Course summary

Our BA Linguistics and Portuguese course will enable you to delve into the science of language - an everyday phenomenon which impacts our lives on an individual and a global scale. You will study topics such as the ways in which children acquire their first language, differences between the speech of men and women, how the sound systems and grammars of different types of language are organised, what happens when speakers of different languages come into contact, and much else besides. You can also achieve near-native proficiency in European and Brazilian Portuguese while studying the language within its cultural and historical context. You can start as an absolute beginner and go through to an advanced level over four years. Language study offers much more than just language fluency. You'll explore diverse aspects of the culture, society, history, politics and literature of the countries in which Portuguese is spoken, helping you to develop intercultural awareness and communication skills - both highly valued by employers. You'll benefit from excellent teaching, student support and cutting-edge study facilities, as well as from the vibrancy and cultural diversity of Manchester itself, Western Europe's most multilingual city. With placement options available at partner universities and in professional environments in Portuguese-speaking countries in Europe and Latin America, a compulsory third year abroad gives our undergraduate students unforgettable and invaluable personal and professional experience. Our course will help you to develop analytical and problem-solving skills. Often dealing with granular and complex data, your combination of humanities and scientific understanding will allow you to make connections across multiple fields of employment. The course unit details listed below are those you may choose to study as part of this programme and are referred to as optional units. These are subject to change and are the latest example of the curriculum available on this programme. Although language units may show here as optional, they are a mandatory part of your modern languages degree and you will take the units relevant to your level of language in each year of study. It is compulsory to study language at all levels of your modern languages degree.