B.A. Philosophy, Literary Studies and Linguistics

 

Study Program Description

Whether a poem, novel, newspaper article, instructions, or a political speech – every text has an intention, a particular style, and a cultural, political, and biographical background. Philology's task is to systematically investigate texts – with respect to both contextual and formal aspects.

Literary studies regard text as a form of communication and art. It critically examines with text genre, style, epoch, impact and author.

Linguistic, on the other hand, is primarily concerned with the elements of language: the sounds, word and sentence structures, and the meaning of linguistic units. It also investigates how language is acquired, used, and adapted for specific purposes and in most different contexts.

In this systematic work on texts, findings, and methods from other disciplines can be consulted. Philosophy, for example, supplements philological research with logic, ethics, theories of science and argumentation, rounded off by perspectives from cultural studies, which, for example, shed light on what zeitgeist a text reflects.

Because philology's scientific approach concerns all languages equally, two philologies and philosophy are combined into one interdisciplinary course of study at RWTH.

In addition to the study program description of the department listed on the left, you will find an alternative description alternative description on the central web of the RWTH, including information on the enrollment procedure.