The Benefits of Studying English
The Benefits of Studying English
English is the most widely used language in the world. It is spoken by around four hundred million people. Along with its proud status as the top first language, it is extensively used as a second language across the globe. For those wishing to study the subject further, for example to A level or degree level standard, it is naturally assumed that an excellent level of written and spoken English will already have been attained. In these higher level courses you will be studying the great literary classics: you will perusethe Elizabethan period, when English prose went through such a transformation. The plays of Shakespeare, Marlowe and Webster will be studied. Later on you may read Milton, and Dryden; and then the romantic poets such as Shelley and Byron. In this manner of learning and studying, you will be tracing the genesis of the language itself: how modern English came to be as it is. From Chaucer down to Joyce, you will see how the English language, largely due to the expansion of the empire from the seventeenth century onwards, reached out and appropriated aspects of other languages. Thanks to this assimilation of multifarious other tongues, English contains a staggering vocabulary. The complete oxford English dictionary lists well over 250,000 words; and this is excluding many more thousand scientific, technical, and slang terms. Neologisms are being freshly formed all the time. English is a living language.
The premise here being discussed is not the noble nature, or the global proliferation of English; the questions at hand are the reasons for studying it further. If you are considering studying English at degree level, you must be already aptly skilled in the language. There are many who have a love of English literature – a love of the language, and a deep seated fascination with those past masters (male and female), who by strength of character, and linguistic virtuosity, have left such an indelible imprint, that
English is the most widely used language in the world. It is spoken by around four hundred million people. Along with its proud status as the top first language, it is extensively used as a second language across the globe. For those wishing to study the subject further, for example to A level or degree level standard, it is naturally assumed that an excellent level of written and spoken English will already have been attained. In these higher level courses you will be studying the great literary classics: you will perusethe Elizabethan period, when English prose went through such a transformation. The plays of Shakespeare, Marlowe and Webster will be studied. Later on you may read Milton, and Dryden; and then the romantic poets such as Shelley and Byron. In this manner of learning and studying, you will be tracing the genesis of the language itself: how modern English came to be as it is. From Chaucer down to Joyce, you will see how the English language, largely due to the expansion of the empire from the seventeenth century onwards, reached out and appropriated aspects of other languages. Thanks to this assimilation of multifarious other tongues, English contains a staggering vocabulary. The complete oxford English dictionary lists well over 250,000 words; and this is excluding many more thousand scientific, technical, and slang terms. Neologisms are being freshly formed all the time. English is a living language.
The premise here being discussed is not the noble nature, or the global proliferation of English; the questions at hand are the reasons for studying it further. If you are considering studying English at degree level, you must be already aptly skilled in the language. There are many who have a love of English literature – a love of the language, and a deep seated fascination with those past masters (male and female), who by strength of character, and linguistic virtuosity, have left such an indelible imprint, that