About this course
Explore European culture and politics, and develop advanced skills in 2 languages. This 4-year course lets you discover the rich history of European society, and study its political, legal and economic structures. You’ll spend a year living and working abroad, where you'll improve your language skills and boost your career prospects.
With our Languages and Contemporary European Studies course, you'll look at the history and politics of European integration. Modules will focus on major themes related to society, ideology and culture.
You'll study 2 modern languages from these options:
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French
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German
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Spanish
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Portuguese
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Chinese
You can also tailor your degree with modules in areas that interest you, such as linguistics or Latin American culture.
Our language development system means we'll teach you at a level that matches your ability. You can even learn one language as a complete beginner.
This is one of the few European Studies degrees set in a Modern Languages programme, and our Centre for Language Study will support you throughout.
You'll spend your 3rd year abroad and can choose to:
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work as an English assistant in a school
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study at a university
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take a work placement
We have partner universities across Europe, but you can also go to:
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Canada
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Brazil
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Mexico
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China
Course location
This course is based at Avenue.
Awarding body
This qualification is awarded by the University of Southampton.
Download the programme specification
The programme specification sets out the learning outcomes of this course and details how the course is taught and assessed.
Entry requirements
For Academic year 202021
A-levels
ABB including one language
A-levels additional information
Offers typically exclude General Studies and Critical Thinking.
A-levels with Extended Project Qualification
If you are taking an EPQ in addition to 3 A levels, you will receive the following offer in addition to the standard A level offer:
BBB including one language and grade A in the EPQ
A-levels contextual offer
We are committed to ensuring that all applicants with the potential to succeed, regardless of their background, are encouraged to apply to study with us. The additional information gained through contextual data allows us to recognise an applicant's potential to succeed in the context of their background and experience.
Applicants who are highlighted in this way will be made an offer which is lower than the typical offer for that programme, as follows:
BBB including one language
International Baccalaureate Diploma
Pass, with 32 points overall with 16 points at Higher Level, including 5 at Higher Level in one language
International Baccalaureate contextual offer
We are committed to ensuring that all learners with the potential to succeed, regardless of their background, are encouraged to apply to study with us. The additional information gained through contextual data allows us to recognise a learner’s potential to succeed in the context of their background and experience. Applicants who are highlighted in this way will be made an offer which is lower than the typical offer for that programme.
International Baccalaureate Career Programme (IBCP) statement
Offers will be made on the individual Diploma Course subject(s) and the career-related study qualification. The CP core will not form part of the offer. Where there is a subject pre-requisite(s), applicants will be required to study the subject(s) at Higher Level in the Diploma course subject and/or take a specified unit in the career-related study qualification. Applicants may also be asked to achieve a specific grade in those elements.
Please see the University of Southampton International Baccalaureate Career-Related Programme (IBCP) Statement for further information. Applicants are advised to contact their Faculty Admissions Office for more information.
BTEC
Distinction, Distinction in the BTEC Extended Diploma plus B in one language A level
Distinction, Distinction in the BTEC Diploma plus B in one language A level
Distinction in the BTEC Subsidiary Diploma plus AB in one language A level and one further A level
BTEC additional information
No additional information
Access to HE Diploma
60 credits with a minimum of 45 credits at Level 3, of which 30 must be at Distinction and 15 credits at Merit, plus A in one language A level
Access to HE additional information
No additional information
Irish Leaving Certificate
Irish Leaving Certificate (first awarded 2017)
H1 H2 H2 H2 H3 H3 including one language
Irish Leaving Certificate (first awarded 2016)
A2 A2 B1 B1 B2 B2 including one language at B1
Irish certificate additional information
No additional information
Scottish Qualification
Offers will be based on exams being taken at the end of S6. Subjects taken and qualifications achieved in S5 will be reviewed. Careful consideration will be given to an individual’s academic achievement, taking in to account the context and circumstances of their pre-university education.
Please see the University of Southampton’s Curriculum for Excellence Scotland Statement (PDF) for further information. Applicants are advised to contact their Faculty Admissions Office for more information.
Cambridge Pre-U
D3 M2 M2 in three principal subjects including one language
Cambridge Pre-U additional information
No additional information
Welsh Baccalaureate
ABB from 3 A levels including one language
or
AB from two A levels including one language and B from the Advanced Welsh Baccalaureate Skills Challenge Certificate
Welsh Baccalaureate additional information
Offers typically exclude General Studies and Critical Thinking.
