Languages at University without Literature

There's no literature in the course at York, but it's French, German and linguistics.

Reply 2

Ludivine

*soph*

There's no literature in the course at York, but it's French, German and linguistics.

Oh that actually sounds interesting. I like literature a lot but sometimes I do worry about it forming part of my degree.

Reply 3

diamondgeezer

Basically, as you know I’m keen on doing languages at university but everyone keeps telling me their courses entail lots of literature.

To cut to the chase, my passion doesn’t lie in reading literature, my passions lie in communicating and writing in French and German. To be honest, literature somewhat bores me!

Are there any university courses for dual honour degrees (e.g. French and German) that don't entail literature??

If there are none, I presume a course like Business and French, Management and French, International Relations with French, wouldn’t entail literature? These courses would suit me fine as I could incorporate French but I would prefer to study more languages (French & Italian or French & German).

Can anyone shed some light on these issues?

Many Thanks In Advance,

Michael

P.S A big thanks to all those who have pm’ed me with lots of useful advice!

Same as me!
I've been looking into it, and I know that in Cambridge you can comletely avoid literature. Modern Languages at UCL has tonnes of lit (for Spanish anyway, try having a surf around the relevent deparment's websites) but it does offer a degree called Language and Culture which allows you to specialise in something other than literature, for example film studies or linguistics. I think that you can completely avoid literature in the Durham modern languages degree (although that may be hard for French, but it's doable).
Not entirely sure about other modern language degrees, but you could consider a degree like European Studies, where you can sudy one or two languages alongside a social science (Royal Holloway, UCL, KCL, Nottingham and Edinburgh all do a version of this).
Have a look around university websites, most of them list all their modules and what they involve, so you should be able to find out more that way. :smile:

Reply 4

princessa

1

i do french and spanish at manchester and hate reading, apart from first year i have done no literature at all. i know manchester at least has a wide range of modules so you dont have to do lit if you dont want to.

Reply 5

*soph*

If you take joint honours at Nottingham, the German dept make you take one literature module a year, but if you take Modern Language Studies or 2 languages with business or something, you can avoid literature, and I intend to do just that :biggrin:

Reply 6

gringalet

I don't think a language degree without some kind of what I'd call 'content' course, be that literature, linguistics, film, or interdisciplinary, would be very interesting at all. Don't want to repeat myself, but in my opinion to understand a language, you have to understand the culture it comes from, and most languages that you are able to study at uni have a great literary tradition.

If literature really turns you off, which is fair enough (although I convinced myself that I wouldn't be very into German literature, only linguistics, and have now got a great passion for medieval German literature) then maybe you should look at some courses, as suggested, with linguistics. Linguistics is a really fascinating discipline, and if you're more interested in how languages work, whether on a grammatical level, or sociological, or anything, then maybe that could be for you. I can't think of any what people would define as 'good' unis that just offer courses in learning vocab and grammar.

Reply 7

54201

OP

Maybe I'm just being a little naive, at the end of the day I'm only presuming so, I could really like it! I'll do a little research on some French Literature see if anything might take my fancy.

Would a course in business and french entail literature?

When you say just learning vocabulary and grammar, surely this is not the case as you could study films, culture and current affairs. What I really meant to say was ancient literature! Reading isn't too much of a problem, as I enjoy books just medieval French and German history doesn't interest me.

Reply 8

princessa

1

i think her point was you cant just learn language at degree level without putting it into some kind of context. its perfectly valid to do a degree in languages without literature and study other stuff that actually interests you, like linguistics or music or politics. you just have to research what the unis offer very carefully. personally i think literature is overrated, but i never have been a big reader. if it interests you than many languages like french and spanish have a rich and varied literature that is well worth investigating, but its no big deal if its not your bag. as you say its worth giving it a go, but if like you you try it and like me remain uninspired you can just turn to a different area of the language.

