Spanish and Linguistics

Spanish is the official language in 20 countries and widely spoken in four more territories, including the United States.

This flexible programme gives you the opportunity to study Spanish while developing your social scientific understanding of language.

Spanish and Linguistics make an excellent joint honours choice by combining the study of:

• a modern language in its cultural context

• the expression and creation of meaning

Linguistics options of particular relevance to language students cover:

• sociolinguistics - the relationship between language and society

• variation in the languages of the world

• first and second languages acquisition

Spanish

This programme invites you to explore the diverse and rich cultures of Spain, Latin America and the Caribbean in historical context. You will be immersed in an extraordinary range of literature, film, poetry and theatre from around the world.

Complete beginners start their language learning by taking our Spanish 1A course; students with substantially more experience of learning the language typically take Spanish 1B.

Intensive training gives you the opportunity to develop advanced spoken and written skills in Spanish, including how to discern different varieties of the language.

By Year 3, you will have the skills to spend the year in a country where Spanish is spoken. By your final year, you will have developed critical and analytical skills to the standard of completing a dissertation or long essay.

Linguistics

Linguistics examines how language works, describing how sounds, words, sentences and conversations combine to express and create meaning.

You will also study:

• the uses of language in everyday life

• the ways in which language varies across society and evolves over time

• how language is mastered by children

As you progress through the programme, you will have the opportunity to plan and test scientific hypotheses about linguistic phenomena using specialist linguistics and phonetics equipment.

Why Edinburgh

As a world-leading festival and capital city, Edinburgh is a fantastic place to study a modern language in its cultural context and alongside Linguistics. Spanish has been taught here since the early twentieth century, celebrating its centenary in 2019.

Studying over four years enables you to choose courses that match your own interests and employability needs. For example, you can choose to study Basque, Portuguese or Catalan as part of your programme.

We are unique in Scotland in offering students a full academic year abroad within the four-year honours programme, regardless of whether you spend the year studying or working.

Programme benefits

• Study over four years, giving you the choice and flexibility to try out different things.

• Go abroad for the first of your honours years - Year 3.

• Build up to fluency in a major global language, and specialise in different aspects of Spanish and Latin American studies and linguistics as you move through your degree.

• Combine practical language learning with language science.

• Learn in an historic capital city where we have taught Spanish for over a century.

• Join societies, attend events, and gain the skills and confidence for life after university.