoretical frames supplied by ethical critics such as Martha Nussbaum and J. Hillis Miller to the study of late Henry James; and cultural critics Theodor Adorno, David Cunningham and Steven Connor who interrogate the aesthetic and ethical concept of “meaning” in the novels and plays of Samuel Beckett.

This pod explores a range of Anglophone literature from the Indian sub-continent, written during the last decades of the British Empire and the growth of post-independence India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.  

You will analyse poetry and fiction by Indian authors, developing an understanding of the historical and cultural contexts for this literature, as well as the approaches and readings suggested by postcolonial theories.  

This pod focuses in particular on the connection between literary texts and wider political debates around nationalism, caste, sex and gender.  

This pod explores the use of linguistic frameworks to investigate literary texts. Through practical analysis and interactive tasks, you will consider a variety of linguistic explorations of poetry, prose and drama from a wide range of historical periods.  

You will: 

• critically apply and evaluate key approaches to language and literature 
• investigate the notions of literariness and interpretation
• consider the scope and validity of stylistics, in relation to literature and literary studies 

DH Lawrence was a major modernist figure and a writer deeply rooted in Nottinghamshire.  

This pod: 

• studies Lawrence in the context of his literary contemporaries 
• analyses his fiction and poetry in relation to literary realism and modernist experimentation
• considers his work within wider contexts, such as gender and suffragism, and the First World War 

This pod introduces the study of narrative, one of the most universal forms of human communication. It discusses influential concepts and models to analyse how narratives are structured and presented, and to understand how they convey meaning.  

In this pod you will consider how theatre and performance engage with concepts of place, space and site. In so doing, you will draw on theoretical, practical and personal paradigms to understand how notions of place, space and site are represented, read, received and practiced within the context of theatre and performance.

Beginning with definitions of place, space and performance you will then move onto applying these concepts to the diegetic space contained within the play text. From here you will explore how theatrical space contributes to the process by which we decipher and experience theatre, before considering this dynamic in relation to site-specific performance.

This pod offers you the materials and approaches to investigate the relationships between religion (specifically Christianity) and fantasy literatures. The pod centres on the case study of the CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien, exploring the ways Narnia and Middle Earth present different religious visions. It sets these authors in their historical and intellectual contexts, allowing for close focus on how their milieu affected their beliefs and their fiction.

The pod also provides a longer chronological perspective on the roots of fantasy tropes in the Bible, The Divine Comedy, Paradise Lost and Pilgrim’s Progress. You will be encouraged to develop a critical approach to the embodiment of ideologies in fictional symbols, and to attend to the dialectic between the “real” and “supernatural” in fiction.

This pod studies the literatures and contexts of Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines. You will learn about how literary texts overlap with their national contexts and literary traditions, as well as how they engage with the Southeast Asian region more broadly.  

With a focus on twentieth and twenty-first-century texts written in English, this pod compares different national and literary manifestations of: 

• colonialism and postcolonialism 
• multiculturalism and multilingualism 
• globalisation 
• climate catastrophe  
• political oppression 

You will also analyse literary texts in relation to academic debates around Eurocentrism, decolonising academia and trauma theory.

This pod explores the literary representations of utopia and dystopia. It traces the evolution of speculative fiction from Thomas More’s Utopia of 1516, through to later writers such as HG Wells, Ursula K. Le Guin and JG Ballard.  

You will consider how specific visions engage with their historical contexts, as well as theoretical discussions of utopia and dystopia, and questions of form and genre. 

This pod gives a thorough overview of the literary-linguistic framework ‘Text World Theory’. It mainly focuses on the application and development of the framework over the last twenty years.  

You will: 

• explore contemporary advances in text-world research, examining topics from language in the classroom, through to the emotional experience of engaging with literary texts 
• apply, expand and critically evaluate the framework 
• explore a range of Text-World-Theory applications to discourse (both literary and otherwise) 

 consider the future potential of text-world published research 

This pod explores stylistic, cognitive and narratological approaches to studying digital fiction. It examines literary texts which are specifically designed to be read on a screen. 

You will focus on the language of hypertext fiction, ludic narratives, interactive film and app-based fiction. We will also explore the literatures of social media and investigate the experience of reading and engaging with digital texts. 

This pod explores the language of dystopian literature. Through taking a stylistic approach, it will: 

• examine the language which characterises dystopian narratives 
• explore a range of textual examples from across periods 
• investigate the evolution and hybridity of contemporary dystopia 

By applying a variety of literary-linguistic frameworks and approaches, you will examine the construal of dystopian worlds, the conceptualisation of dystopian minds, and the experience of dystopian reading.  

