Those people taking English as a subject (5)
I believe the answer is:
theme
'a subject' is the definition.
(synonyms)
'those people taking english' is the wordplay.
'those people' becomes 'them' (I've seen this before).
'taking' says to put letters next to each other.
'english' becomes 'e' (abbreviation).
'them'+'e'='THEME'
'as' is the link.
(Other definitions for theme that I've seen before include "Motif - 4 across" , "essay" , "Main idea or topic" , "Subject (on which person writes, speaks)" , "Motif, topic" .)