Delivered jointly by the School of Social Sciences and the School of Arts, Languages and Cultures, this course has been designed to meet the needs of students who want to keep their options open and develop their subject interests as they progress through the degree, as well as students who want a degree that enables them to specialise.
For students looking for a course that provides breadth of study, politics and modern languages is a good fit because both subject areas are interdisciplinary. Depending on the topic, course units in politics draw from history, philosophy, or law, and language course units may draw from social anthropology, linguistics, and professional skills such as translation or interpretation. The interdisciplinary nature of both subjects is amplified on this course by the range of course unit choices in Years 2 and 4.
The course suits students that want to specialise because students must choose one European or world language, and this choice is reflected in their degree title, for example BA Politics and Modern Languages (Chinese). The course unit choices from politics in Years 2 and 4 enable students to chart a study route that, for example, may focus only on British politics only or international relations.
Politics
Teaching is structured around four core themes – comparative politics, international politics, international political economy and political theory. We will help you to develop strong intellectual foundations within the discipline, while also giving you increasing choice and diversity of subjects and approaches as you progress through your second and fourth years. Course unit choices currently include options to study pressing global political challenges from a UK or global perspective. We offer course units on social justice, post-colonial politics, globalisation, gender and politics, LGBTQ politics, environmental politics, security studies, political history, and the politics of a specific nation or global region, for example North America, Latin American China, Europe, or Africa.
Language learning
You will join a pathway for your chosen language:
The beginner pathway is for students, who do not have any foundation in the language. Some students are complete beginners. Some students may have undertaken some language learning. For example, a UK student who studied a language in Years 7 and 8 at secondary school.
The intermediate pathway is for students, who have a good foundation in the language, and have the equivalent of an A-level in their chosen language.
The advanced pathway is for students, who are already fluent and proficient in their chosen language.
French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese and Spanish have beginner and intermediate pathways. Arabic has a beginner pathway only. Chinese and Russian have beginner, intermediate, and advanced pathways.
The language learning course units are designed to develop your skills of reception (reading and listening), production (speaking and writing), and translation. For some languages, you will be learning different alphabets and scripts – Modern Standard Arabic, Cyrillic (Russian), Mandarin (Chinese), and Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji (Japanese).
Class sizes are small and led by academics, who are a mix of native speakers, and English speakers who are fluent in the language. Using your language throughout the week really accelerates your learning and we encourage you to use it socially. For example, by joining student societies that enable you to meet students from different countries and following social media influencers and media channels for your chosen language.
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