Build essential life-long skills in critical and analytical thinking, linguistic awareness and communications that will be crucial for you to succeed in any career path.
The undergraduate degree in English language at UBC gives you a broad sense of the range and applicability of language study.
You’ll be able to learn from our language faculty, who cover the fields of descriptive linguistics, historical linguistics, cognitive linguistics, functional grammar, semantics, pragmatics, discourse analysis, stylistics, genre studies, and history and theory of rhetoric amongst others. You can also take a variety of our literature courses on offer.
Major
Take a range of our language courses and focus on discourse and genre analysis, the history of English, structure of language, rhetoric, approaches to contemporary English or discourse and meaning.
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Minor
The minor in English language can be an instrumental partner for many other undergraduate degrees across the university, whether in sciences or the humanities.
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Without a doubt, the English component of my degree has provided an invaluable benefit to my capacities as a researcher and writer. I noticed that as I took more English classes, my grades improved overall, and I think this was the result of a skillset I developed through my studies in English.
Aaron Obedkoff
English and human geography
Quick Links


Student News
Colloquiums, Critiques, and Community: Celebrating Graduate and Undergraduate Student Research in the Department of English
June 24, 2025
Why Does Place and Power Matter? Q&A with Drs. David Gaertner and Linc Kesler
June 19, 2025
Meet Sophie Pavey, Winner of the 2025 UBC Undergraduate Prize in Library Research
June 19, 2025