Welsh Baccalaureate contextual offer
We are committed to ensuring that all learners with the potential to succeed, regardless of their background, are encouraged to apply to study with us. The additional information gained through contextual data allows us to recognise a learner’s potential to succeed in the context of their background and experience. Applicants who are highlighted in this way will be made an offer which is lower than the typical offer for that programme.
European Baccalaureate
77% overall including grade 8 in one language
Other requirements
GCSE requirements
Applicants must hold GCSE English language (or GCSE English) (minimum grade 4/C) and mathematics (minimum grade 4/C)
Find the equivalent international qualifications for our entry requirements.
English language requirements
If English isn't your first language, you'll need to complete an International English Language Testing System (IELTS) to demonstrate your competence in English. You'll need all of the following scores as a minimum:
IELTS score requirements
- overall score
- 6.5
- reading
- 6.0
- writing
- 6.0
- speaking
- 6.0
- listening
- 6.0
We accept other English language tests. Find out which English language tests we accept.
You might meet our criteria in other ways if you do not have the qualifications we need. Find out more about:
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our Access to Southampton scheme for students living permanently in the UK (including residential summer school, application support and scholarship)
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skills you might have gained through work or other life experiences (otherwise known as recognition of prior learning)
Find out more about our Admissions Policy.
Got a question?
Please contact our enquiries team if you're not sure that you have the right experience or qualifications to get onto this course.
Email: enquiries@southampton.ac.uk
Tel: +44(0)23 8059 5000
Course structure
COVID-19: we've made some changes to the structure of the course for this academic year. Download the programme specification addendum in 'About this course' to learn more.
This degree combines compulsory modules with a wide range of optional modules that deepen your understanding of Europe. These options also let you tailor your learning to suit your interests and ambitions.
Each year you can choose modules from other subject areas, or learn a third language. You can even add a subject to your degree as a Minor.
To give you the best possible start, we use our system of 7 language levels to work out your ability. We'll then put you in the most appropriate stage to develop your spoken and written skills in both languages.
Year 1 overview
You'll take a module for Modern Language students, which offers guidance on study skills, and outlines the academic conventions you'll need to know. Compulsory language modules will develop your skills in both your chosen languages.
You'll explore political systems and the key concepts of social change, then choose from a range of optional modules on topics including:
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German history, politics and society
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the history and politics of the Hispanic world
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French society and political culture
Year 2 overview
You'll continue to develop your language skills. Compulsory modules will examine the European business environment and explore European identity.
You’ll choose from a wide range of optional modules. These might include:
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psycholinguistics
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language structure
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learning about culture through ethnography
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company law
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media perspectives on Germany after 1968
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post-war French thought
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modules from other subject areas, including other languages
A special module will help you plan your year abroad.
Year 3 overview
We’ll help you choose a placement abroad that interests you. You can:
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study at one of our partner universities
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work as an English language assistant in a school
-
find an approved work placement
During your time away, you’ll produce an independent research project in your chosen language. It will show original thought and help improve your language skills.
Find out more about the year abroad.
Year 4 overview
You'll take a module examining your experiences abroad. This will help you produce an enhanced CV.
You’ll continue with language modules, and take optional modules in topics such as:
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US Latino language and identity
-
public service interpreting
-
language teaching
-
globalisation and world politics
-
multicultural Germany
-
comparative sociology
You can also choose to take a Modern Languages dissertation.
Want more detail? See all the modules in the course.
Modules
For entry in Academic Year 2021-22
Year 1 modules
You must study the following modules in year 1:
This module is designed to ease the transition from A-level to the first year of a single or combined honours degree programme by setting out clearly what we expect of you at undergraduate level and equipping you with the resources to be able to operate a...
Students should gain a knowledge of how political ideas - such as freedom, equality, justice, or democracy - have been understood in different and incompatible ways, and how those different understandings have been the occasion for ideological or normativ...
The aim of every language course at the University is to enable you to communicate in your target language at that particular level and in your particular area of interest. We use the word ‘communicate’ in its widest sense, meaning that you will not only ...
This module provides an introduction to the study of politics and the key concepts and theoretical approaches in comparative politics. Pre-requisite for PAIR2031, PAIR2037, PAIR3039 and PAIR3046
This module will introduce you to studying questions of history, society and culture through the prism of Southampton in order that you can apply those approaches to the study of cities in the French-, Spanish- and German-speaking world.
The module will look at key social transformations in the modern world and the way in which these have been analysed by social scientists.
Year 2 modules
You must study the following modules in year 2:
The module will clarify the links between the Year Abroad project and modules in years two and four.
Strategic management is central to the operation of a variety of businesses in different sectors and environments. The creation of a strategy and the management of its implementation are important in developing businesses that can create and sustain a com...
