English Language/History

English language and history is a combination that gives you two distinct but powerfully complementary ways of understanding how human experience is shaped and recorded. English language and linguistics examines how language is structured, how it changes over time, and what its patterns reveal about culture, society, and the mind. History examines the events, processes, and ideas that have shaped societies across centuries, drawing on documents, artefacts, and the records that language has preserved.

Studying the two together means you can investigate not only what happened in the past but how it was expressed, debated, and contested in language.

At the University of Glasgow, this four-year full-time programme includes a year abroad, giving you the opportunity to study at a partner institution in another country. This international dimension enriches your perspective on both disciplines, exposing you to different scholarly traditions and language communities. You will study the history of the English language alongside its contemporary structure, examining how linguistic change reflects and drives cultural change, and you will engage with historical scholarship across a range of periods and themes, learning to read sources critically and to construct well-evidenced arguments about the past.

Glasgow's research strengths in both linguistics and history mean you will be engaging with work that is shaping current understanding in both fields.

Graduates are well-equipped for careers that require strong communication, critical thinking, and the ability to work with complex textual sources. Journalism, publishing, education, the civil service, archive and heritage work, and the cultural sector are all common destinations. The linguistic dimension also opens paths into language-related roles such as lexicography, language technology, and applied linguistics, while the historical grounding supports careers in museums, research, and policy.

Many graduates continue to postgraduate study in linguistics, history, or related fields.