ENGLISH LITERATURE
English is the most spoken language in the world. With over 400 million native speakers, and a further 700 million people who speak it as a foreign language, the ubiquity of the English Language is unparalleled making it the de facto lingua franca of the world. English Language is not only an essential global tool of communication but also an efficient instrument of artistic expression, commercial exchange, and scientific exploration. As we enter the Fourth Industrial Revolution, technology and communication have become essential cohorts in the advancement of modern knowledge economies and given that more than half of the world’s scientific publications are in English – which also happens to be the medium for 80% of the information stored in the world’s computers – the significance of English language in contemporary global society has become increasingly self-evident.
Course Objectives and Content
Upon the culmination of their A-Level English Literature program, students will be able to express abstract as well logical ideas effectively and will have intricate knowledge about the mechanism of language, how it is used to create meaning, and its socio-cultural implications on human societies.
The students will be involved in a plethora of reading, writing, and analytical activities through which they will observe the relationship between a text and its context– for example, historical, social, cultural, and economic – and the ways in which it may influence the meaning and interpretation of a particular extract. This will include analyzing how students acquire language through the different stages of their development, how social groups construct language to create a distinctive identity of their own, and how in the postcolonial era English has affected culture around the world as it continues to evolve in the international arena.
Future Prospects
As the world becomes progressively automated, there has been an increase in demand for people with skills innate to humans that cannot be mimicked by machines. Creativity, critical thinking, problem-solving, and empathetic reasoning are some qualities that are in demand and can be found in students of Humanities, especially those who have studied the intricacies of human language and communication. Graduates of A Level English Language can go on to become Lawyers, Marketers, Writers, Journalists, Entrepreneurs, Academicians, Broadcast and Media Professionals, etc. For A Level English Language students, the future is rife with possibilities.
Exam Board and Specification Code: Cambridge International AS and A Level English Literature 9695