As one of Europe's most creative and diverse civilisations, Italy has a fascinating and influential history.This flexible programme gives you the opportunity to learn Italian while developing your social scientific understanding of language.Italian and Linguistics make an excellent joint honours choice by combining the study of:a modern language in its cultural contextthe expression and creation of meaningLinguistics 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 languagesStudy Italian with us, and you will learn the language in the context of Italian culture. Courses cover some of the most famous and influential works of literature, art and cinema.No previous knowledge of Italian is needed. Intensive language tuition, including a year spent studying or working in Italy, will develop your ability to read, write and speak the language to a high standard with advanced translation skills.Linguistics 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 formulate and test scientific hypotheses about linguistic phenomena using specialist linguistics and phonetics equipment.