About this course

Politics and Spanish and Latin American Studies will give you the tools to understand the politics and culture of Spanish and Portuguese-speaking countries. You’ll become fluent in Spanish, a language with over 500 million speakers around the world. You'll also develop a global viewpoint on issues like migration, security, and cultural rights, preparing you for an international career.

You’ll start at a level that matches your ability in spoken and written Spanish, which helps ensure rapid progress.

You’ll have excellent resources to support you, including the Centre for Language Study which offers language and academic advising.

You’ll take some compulsory language, linguistics and politics modules, but also have lots of choice about what to study.

As part of your degree you can:

learn a second modern language at any level
learn from the latest research findings in international relations
join one of 40 student-led performing arts groups
study work-related subjects such as audiovisual translation

Your third year will be spent in a Spanish or Portuguese-speaking country undertaking a Period Abroad Portfolio (PAP) in either a work placement, a British Council placement or at one of Southampton’s partner universities.

On campus, you’ll be part of a lively cultural network. You can join student societies for many of the Spanish-speaking countries, and we have links with cultural institutions across the world.

Course location

This course is based at Avenue.

Awarding body

This qualification is awarded by the University of Southampton.

Entry requirements

A-levels

ABB including Spanish

A-levels additional information

Offers typically exclude General Studies and Critical Thinking.

More information about A-levels

A-levels with Extended Project Qualification

If you are taking an EPQ in addition to 3 A levels, you will receive the following offer in addition to the standard A level offer: BBB including Spanish and grade A in the EPQ

A-levels contextual offer

We are committed to ensuring that all applicants with the potential to succeed, regardless of their background, are encouraged to apply to study with us. The additional information gained through contextual data allows us to recognise an applicant's potential to succeed in the context of their background and experience. Applicants who are highlighted in this way will be made an offer which is lower than the typical offer for that programme, as follows: BBB including Spanish

International Baccalaureate Diploma

Pass, with 32 points overall with 16 points at Higher Level, including 5 at Higher Level in Spanish

More information about International Baccalaureate Diploma

International Baccalaureate contextual offer

We are committed to ensuring that all learners with the potential to succeed, regardless of their background, are encouraged to apply to study with us. The additional information gained through contextual data allows us to recognise a learner’s potential to succeed in the context of their background and experience. Applicants who are highlighted in this way will be made an offer which is lower than the typical offer for that programme.

International Baccalaureate Career Programme (IBCP) statement

Offers will be made on the individual Diploma Course subject(s) and the career-related study qualification. The CP core will not form part of the offer. Where there is a subject pre-requisite(s), applicants will be required to study the subject(s) at Higher Level in the Diploma course subject and/or take a specified unit in the career-related study qualification. Applicants may also be asked to achieve a specific grade in those elements. Please see the University of Southampton International Baccalaureate Career-Related Programme (IBCP) Statement for further information. Applicants are advised to contact their Faculty Admissions Office for more information.

BTEC

Distinction, Distinction in the BTEC National Extended Diploma plus B in A level Spanish Distinction, Distinction in the BTEC National Diploma plus B in A level Spanish Distinction in the BTEC National Extended Certificate plus AB in A level Spanish and one further A level

RQF BTEC

Additional information

The University aims to recruit students from a wide range of backgrounds who we believe have the potential and motivation to succeed on our challenging programmes. We are committed to fair admissions and strive to ensure we give equal consideration to all applicants who possess the necessary knowledge and skills.

More information about BTEC

QCF BTEC

Distinction, Distinction in the BTEC Extended Diploma plus B in A level Spanish Distinction, Distinction in the BTEC Diploma plus B in A level Spanish Distinction in the BTEC Subsidiary Diploma plus AB in A level Spanish and one further A level

Other requirements

UK students

International students

Other ways to qualify

GCSE requirements

Applicants must hold GCSE English language (or GCSE English) (minimum grade 4/C) and mathematics (minimum grade 4/C)

Got a question?

Please contact our enquiries team if you're not sure that you have the right experience or qualifications to get onto this course.

Email: enquiries@southampton.ac.uk
Tel: +44(0)23 8059 5000

Course structure

Politics and Spanish and Latin American Studies integrates the study of language, culture, society and politics. You can choose from lots of options depending on your interests and chosen career path.

To give you the best possible start, we use our system of 7 language levels to work out your proficiency in Spanish. We can then make sure our teaching develops your skills as effectively as possible.

Year 1 overview

This year improves your Spanish proficiency and introduces you to political theory, systems and international relations.

