French/Spanish (4 years)

French/Politics (4 years)

The School of Modern Languages and the Department of Politics aims to develop and educate its students to become ‘global citizens’.  By combining French and Politics, you will gain a variety of transferable skills and knowledge beneficial to the world of employment, making you competitive and attractive in an increasingly global workforce and opening the doors to a variety of career paths.

The field of politics allows you to explore how parliaments and governments function and evaluate political ideas such as power, freedom, democracy, conflict, legitimacy or accountability as well as incorporating international relations.

Modules are varied, allowing you to explore how politics works in Britain and further afield as well as investigate how public policy is made. Other strands of work discuss justice, democracy, human rights and international relations; providing you with a broad understanding of politics tailored to your own particular needs.

Throughout the programme, in addition to developing high-level language skills, students gain an in-depth intercultural understanding that encompasses a specific knowledge of French cultures allied to the ability to navigate and mediate between more than one culture. You will develop high-level communication and critical-thinking skills, and foster resilience and independence through time spent in immersive foreign language contexts.

France is a major actor on the European and world stage, possessing a rich and sophisticated culture. French is one of the official working languages of the European Union and of the United Nations.

We offer French for both advanced students and beginners. In your first year, in addition to your language tuition, an introduction to French history and culture seeks to provide a solid foundation for more specialised studies as you progress through your course.

Your understanding of the language will be further developed and refined during your year abroad, when you will experience life in a French-speaking country at first hand.

In the final year, you have the opportunity to write a dissertation, which stimulates initiative and can serve as a useful preparation for postgraduate study.

It is important to remember that studying languages is not just about the language itself. It involves exploring many aspects of a country, and we aspire to offer a genuinely broad course that offers challenging and stimulating modules.

As a joint honours student, you will find that often there are complementary issues and perspectives that link subjects, be they critical analysis, historical contexts or recent research. On completion of this four-year programme, you will have a high level of language proficiency, as well as a critical understanding of key aspects of French history, culture, literature, politics and contemporary society.