Concentration in Romance Linguistics

The Program

The concentration in Romance Linguistics is a Master's track offered by the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures with the collaboration of the Linguistics Department and the Classics Department at UB. The concentration in Romance Linguistics is especially suited for those students who have a major in one Romance language and a minor in another Romance language, or in a relevant field such as Linguistics, Cognitive Science, Psychology, Philosophy, or Education. The graduate student is expected to fulfill the general requirements of acceptance in the RLL Department, and complete 10 courses from the ones specified in the categories below. In addition, the student should complete a Master's research project, to be evaluated by his or her Masters committee.

Participating faculty

• Coordinator: Eva Juarros-Daussà
• RLL faculty: Jean-Jacques Thomas (starting fall 08), Bárbara Ávila-Shah, Jorge Guitart, Eva Juarros-Daussà, Jeannette Ludwig
• External faculty: Jean-Pierre Koenig (Linguistics), Roger Woodard (Classics)

Courses

To obtain the degree, a total of ten courses should be completed. The distribution is as follows:

• Four courses from the Required list
• Two courses from the Elective I list
• Two courses from the Elective II list
• Two courses from the Elective III list

Required

All of the following four courses within RLL

• RLL 501 Introduction to Literary Theory and Research Methodology
• RLL 502 Introduction to Linguistic Theory and Research Methodology
• Comparative Romance Linguistics
• RLL 510 Current Topics in Romance Linguistics

Elective I

Choice of two courses within or outside RLL

• RLL 411/511 Syntax of Romance
• RLL 599 Indo-European Linguistics
• Romance Languages in the Americas
• Semantics of the Romance Languages
• Sociolinguistics
• History of Latin and Protoromance
• Bilingualism
• Second Language Acquisition
• First Language Acquisition
• Minoritary Romance Languages
• Translation Theory
• Topics in Romance Linguistics

Elective II

Choice of two language-specific courses in the main language of specialization

• The Structure of French
• French Semantics
• Spanish Phonology
• SPA 449 Spanish Morphology
• SPA 456/556 Spanish Syntax
• Spanish Semantics
• Dialectology of the Spanish Language
• History of French
• SPA 422/503 History of Spanish
• History of Italian
• Topics in Spanish Linguistics
• Topics in French Linguistics
• Topics in Italian Linguistics
• Topics in a Minoritary Romance Language (e.g. Portuguese, Catalan)

Elective III

Choice of two language-specific courses in a language other than the main language of specialization

These courses are the same as those listed in Elective II, plus any graduate seminar in the linguistics or literature of a language other than the language of primary concentration.

Masters Research Project

During the semester in which students complete their course requirements (normally the fourth semester of full-time study), they will prepare the Master's Project under the supervision of a committee of two faculty members. During this period, the student will register for six credit hours of Master's Project Guidance. The Master's Project is research on a limited topic selected in consultation with the project director. The student must meet regularly with his or her project director and document regular, substantial progress. The student must submit the project to his or her committee no later than November 15 or March 30 of the final semester. The student's committee will evaluate the quality of the work and the student's command of French or Spanish; suggested improvements or revisions must be concluded in whole before the Graduate School's degree form ("M form") deadline.