Hispanic Linguistics

Our Masters in Hispanic Linguistics is an interdisciplinary program that provides students with a solid foundation in Linguistics through coursework taken not only in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, but also in the Departments of Linguistics, Communications, Anthropology, and in the School of Education. Students have the unique opportunity to work closely in collaboration with faculty to develop their areas of concentration, graduating as specialists in areas such as History of the Spanish language, Spanish in the United States, Sociolinguistics, Morphosyntax, Usage-based Phonology, Bilingualism, Applied Linguistics, and Spanish as a Heritage Language. Several of our students go on to continue their graduate studies in Ph.D. programs (including in the Department of Linguistics at CU-Boulder), while others use the skills they acquire in our program to obtain teaching or industry positions.

In the Spanish and Portuguese Department, Professors Esther L. Brown (Ph.D. University of New Mexico, 2004), Javier Rivas (Ph.D. University of Santiago de Compostela, 2003), and Tracy Quan (Ph.D. University of California, Davis, 2016) conduct research using a myriad of methodological approaches that span diverse data sets, populations, and contexts. Using real data and corpus-based analyses, Professors Brown and Rivas take a usage-based perspective in analyzing issues in Spanish phonology and morphosyntax, and teach a range of seminars on topics related to language variation and change. Meanwhile, Professor Quan takes a critical and sociocultural perspective towards topics related to Spanish language learning, teaching, and use in the United States and abroad, and offers courses on the acquisition of Spanish as an additional or heritage language.