Difference between english language and linguistics at university level?

Generally degrees called "English language and/or linguistics" focus more on applied linguistics and specifically English linguistics. Learning about the syntax/morphology/phonology of a given language is different from learning about them "in general" as the general approach is usually very abstract and uses example data from a variety of languages (without assuming any knowledge of those languages before).

Linguistics also does not encompass any of the e.g. creative writing/communications type elements that are often available in a degree in English language. It's very much learning about abstract theories of syntax, semantics and phonology and experimental/practical phonetics. You may also end up doing e.g. psycholinguistics, second language acquisition, historical linguistics, sociolinguistics and dialectology etc depending on the course offerings. But the central focus is on the former abstract theories of language. And I do mean abstract!

Looking at the UK linguistics olympiad it doesn't seem directly that similar, although I can see it's sort of trying to get people to think linguistically but by manner of more familiar approaches (i.e. translation). You don't really get asked to translate things in linguistics, it's more e.g. constructing phonological rules from a dataset, identifying phonemes/morphemes/whatever in data, drawing syntax trees with proper x-bar notation for various sentences (including doing multiple for syntactically ambiguous sentences), and the semantics stuff often ends up quite essay based as it's very philosophical (although I think there is some more "formal" semantics which is a bit more formal logic like maybe?). We didn't really do any practical phonetics in the linguistics module I did, although I gather this focuses a lot on transcribing from audio phonetic data. We did have to e.g. describe how different sounds are articulated and the physical movements involved for example though.

Thanks so much for replying it really helped - from what you have said I’d probably enjoy a degree in either eng lang or ling and if theres no translating from other languages like the Olympiad then happy days 😂

I'm gonna be honest, I don't think there is any difference at all between English Language and Linguistics courses across universities other than what you want your certificate to say at the end of the degree. Ultimately, the same modules will be taught and you'll be sat with the same students in class either way. York offers both a degree in English Lang and a single degree in Linguistics and if you compare the two they are basically the exact same. I think pretty much all English Language or Linguistics courses will make modules like phonetics/phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics/pragmatics, (and often times historical and psycho/sociolinguistics too) compulsory in your first year because they're such foundational topics, so just be mindful of that; also, you will inevitably have to look at other languages (though not learn them in depth) as a result to compare to and contrast their features with English. However, the great thing about Ling degrees is the amount of flexibility after first year and you can really tailor your second/third years to things that you enjoy. The questions in the linguistics olympiad are pretty similar to what you would do at uni level linguistics in theoretical linguistics (particularly morphology and syntax), but if you can bear that kinda stuff for about a year then you can specialise more in the more applied stuff like sociolinguistics later on.

Also, if you enjoy the more sociological/philosophical side of language, have you considered looking into English Lit degrees as well? Literary and critical theory gets especially deep into the social side of things with how identities and ideologies get constructed and reproduced in texts - oftentimes, it feels (though I can only speak for my experience doing A Level English Lit and looking at uni level Lit from the outside) more like cultural anthropology because you're considering how texts espouse very specific ideas that reflect the times they were produced in. English Language/Linguistics focuses on the nitty gritty of how language works whereas English Lit focuses more on meaning and presentation, i.e. more at the actual impacts of language in society.

At least for the introductory module I did we didn't do any kind of formal translation. You would need to analyse the linguistic data and construct tables to e.g. determine the meaning of soke given phoneme based on the data and glosses provided or infer the word order based on example sentences with glosses (e.g. if it was verb subject object, subject object verb, etc). But I don't think that's really the same personally.

Yeah I wouldn’t say that’s the same either - sounds alright.

A bit late, but relaying what someone else said, generally linguistics and English language degrees are identical.
I'm in the final year of my linguistics undergraduate and at my university, the courses for English language and linguistics students is the same; the only difference is when you incorporate learning a foreign language as a secondary subject, since that requires learning the phonology of that language in its own module.

In terms of which you choose, it entirely depends on what degree title you'd rather have on your CV, since you'll most likely study the same content either way. And it doesn't impact whether you take the more sociolinguistic route or the more "sciencey" feeling route, like semantics (using lambda calculus), computational, phonetics, etc.

Usually you have to choose some mandatory subjects in 1st year which should give you a beginners scope of what linguistics is as a whole. At my university, this is psycholinguistics, morphology/syntax, phonetics/ology, and study of meaning which gives you the foundational skills to do semantics and pragmatics. Plus some optionals in historical linguistics and corpus linguistics. This then prepares you in 2nd and 3rd year to decide what particular subfields of linguistics you enjoy, allowing you to tailor your module choices to your specialised subjects.

For example, I know of a few people who particularly enjoy the subjects which are perceived as a very logical take on language structures: they happen to enjoy drawing syntax trees and using lambda calculus to portray sentence meaning. Others are the complete opposite by loving applied linguistics: basically how language impacts and is influenced by society. I'm inbetween these: I recently found a love for pragmatics, which is how meaning is communicated considering the surrounding context, psycholinguistics, and computational.

It's a very flexible degree, but it means it can be hard to find your niche until later in the course. Some people also happen to have less of an educational background in certain subjects, which means they struggle more in particular subfields. The people I mentioned who particularly enjoy the logical subfields did their A-levels and equivalent in maths and/or comp sci. Obviously this doesn't mean you shouldn't choose these modules, but you might have to put a bit more work in to get the same outcome.

I'd say if you enjoy how language works, linguistics is a great degree to do with a lot of potential for future careers. The only other downside I can think of is that it is the type of degree where most of the time you will have to supplement what you learn in your undergrad, or specialise, with a postgrad.