French is a major world language, spoken in many parts of Europe, Africa and the Americas.This flexible programme gives you the opportunity to study French while developing your social scientific understanding of language.French and Linguistics make an excellent joint honours choice by combining the study of:a modern language in its global cultural contextthe expression and creation of meaning Linguistics courses of particular relevance to language students cover:the speech sounds of the world's languagesvariation in the languages of the worldthe structure and history of world languages.You will have the opportunity to acquire near-native fluency in this widely-spoken modern language, while gaining the broad cultural education valued by graduate employers.We will introduce you to the extraordinary richness and variety of the francophone world through the study of:literature and cinemapolitical history and social movementsphilosophical ideasOur courses cover material from the Middle Ages to the 21st Century and include specialist options taught by leading experts in key disciplines, including post-colonial studies and gender studies.LinguisticsLinguistics examines how language works, describing how sounds, words, sentences and conversations combine to express and create meaning.You will also study:the uses of language in everyday lifethe ways in which it varies across society and evolves over timehow it is mastered by childrenAs you progress through the programme, you will have the opportunity to plan and test scientific hypotheses about linguistic phenomena using specialist linguistics and phonetics equipment.