English Courses

LANG2090 equips students from any discipline to explore how language shapes real-world communication by using corpus linguistics—a method that harnesses large-scale language data to uncover hidden patterns. Through hands-on experience with authentic language datasets and basic analytical techniques, students gain insights applicable to fields like communication, education, media, and business. By examining language use across domains such as health, business, and digital communication, the course develops students' digital literacy, quantitative research skills, and evidence-based communication abilities. No prior background in linguistics or data analytics is required, making LANG2090 accessible to anyone curious about turning language into actionable evidence.

Learn data analytics through real communication. Investigate how language is used in health and science, business and politics, digital media and everyday communication. Students learn to move beyond personal impressions and support their interpretations with authentic language data.

Progress from guided practice to independent investigation. The course begins with accessible, hands-on activities using corpus tools. Students then analyse authentic datasets before building their own corpus and conducting an original investigation into a topic that interests them.

Develop an original data-driven project. Working in teams, students formulate a research question, collect and prepare textual data, identify meaningful patterns, visualise results and communicate their findings through a report and presentation.

• An individual analytical essay develops skills in comparative analysis across genres or registers
• A group-based corpus project to investigate language in a domain relevant to students’ interests

• Suitable for students from all disciplines
• No prior experience in programming or linguistics needed
• Ideal for students curious about language, communication, or data

Student testimonials

• “The course introduced me to analytical tools for studying corpora, which was completely new to me.”
• “The corpus-compilation guide helped to smooth out the process and showed us how to complete the report and presentation effectively.”
• “The course improved both my English and computer skills significantly.”