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Studies & Degrees in Hispanic Linguistics

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Aside from its rich culture, picturesque landscapes, exhilarating bullfights and a countrywide passion for Futbol, Spain has one more thing to offer - its language. Spanish is considered as one of the Romance languages and one of the most widely spoken languages in the world today. It is spoken as their mother tongue by about 300 million people and as a secondary language by another 50 million. The field dedicated to the in-depth study of the Spanish language is called Hispanic Linguistics.

Hispanic Linguistics pertains to the scientific discipline that studies the structure and meaning of the Spanish language. It is a sub-branch of social science that encompasses studies on phonology, morphology, phonetics, syntax, and semantics. Likewise, Hispanic Linguistics tackles the evolution and origin of the Spanish language. Putting it simply, it studies both written and spoken Spanish, where it came from, and where it is going.

This field is most often offered at universities as a graduate course and, therefore, requires a Bachelor or a Baccalaureate degree before anyone could enlist in the curriculum. Masters as well as Doctorate degrees are both available in many schools. Ideal candidates would be those who have undergraduate studies on communications and are particularly interested not just in the Spanish language but the culture as a whole. Fluency in Spanish is obviously a plus and would, of course, facilitate the learning, thus, it is recommended that aspiring students should at least have a working knowledge on the language on both written and spoken aspects.

Degree holders (i.e., Masters or Doctorate degree holders) in Hispanic Linguistics can choose among a variety of career options or career paths. Traditional jobs could be in teaching, editing, writing, transcribing, and translating. Graduates who opt for the traditional jobs could become lexicographers, translators, Spanish writers, Spanish editors, or Spanish language instructors in schools and universities. They could similarly become speech therapists.

For those who would choose to go for the non-traditional jobs, there are quite a number of options available. The onset of the new millennium has opened up numerous career paths for this skill. These are in fields of communications, research, and consultancy; and of late, this field of expertise is increasingly becoming more and more in demand in the Information and Technology industry. This development has made the field more promising and rewarding. Various applications, like website design and voice or language recognition software development are in need of people with expertise in the Spanish language. More so, military applications like code deciphering and breaking are now being explored.

Taking up Hispanic Linguistics can give a person far more than just the knowledge of speaking the language but its ins and outs that are proven to be of practical use in some industries these days. If you would want to expand your language portfolio, it would be a great idea to start big – go for language that is widely spoken worldwide. Being multilingual is always an advantage – with regard to social, professional, and personal being. You can never go wrong.