as for courses like business and french etc, it depends on the uni and the degree. for example i know people doing joint honours in language and business or linguistics or whatever, and this way, they have to do 60 credits of one and 60 of the other (or anthing up to a 80:40 credit ratio). for the language part of their joint honours, 20 credits of this are language, and the rest you can make up from course options such as film, literature, music, history, linguistics, politics etc. so you could just avoid literature. it depends on how varied the courses offered by the department are, and what rules they have. i do joint honours french and spanish so similarly, i only have to do 60 credits of french. if i was doing a single honours french degree, where at least 100 credits were from french, it might be more difficult to make the credits up without having to choose at least one literature course.

and also the literature offered in many unis isnt necessarily "ancient". in manchester you can study literature from the middle ages to the modern day, chosing which period interests you. i know someone at cambridge soing french and she said she had to do a lot of lit, especially medieval stuff, if that doesnt interest you then cambridge probably isnt your best option. its the fun of shopping around and looking at prospectuses choosing which uni would suit you best.

Reply 9

leannemarie

11

Cambridge, also I don't think you have to do any at Durham because you can do 3 languages and there are a lot of options. Also look at Southampton which has about 4 different language degrees depending on what options you want to take. I'm not sure what they do at Newcastle, but you can also do 3 languages there including 2 European and Chinese/Arabic, or 3 European.

Reply 10

54201

OP

Keeping in mind the courses I have mentioned- Do you think these A Levels are ok?

French
German
English Language
Economics

Any advice on the above choices? Good? Bad?

Reply 11

kellywood_5

17

diamondgeezer

Keeping in mind the courses I have mentioned- Do you think these A Levels are ok?

French
German
English Language
Economics

Any advice on the above choices? Good? Bad?

They look excellent to me- 2 languages, English language would help if you decided to do linguistics and economics would be good if you wanted to do something businessy.

Reply 12

diamondgeezer

Keeping in mind the courses I have mentioned- Do you think these A Levels are ok?

French
German
English Language
Economics

Any advice on the above choices? Good? Bad?

Don't worry that's more than enough! You have two languages, meaning you obviously have a passion for languages, English Language is also useful and Economics shows that you can do other things too!

Reply 13

PrinceOfCats

York, as already mentioned.

Myself, I looked for the courses with the highest literature content because basically I want to study literature in a foreign language.

Reply 14

Ludivine

PrinceOfCats

York, as already mentioned.

Myself, I looked for the courses with the highest literature content because basically I want to study literature in a foreign language.

Will you be studying at UCL, PrinceOfCats?

Reply 15

gringalet

princessa

i think her point was you cant just learn language at degree level without putting it into some kind of context.

Exactly. As I said, this could be literature, linguistics, film, whatever. My first year coures were, aside from core course language in Modern Greek and German, Modern Greek poetry, a course called 'Greece between East and West since 1800' which was interdisciplinary in that we looked at texts from all kinds of different sources, German language from past to present (so, linguistics), Medieval German literature, language and society, and German cinema, so I completely agree with the OP that it can be in loads of different areas! It's just that especially with languages like French and German which have such a great tradition in literature you almost have to expect some kind of literature course.

I suggest that you research your courses very carefully, and beyond the first year, as although you might have to take something in French lit or whatever in the first year, it could be free rein afterwards and they might have a wide range of courses.

If you seriously just want to do GCSE or A-level language work, I suggest you apply for another subject and do a module or evening class in the language.

Reply 16

PrinceOfCats

Ludivine

Will you be studying at UCL, PrinceOfCats?

If I get a Grade D or higher in my last economics exam, yes :p:

I see three options:

a) Generally speaking, the more languages you take, the less time you will spend studying literature. Apply for Modern Languages Plus BA or equivalent.

b) Take langauge and linguistics at a university which focuses on these such as York or, I think, Salford.

c) Take a Scottish degree with a major/minor structure. Select another subject as your major, then just take language options for your minor.

Reply 17

PrinceOfCats

York, as already mentioned.

Myself, I looked for the courses with the highest literature content because basically I want to study literature in a foreign language.

York only do French and German (useless sods).

Reply 18

54201

OP

gringalet

If you seriously just want to do GCSE or A-level language work, I suggest you apply for another subject and do a module or evening class in the language.

Kind of you, so even though I want to go down translating and interpreting route , you wouldn't recommend going to university???

So because I don't want to study medieval literature, I shouldn't study languages at uni, what a load of tosh!!!!

Reply 19