This pod focuses on the language  of multimodal texts. Moving beyond traditional written presentations of narrative, multimodal texts experiment with more than one semiotic mode. They can incorporate graphics, creatively manipulate typeface, or feature tactile elements, all of which contribute to the reading experience. Through a mixture of stylistic, cognitive and narratological approaches, you will explore literary texts which manipulate narrative across modes, ranging from B. S. Johnson's infamous book-in-a-box through to contemporary transmedial literature and interactive fictions. 

This pod explores the artistic movement of surrealism. You will focus on its emergence and high point between the two world wars, though the later influence of surrealism will also be considered.  

The emphasis of this pod is on the form and technique of literary surrealist writing in English. You will explore forms of creative production, particularly in relation to the surrealists’ own understanding of language and linguistics.  

You will also consider surrealist output from a literary-linguistic and cognitive poetic perspective. This allows you to explore a view of surrealism and surrealist activity from the current understanding of language and linguistics.  

This pod explores the use of empirical methods of reader response in stylistics. It examines both experimental and naturalistic research methods and investigates the relationship between empiricism and introspection.  

You will discuss applications in relation to a range of literary texts, with practical illustrations and activities being presented alongside real reader-response data. Through the combined study of reader data and literature itself, you will consider the critical benefits and limitations of reader-response methods for stylistic practice, as well as reflecting on the future of empirical research in this discipline.   

In this pod you will consider questions such as: 

• Where does the vampire myth come from, and how did it make its way into contemporary Western culture?  
• What were the early vampire texts and how do they relate to modern representations of the vampire?  
• Why do we study vampires, and what do they tell us about ourselves?  

You will also study theories around the Gothic, adaptation, gender and sexuality. These will provide backgrounds for critical analysis of vampire literature, cinema and television. 

This pod provides a detailed study of world literatures in the twenty-first century. You will: 

• look at key developments and trends in the study and theory of world literatures 
• consider how these affect the ways in which we read contemporary literary texts from around the world 
• study the historical development of different global economic and political systems from colonialism to the present day

Focusing on the novel, we will look at texts with origins in Pakistan, Morocco and the UK - all of which have English as a common language.  

This pod explores literary retellings of traditional fairy tales. It takes a global approach to the study of fairy tale traditions and their literary adaptations from around the world.  

Focusing on fiction and poetry from the 1970s to the present, you will study the historical and political contexts behind the late-twentieth-century revival of fairy tale literature. In particular, we examine literature’s engagement with feminist movements of the era, as gender and feminist theory provide the major theoretical framework of this pod.  

You will gain skills in using the Aarne-Thompson-Uther system of folk and fairy tale classification, along with the work of prominent fairy tale scholars like Jack Zipes and Cristina Bacchilega. You will also contribute to a collaborative anthology of fairy tale literature, and learn about the theories and practicalities of anthologising texts.

This pod presents a theoretical and critical introduction to ecocriticism and to environmental writing. It takes in broad chronological and generic perspectives, introducing the ways in which environmental ideas manifest themselves in poetry, fiction and the ‘new nature writing’, and considers writing from 1800-present.

The pod also takes a world literature approach to both the category of ecocriticism and the category of environmental writing – the theoretical approaches come from diverse national contexts, as does the writing itself, taking in not only anglophone writing from the UK, the United States, Australia and India, but also from writing in translation.

This pod explores a range of Anglophone literature from the Indian sub-continent, written during the last decades of the British Empire and the growth of post-independence India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.  

You will analyse poetry and fiction by Indian authors, developing an understanding of the historical and cultural contexts for this literature, as well as the approaches and readings suggested by postcolonial theories.  

This pod focuses in particular on the connection between literary texts and wider political debates around nationalism, caste, sex and gender.  

This pod studies the literatures and contexts of Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines. You will learn about how literary texts overlap with their national contexts and literary traditions, as well as how they engage with the Southeast Asian region more broadly.  

With a focus on twentieth and twenty-first-century texts written in English, this pod compares different national and literary manifestations of: 

• colonialism and postcolonialism 
• multiculturalism and multilingualism 
• globalisation 
• climate catastrophe  
• political oppression 

You will also analyse literary texts in relation to academic debates around Eurocentrism, decolonising academia and trauma theory.

This pod explores the artistic movement of surrealism. You will focus on its emergence and high point between the two world wars, though the later influence of surrealism will also be considered.  

The emphasis of this pod is on the form and technique of literary surrealist writing in English. You will explore forms of creative production, particularly in relation to the surrealists’ own understanding of language and linguistics.  

You will also consider surrealist output from a literary-linguistic and cognitive poetic perspective. This allows you to explore a view of surrealism and surrealist activity from the current understanding of language and linguistics.  

This pod provides a detailed study of world literatures in the twenty-first century. You will: 

• look at key developments and trends in the study and theory of world literatures 
• consider how these affect the ways in which we read contemporary literary texts from around the world 
• study the historical development of different global economic and political systems from colonialism to the present day

Focusing on the novel, we will look at texts with origins in Pakistan, Morocco and the UK - all of which have English as a common language.  

