Bachelor of Arts (Honours) - English Language and Creative Writing

Through this BA English Language and Creative Writing students will gain a better understanding about the English Language, as well as the process of writing so that they can find their voice, whether as a poet, playwright or novelist.

At Hertfordshire they offer a stimulating and supportive environment in which students can explore their ideas, hone their craft and understand how to use language effectively. The creative writing modules are taught by lecturers who are themselves award-winning practitioners and who bridge the gap between creative and academic approaches to literature. They include poetry lecturer Wayne Holloway-Smith, winner of the Poetry Society’s Geoffrey Dearmer Prize and Seamus Heaney Prize nominee.

In the first year, alongside core English Language modules, students will also explore the diversity of use of the English language including regional variants, pidgin and creole English, language and ethnicity, and slang and street English. The core Creative Writing module, Becoming a Writer, will introduce students to genres and forms and examine the universalities of dialogue, plot and language. A second core module, Writing for the Screen, introduces them to the key principles of scriptwriting, while the optional module Identity and Contemporary Writing introduces you to some of the most exciting new writing as a model for their own work.

Core modules in English Language in the second year focus on English grammar and the sounds of English. Students can explore theories of how and why language developed and also study language-related real-life problems such as plagiarism and crime investigation in forensic linguistics. For Creative Writing students can explore the practicalities of getting published or working in literary publishing in a creative writing module taught by a former editor of Granta, the renowned magazine of new writing.

In the final year students can follow modules in different topics in English Language, including child language and communication, clinical linguistics, gender and language, and formulaic language, informed by academics’ own research specialisms. For Creative Writing, your particular creative interest can be channelled into a long piece of writing, which can be poetry, prose or drama.