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PROGRAM PROFILE: Major Curricular Reform

The Department of Spanish and Portuguese Studies is excited to announce the development of a brand new major, effective Fall 2019, which will be replacing the two current majors (Spanish, Portuguese) offered by SPS. The BA in Hispanic and Latin American Languages, Literatures and Linguistics includes three possible tracks for students: 1) Spanish; 2) Portuguese; and 3) a combined Spanish and Portuguese track.

We undertook this reform in order to more accurately reflect the nature of our departmental offerings, and to better appeal to the changing interests and needs of our students. Our Spanish and Portuguese offerings are evolving, in conjunction with the changing face of humanities disciplines nation-wide, and have moved away from the traditional philological approach to explore new areas such as linguistics, film, and language for professions. At the upper division, we offer coursework in linguistics focusing on theoretical as well as applied areas, such as sociolinguistics, bilingualism, language in contact, and new approaches to language teaching and learning. The offerings in literature and culture include advanced coursework in film and society, popular culture, the visual arts and literature, and courses on themes such as violence, gender and sexuality as well as pressing socio-political issues in the Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking world.

What’s more, the new curriculum provides us with the opportunity to highlight and combine the two languages that comprise our department, as well as the modern curriculum we offer and the potential for interdisciplinary study. UF has already taken the first step in recognizing the unique status of Spanish and Portuguese in our state by creating a separate department for our languages, while combining other world languages into one department. As the only institution in the FL state university system that maintains a separate department for Spanish & Portuguese, we are uniquely poised to distinguish ourselves with this degree program. By including a track combining coursework on Spain, Spanish America and Brazil, our program helps foster the “translingual and transcultural competence” (Modern Language Association, 2007) students need in order to be successful in today’s multilingual world, with an emphasis on the languages and cultures that are among the most important for the state of Florida.