Fear of death and what would come afterwards haunted writers throughout the Middle Ages. This pod introduces some of the key ways in which late medieval writing depicted and explored the nature of dying and death.

Covering a range of late medieval literature, you will evaluate the idea of a ‘good death’, and the influence of this on conceptions of identity, illness, faith, memory and emotion, to explore how medieval writers and readers thought about death, dying and the place of the dead in the culture of the living.

This pod provides an overview of field-names, a type of place-name which allows investigation into the past landscape of an area which few other modes of research permit.

These invaluable fragments of linguistic evidence will be examined from various historical linguistic perspectives, including semantic change and dialect study, and you will explore some of the prominent themes present in field-names. Most importantly, you will develop a methodological awareness which will allow you to undertake your own field-name research, ranging from surveys to linguistic or thematic analysis. 

This pod introduces the basics of Old Norse. Popularly thought of as the language of the Vikings, Old Norse had an important influence on the development of English, giving us everyday words like ‘their’, ‘sky’, ’happy’, and ‘law’. You will study real texts in Old Norse and explore some of the main forms of nouns, pronouns and adjectives, as well as learning about Old Norse syntax. By the end of the pod, you will be equipped to translate passages of Old Norse, as well as use it for other forms of research.

This pod introduces you to Old English, the language spoken in what became England from the fifth to the eleventh century. This is the language of Beowulf and Alfred the Great. It is the ancestor of modern English, but looks quite different, with a different orthography and grammar.

You will be introduced to the case system in Old English, as well as its orthography and pronunciation, before tackling pronouns, nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs and prepositions, with detailed explanation accompanied by practice exercises. The language is studied through real Old English texts, building your linguistic knowledge alongside learning about early medieval culture.

This pod introduces you to the rich variety of Old English literature in its original language, covering heroic poetry, elegy, biblical adaptations and hagiography, and riddles and charms.

You will begin by covering the art of translation with its aims and challenges. The particular difficulties of translating from Old English are addressed and a range of tools and approaches provided. We cover a range of genres, and you will develop your understanding Old English poetic form, as well asknowledge of the context of early medieval England.

Through this pod, you'll learn about the relationship between language change and the evidence provided by the names of people and places. We'll be thinking about dialect, vocabulary, linguistic contact, and semantic change, as well as the use of names in other disciplines.

This pod introduces the language used to describe the landscape in the periods when many of England’s place-names came into existence. 

You will investigate landscape vocabulary in the areas of semantic change and linguistic contact. You will also become familiar with the detail of this precise terminology, especially in Old English and Old Norse. 

This pod considers the development of this area of study through the work of experts in the field. Through recent and ongoing research, you will learn about the contribution of place-name studies to interdisciplinary work in environmental management and policy.

Before the advent of the printing press texts circulated in hand-written copies. Each manuscript was therefore unique and tells us about the tastes and habits of medieval readers. This pod introduces you to some of the specific skills and areas of knowledge necessary for working with, and editing, late medieval manuscripts.

Focusing on a fifteenth-century manuscript copy of Gower’s Confessio Amantis, you will develop and apply skills in transcription (palaeography), examine editorial choices, learn how to compile a glossary and provide an explanatory commentary.

This pod introduces you to runic writing systems in their various forms, their historical contexts and their value for linguistic and historical study. Runes are a form of alphabetic writing mostly encountered in inscriptions on physical objects, which provide some of our earliest evidence for the Germanic languages.

You will learn about the relationship of writing to speech, the adaptation of the writing system in different linguistic and cultural environments, and the challenges of reading and interpreting epigraphical texts. The pod also engages with modern adaptations and uses of runes (including in popular culture).

This pod explores the origin, development and use of surnames. Emphasis is on names used in England from the medieval period to the earlier twentieth century.  

You will: 

• examine the main categories of name, including their formation and development 
• develop the skills to identify names and their possible origins
• explore the evidence that names provide for linguistic, social, cultural and economic history 

This pod introduces the study of English place-names. These were short texts which began as meaningful descriptions in the everyday languages spoken in Britain over the past millennia. 

You will explore the contribution of each of these languages to English place-names, considering scholarly arguments and historical-linguistic evidence. This pod also gives a background in onomastic research methodology, which will equip you to analyse place-name evidence. 

This pod provides a rigorous introduction to the fundamentals of Middle English language, poetics, and textual transmission. The primary texts include lyrics on love, religion and politics, giving insight into the major literary and cultural concerns of the period, and into this important genre.

The pod will train you to undertake linguistic analysis of these texts, and you will acquire the skills to explore how formal aspects of poetry communicate meaning. You will consider the ways in which Middle English lyric poetry was read in its early manuscript context and how modern editorial practice shapes the experience of modern readers.