English studies

English studies is an academic discipline that includes the study of literatures written in the English language (including literatures from the U.K., U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, India, South Africa, and the Middle East, among other areas), English linguistics (including English phonetics, phonology, syntax, morphology, semantics, pragmatics, corpus linguistics, and stylistics), and English sociolinguistics (including discourse analysis of written and spoken texts in the English language, history of the English language, and the study of World Englishes).

More broadly, English studies explores the production and analysis of texts produced in English (or in areas of the world in which English is a common mode of communication). It is not uncommon for academic departments of "English" or "English Studies" to include scholars of the English language, the philosophy of language, literature (including literary criticism and literary theory), linguistics, law, journalism, composition studies, literacy, publishing/history of the book, communication studies, technical communication, folklore, cultural studies, creative writing, critical theory, disability studies, area studies (especially American studies), theatre, gender studies/ethnic studies, digital media/electronic publishing, film studies/media studies, rhetoric, the liberal arts, and the humanities, among others.

In most English-speaking countries, English studies is practiced in university departments of English, while the study of texts produced in non-English languages takes place in other departments, and such as departments foreign language or comparative literature. This disciplinary divide is one motivation for the division of the North American Modern Language Association (MLA) into two subgroups.