Introduction to the Language and Cultures of the Spanish-Speaking World

This course examines cultural and language practices and issues within the cultures of the Spanish-speaking world from an interdisciplinary perspective and within a theoretical framework. The course is divided into three parts. Part one is a basic introduction to the terms and concepts required to examine and understand critically the complexity and contradictions of culture. Part two is dedicated more specifically to the relationship between language and culture. Part three focuses on specific aspects of culture and language, each unit starting from a cultural category/concept or a cultural practice and examining it within its contexts, visual or linguistic manifestations, and along with other related cultural practices and issues.  

Part 1. Basic theoretical framework:

• The nature and different definitions of culture;
• The contributions of various disciplines to the understanding of culture;
• Production and transmission of, and negotiation within culture(s);
• Culture and reality: construction and interpretation;
• Critical perspective and self-reflection;
• Cultural concepts such as: center/periphery, tradition/modernity, post modernity, appropriation, hybridity/mestizaje, high/low culture, popular culture/mass culture, identity, space, time, agency, cultural memory, representation, imaginings, accommodation, text, intertextuality, discourse, narrative, alterity, nationalism, meaning-making, hegemony.

Part 2.  Language and culture:

• The Spanish language as a cultural product;
• Spanish as mother tongue and self-identity;
• The origins of Spanish, its cultural heritage, and its evolution;
• Spanish within its social contexts; language attitudes and misunderstandings; differences between Spanish and its dialects; indigenous languages; languages in competition: the survival, loss, shift or spread of Spanish and the languages that share its geographical space;
• The etymology of Spanish words; the use of expressions; language propriety; slang, the language of youth, women and men; the language of gestures;
• The differences in ways of thinking as expressed in Spanish, in English and other languages; idiomatic expressions, proverbs, metaphors and cultural values, beliefs and attitudes;
• What is lost in translation, especially, between Spanish and English;
• Sense of humour and the Spanish of jokes;
• Spanish and globalisation: borrowings into Spanish and from Spanish;
• Sense of space and time as expressed in Spanish.

Part 3.  Cultural units:

Units will be built around interrelated categories, such as: sense of place, time, national identity, cultural commonality and difference, sense of self and others, sense of belief, aesthetic and social awareness. They will review cultural manifestations and traditions including written, oral, visual and audiovisual materials, such as (but not limited to):

• Paintings;
• Sculpture;
• Architecture;
• Songs;
• Films;
• Poetry;
• Short stories;
• Documentaries;
• Food;
• Fashion and luxury goods.