The course seeks to provide an overview of the evolution of the European Union (EU) from its early stages to the present. In so doing, it examines the ideas and history of the EU, the institutions of the EU, examples of specific issue areas and the presen...
You must also choose from the following modules in year 2:
The aim of this module is to situate Accounting and Management students in the Company Law environment where accountants and business managers typically work. Students will consider the legal frameworks of the commercial world to gain an understanding of ...
This course highlights and analyses the link between language structure and its situation of occurrence.
This module uses ethnographic approaches to understand the diversity of Latin America’s peoples and cultures. Emphasizing the emergence within Latin American anthropology of focuses on everyday life through topics such as kinship and family, ritual and re...
This module explores the French language from different perspectives in linguistics.
This module will problematize the concept of globalisation and explore and develop an understanding of its meaning in economic, political and cultural terms.
This course will examine high, popular and mass cultural forms in twentieth century Spain and Latin America. It will discuss notions of mass reproduction and its cultural consequences for cultural form and audience response, including the appropriation of...
How will the arts get working again after Covid-19? This is a critically important question for everyone who cares about them, artists and audiences alike. If you’re a student considering a career in the arts you’ll want to know where fresh opportunities ...
This module gives students a practical understanding of the importance of the questions of immigration, race and ethnicity in France.
An interesting and challenging course which should provide students with an insight into the workings of Parliament and the judiciary, knowledge of the structure of the English legal system and the impact of European and Human Rights provisions on domesti...
This course examines three areas of psycholinguistics which help to understand what the relationship between language and the human mind might be.
This course builds on the basic concepts of phonetics introduced in the first year, with an introduction to acoustic science for the study of speech sounds.
This course will provide you with an introduction to syntax within current linguistic theory.
Although a ‘common sense’ view of world politics is often presented in non-academic contexts, there is little agreement among experts on what international relations is, and how we should think about the discipline. This module enables students to critica...
This module will introduce you to German metropolitan culture and politics in the 20th century with particular reference to Vienna and Berlin, using a wide range of sources which will include literature, film and architecture.
Year 3 modules
You must study the following module in year 3:
The YEAR Abroad Research Project is a 6000 word piece of independent academic writing which you complete in the target language during your residence abroad (or during the summer between your second and final year, in case of exemption from the Year Abroa...
Year 4 modules
You must study the following module in year 4:
This module is designed to accompany you as you resume your programme of studies in Southampton and grapple with the challenges of re-entry. We will support you as you reflect upon your experience of study abroad, enable you to articulate those experience...
You must also choose from the following modules in year 4:
This unit introduces you to some key definitions and concepts before providing an overview of the main phases of immigration in France from the 1880s to the late 1940s.
The module will introduce the main theoretical ideas of language and identity alongside tracing the historical, social and linguistic background to the presence of the so-called Latinos in the US. Issues of language policies in general and those affectin...
This module is concerned with the development of modern societies and the nature of 'modernity'. It will draw on the writings of contemporary sociologists in order to consider what the most important processes of social change taking place are and how the...
Based on literary texts, films and visual materials from and about Portugal, Brazil, Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau and Mozambique, this course is intended to reflect the cutting edge of Lusophone cultural production and Lusophone Studies research, whi...
This option will examine the relationship between French identity and culture since 1981 with the elections of François Mitterrand by exploring the ways in which identities of different social groups are expressed within the economic, political and cultur...
This module in French sociolinguistics aims to build on and re-evaluate your existing knowledge of the French language from a sociolinguistic perspective. The module has three major themes: language change, language variation and language identity in rela...
The turbulent history of Austrian and German Jews during the twentieth century was accompanied by the production of a diverse and influential body of German-language literature by Jewish authors. Prior to World War Two, Jews played a crucial role in the c...
The module will look at the main issues and trends, concepts and definitions on globalisation within the discipline of international relations.
How will the arts get working again after Covid-19? This is a critically important question for everyone who cares about them, artists and audiences alike. If you’re a student considering a career in the arts you’ll want to know where fresh opportunities ...
This unit examines the theory and practice of language teaching and explores 'reflective practice' as a set of skills that can be applied to your future working life.
One of the socially and culturally most significant consequences of transnational mobility is that urban populations in particular are increasingly multilingual: in global cities such as London, New York and Berlin there are speakers of hundreds of differ...
Germany has had a long tradition of immigration and is one of the most multi-cultural countries in Europe today. We will examine the impact of diverse immigration movements on recent German history and notions of German identity. This includes examining b...
This unit will allow students to undertake independent research to produce an in-depth study of a specific topic located in one of the fields within Modern Languages.
