Spanish and Linguistics

Spanish and linguistics is a combination that brings together professional mastery of one of the world's most widely spoken languages with the scientific study of language as a system and a social phenomenon. Spanish is spoken by around 500 million people across Europe, Latin America, and the United States and is one of the most commercially and culturally significant languages in the world. Linguistics examines how language works at every level, from the sounds and structures of individual languages to the social and cultural forces that shape how people speak, write, and communicate.

Studying them together gives you both the practical language skills of a Spanish specialist and the theoretical tools to understand language more broadly.

At the University of Westminster this part-time programme offers the combination of Spanish language and culture with the wider study of the forms, structures, and varieties of language itself. You will develop your Spanish across reading, writing, speaking, and listening in literary and professional registers, while your linguistics studies take you through phonetics, phonology, syntax, semantics, sociolinguistics, and the history of language. The combination of two language-focused subjects develops particularly acute analytical and communicative skills, and the ability to understand and articulate how language works is as valuable in the Spanish-speaking professional world as it is in academic research.

Graduates from Spanish and linguistics programmes are well placed for careers in teaching, translation and interpretation, journalism, publishing, public sector roles requiring Spanish language skills, and international organisations. The linguistics component also opens paths in speech and language therapy, natural language processing, and applied linguistics, for which further study is typically needed. Many graduates continue to postgraduate study in linguistics, Hispanic studies, applied linguistics, or translation and interpreting, deepening their expertise in one or both areas of the combination.