English Language and Politics BA (Hons) (with Foundation Year)

ENGLISH LANGUAGE

*Single Hons English Language is available for 2025 entry only

Are you interested in exploring language, becoming a writer, linguist or just in saving the world one word at a time?

Liverpool is truly one of the best locations you could think of, if you want to study language and its structures, and it’s not just thanks to its trademark accents and dialects. Whether it’s the bilingual signs of the first Chinatown in Europe or the Viking heritage of the Wirral, the region’s rich and complex history of languages and cultures interacting with each other creates a vibrant multilingual and multicultural landscape.
 
Our graduates have built a range of interesting careers in journalism, the legal profession, police, teaching and education, as well as going on to study at postgraduate level, courses such as teaching English to speakers of other languages or law conversion courses.
 
Our students have conducted their own final-year research in areas as diverse as the influence of autism on language acquisition in children, the language of AI-written prose, computer-mediated analyses of political speeches, the history of words for madness and many others.
 
Our language programme builds on the links with Liverpool’s cultural institutions and benefits from a unique blend of expertise of international scholars from different fields of linguistics. We pride ourselves on our:

- small-group teaching with a close personal connection to our students, helping them develop and pursue their own academic interests;

- focus on the development of critical, analytical and digital skills that are favoured by employers around the world;

- access to Special Collections, home to over 75,000 printed materials and complemented by an environmentally controlled vault that houses rare books and manuscripts from as early as the ninth century;

- commitment to helping students develop employability skills and plan for future careers;

- strong commitment to ethics and sustainability, exploring language as a tool that can change the world for better or for worse.

At Liverpool Hope University, you will become a linguist prepared to unravel the complexities of language, promote cross-cultural awareness, amplify unheard voices, and use language imaginatively to make our shared world more inclusive and environmentally sound.

POLITICS

Politics affects all of us. It is central to human life and human affairs. It is fundamental to how we organise and govern ourselves and to how we resolve conflicts. The decisions we make as political communities, who makes them and how, have consequences for how we live, from questions of war and peace, the distribution of wealth, our rights, freedoms, responsibilities, our access to education, transport and health care.

In this rapidly changing world, new challenges are constantly arising – from climate change to new technologies, from identity politics to Brexit and the Covid-19 pandemic – and the study of politics needs to respond. At Liverpool Hope, therefore, we seek to engage with politics and political issues in the real world as they evolve and change over time. In doing so, we actively encourage free and open debate and discussion amongst our students, encouraging a stronger awareness and appreciation of different points of view.

On this programme of study, you will explore key ideas, institutions and politics in an international, national and local context. You will be taught by staff who are experts in their fields, who will teach you to engage with political research and develop the capacity to be an independent, critically-minded scholar. The course also aims to equip you with transferable skills to take into the world of work.

Liverpool Hope can also offer work placement opportunities. In Politics we’ve also organised a Practitioners in Politics series of events, in conjunction with our Careers Office, where individuals including MPs, the Mayor of Liverpool and the Merseyside Commissioner for Crime and Policing have come to advise students on pathways into political careers and the skills needed to get there.