Fuelled by the sexual revolution, the women’s movement and gay activism, the late twentieth century saw a flourishing of critical interest in questions of sex, gender and desire and their relation to literature and culture. This module will develop your u...
This course will introduce you to a range of examples of Spanish American (e.g. Puerto Rican, Argentinean, and Mexican [American]) and Iberian cultural production from the period of the 1980s to the 21st century, in order to provide a sense of the variet...
Translation plays a major role in the exchange and circulation of practical information and culture production. This means that even if they do not enter the translation profession, in a society that is increasingly global, Modern Linguists are frequently...
Learning and assessment
The learning activities for this course include the following:
- lectures
- classes and tutorials
- coursework
- individual and group projects
- independent learning (studying on your own)
Course time
How you'll spend your course time:
Year 1
Study time
Your scheduled learning, teaching and independent study for year 1:
How we'll assess you
- composition portfolios
- debates
- dissertations
- essays
- individual and group projects
- oral presentations
- written and practical exams
- written exams
Your assessment breakdown
Year 1:
Year 2
Study time
Your scheduled learning, teaching and independent study for year 2:
How we'll assess you
- composition portfolios
- debates
- dissertations
- essays
- individual and group projects
- oral presentations
- written and practical exams
- written exams
Your assessment breakdown
Year 2:
Year 3
Study time
Your scheduled learning, teaching and independent study for year 3:
How we'll assess you
- composition portfolios
- debates
- dissertations
- essays
- individual and group projects
- oral presentations
- written and practical exams
- written exams
Your assessment breakdown
Year 3:
Year 4
Study time
Your scheduled learning, teaching and independent study for year 4:
How we'll assess you
- composition portfolios
- debates
- dissertations
- essays
- individual and group projects
- oral presentations
- written and practical exams
- written exams
Your assessment breakdown
Year 4:
Academic support
You’ll be supported by a personal academic tutor and have access to a senior tutor.
Course leader
Heidi Armbruster is the course leader.
Careers
As a Modern Languages graduate, you can choose from a wide variety of careers. Many of our graduates also go on to further study.
You'll develop many skills, including:
-
gathering and interpreting information
-
working with and leading teams
-
understanding and adapting to different cultures
Previous graduates have gone on to careers including:
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translation
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interpreting
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teaching
-
marketing
-
publishing
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international development
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advertising, film and television
During the course, you can take modules to improve your career skills, including:
-
interpreting and translating
-
law
-
accountancy
-
management
-
international relations
There is an employability module for all first-year students in the faculty.
Careers services at Southampton
We are a top 20 UK university for employability (QS Graduate Employability Rankings 2019). Our Careers and Employability Service will support you throughout your time as a student and for up to 5 years after graduation. This support includes:
work experience schemes
CV and interview skills and workshops
networking events
careers fairs attended by top employers
a wealth of volunteering opportunities
study abroad and summer school opportunities
We have a vibrant entrepreneurship culture and our dedicated start-up supporter, Futureworlds, is open to every student.
Fees, costs and funding
Tuition fees
Fees for a year's study:
- UK students pay £9,250.
- EU and international students pay £18,520.
What your fees pay for
Your tuition fees pay for the full cost of tuition and all examinations.
Find out how to:
Accommodation and living costs, such as travel and food, are not included in your tuition fees. Explore:
Bursaries, scholarships and other funding
If you're a UK or EU student and your household income is under £25,000 a year, you may be able to get a University of Southampton bursary to help with your living costs. Find out about bursaries and other funding we offer at Southampton.
If you're a care leaver or estranged from your parents, you may be able to get a specific bursary.
Get in touch for advice about student money matters.
Scholarships and grants
You may be able to get a scholarship or grant that's linked to your chosen subject area.
We award scholarships and grants for travel, academic excellence, or to students from underrepresented backgrounds.
Support during your course
The Student Services Centre offers support and advice on money to students. You may be able to access our Student Support fund and other sources of financial support during your course.
Funding for EU and international students
Find out about funding you could get as an international student.
How to apply
When you apply use:
- UCAS course code: R900
- UCAS institution code: S27
What happens after you apply?
We will assess your application on the strength of your:
- predicted grades
- academic achievements
- personal statement
- academic reference
We aim to respond to you within 2 to 6 weeks with a decision about your application.
Equality and diversity
We treat and select everyone in line with our Equality and Diversity Statement.
Got a question?
Please contact our enquiries team if you're not sure that you have the right experience or qualifications to get onto this course.
Email: enquiries@southampton.ac.uk
Tel: +44(0)23 8059 5000
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