English literature and English language?

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I am thinking about what A-levels I want to take and I have decided that I want to study: History, geography, Government & politics and either English literature or English language.

I know the difference between the two but I wanted to know if one is better to study than the other. Also I want to go to university when I am older and I was wondering if universities prefer one over the other?

Thanks.

In my opinion, English literature would definitely be more interesting and you would gain a broader range of knowledge from it than simply studying the language itself.

I'm currently in an AP class that combines the two and I've found that I learn a lot more about writing and the English language from reading examples in literature than from simply studying sentence structure/vocabulary/grammar/etc. alone.

I'm not sure what universities prefer, so I couldn't answer that second question.

Hope this helps,

~SOS

Yes it does thanks.

I hope you don't mind if I point out that the word is spelled, "definite." You need the language portion first to understand grammar and spelling and then the literature portion will be easier to comprehend.

Literature speaks to your ability to apply language, but it would depend on the course. Take whichever course has the more challenging writing component-- you will benefit from the experience, whatever you study. An important component of scholarship is the communication of ideas. If they have equal writing components, then take literature. Literature is an important part of culture. Knowledge of literature, along with other basics, will help add context to a variety of subjects and experiences.

Whoops!
I wrote that quite quickly so I never noticed.

Step away from literature. It seems to be a waste of time and the surest way to make you hate reading!

Seconded, it'll make you extremely critical of anything else you read, and ruin your ability to enjoy it. My uncle's currently a Professor of English Literature down in Texas, and he pretty much hates it. Though it was funny to hear him talk about his attempt to read Harry Potter, he kept a tally of how many times the characters said "stretch my legs".

If you study the language itself, you could always go into linguistics (which is really fun, imo).

They're both great --- if I can just study one sort of stuff in school and that is English, I'd love it:)

<- feels remotely contempt not having to make that choice since he's living in a french province. :^p

I think English literature sounds more interesting. That's what I'm planning to study.

I actually spent two years as an English major and just recently switched to linguistics.

They're both very interesting fields, but are radically different. Linguistics is more of an empirical field, whereas English is an art. If you enjoy reading literature, English is for you. If you enjoy grammar, Linguistics is for you.

Linguistics departments can very different too. At some schools like MIT and CMU, linguistics is a subfield of philosophy. This means that their department is going to be more geared towards the philosophical applications of linguistics, as the philosophy of language became very hot as the analytical philosophers of the 20th century emerged, killing metaphysics. Other schools have a more disciplined linguistics department, focusing more on grammar and language development. Because linguistics is a rather new and emerging field, universities' programs can be very different. With English, you are going to study the same canonized authors regardless of what school you go to.

To clarify: For a philosophy-oriented linguistics program, you will have to study symbolic language/logic and philosophy of mind and language. In a more traditional linguistics program, you will me studying more psycholinguistics and sociolinguistics.

I switched majors because about 6 months ago I started reading Wittgenstein obsessively and feel that linguistics is the most relevant with the latter part of Wittgenstein's philosophy. However, if I feel it's worth the time, I may try and double-major in philosophy and I almost already have an English minor.

I did english language, which I found very interesting. The way I made the choice of which one was to look back on gcse english which combined both english language and english literature, but often kept them distinct enough so we knew which we were learning at which time. I by far prefered english language, as it always seemed to me as a giude of how to structure creative writing of various sorts yourself, while literature always felt like I was just going over other peoples work all the time, interesting but I felt it got a bit dull after a while.

It depends what you prefer doing as A-levels certainly seems long and hard while your doing it, so you might as well enjoy the subject.

I studied a combined English Language & Literature course for my A-Levels and have to say that the study of one greatly compliments the other. The study of the language gives you the tools to fully comprehend the literature, and the literature gives you the perspective and substance to add meaning to the language. If you have to choose between the two, then I guess it depends both on your personal preference and with what you want to do in University. If you intend to take more logically binding subjects such as Philosophy or Law then I'd vote for language, but if you want to do English Literature, or anything more creative then go for literature. Ultimately though, which one you enjoy the most should be at the forefront of your choice.