You can also explore optional topics like:

the applications of linguistics
history and society
culture

Year 2 overview

You’ll improve your Spanish communication skills, develop research skills and draw links between theoretical ideas about the democratic state and democratic politics in action.

There's also a module that prepares you for your year abroad.

Options include subjects such as:

gender race and nation in modern Latin America
popular culture in modern Spain
Spanish linguistics
international relations
discourse analysis

Year 3 overview

In year 3 you'll undertake your period abroad, in which you'll complete an assessed portfolio of work which counts as a double module and is used to determine progression to year 4.

This will be your opportunity to:

work independently on focused tasks as you acquire more knowledge of the target language, culture and society
get to know a foreign culture first hand, either as a student or in a work placement
practice using the foreign language; you'll be ideally placed to get to know the people, with many lifelong friendships made during this period

We aim to support you, mainly by frequent email contact/video chat sessions.

Reasonable adjustments will be made for individual students who are unable to spend a period abroad. Year 3 contributes to the final degree classification.

Year 4 overview

We'll support you as you return to university from your year abroad. We’ll help you to talk about your experiences in a way that enhances your employability.

You’ll continue to develop your written and spoken Spanish and take a range of modules from Politics, Modern Languages, and Linguistics.

Module options may explore topics such as:

historical memory in Latin America
language and identity amongst US Latinos
representations of women in the Hispanic world
public service interpreting
audiovisual translation
globalisation and world politics

You’ll also complete a dissertation exploring a topic of particular interest to you in greater depth.

Want more detail? See all the modules in the course.

Modules

Changes due to COVID-19

Although the COVID-19 situation is improving, any future restrictions could mean we might have to change the way parts of our teaching and learning take place in 2022 to 2023. This means that some of the information on this course page may be subject to change.

Find out more on our COVID advice page.

For entry in Academic Year 2022-23

Year 1

Year 2

Year 3

Year 4

You must study the following modules in year 1:

Academic Skills for Modern languages and Linguistics students

This module is designed to ease the transition from A-level to the first year of a single or combined honours degree programme by setting out clearly what we expect of you at undergraduate level and equipping you with the resources to be able to operate a...

Engaging Political Ideas

Students should gain a knowledge of how political ideas - such as freedom, equality, justice, or democracy - have been understood in different and incompatible ways, and how those different understandings have been the occasion for ideological or normativ...

Introduction to International Relations

• Introduce students to the study of structures, actors and policy processes in international politics • Enable students to distinguish between competing explanations of international relations • Develop students’ ability to restate arguments and apply ...

Introduction to Political Inquiry

This module introduces the basic concepts required for evaluating and designing research on political phenomena. Students will be equipped with the vocabulary and basic logical framework required to critically assess academic research, and to design their...

Introduction to Spanish and Latin America Studies

This module is designed to provide you with a broad introduction to the culture, history and language of Spain, Latin America and the Spanish speaking World. By studying various types of primary and secondary sources, you will become familiar with a wide...

Political Systems

This module provides an introduction to the study of politics and the key concepts and theoretical approaches in comparative politics. Pre-requisite for PAIR2031, PAIR2037, PAIR3039 and PAIR3046

You must also choose from the following modules in year 1:

Applications of Linguistics

This unit will introduce you to the main areas relevant to applied language studies.

Language Acquisition

You may have asked yourself how children learn their first language or whether some animals can speak just like humans do. People often wonder whether there are any lifelong benefits of bilingualism as well. This module introduces you to the field of lang...

Understanding Culture

This introductory course will give you an overview of some approaches to, and topics within, cultural and literary studies. You will spend time on close textual reading, as well as on broader cultural analysis. It aims to encourage you to experiment in c...

Understanding History and Society

This module will introduce you to studying questions of history, society and culture through the prism of Southampton in order that you can apply those approaches to the study of cities in the French, Spanish and German-speaking world.

You must study the following module in year 2:

Managing Research and Learning

The module will clarify the links between the Year Abroad project and modules in years two and four.

You must also choose from the following modules in year 2:

Culture, Power and Resistance in the Portuguese-Speaking World

This course is designed to expand and deepen your knowledge of the cultures of the Portuguese-speaking world, bringing together written texts, visual and conceptual art, political materials, and cinema from twentieth-century Portugal, Brazil, and Portugu...

Gender, Race and Nation in Modern Latin America

The course examines major turning points in Spanish and Portuguese America from the middle nineteenth century to the present, with a focus on how these upheavals affected and reflected the politics of class, gender and race.

Chinese Politics

After briefly considering the relevance of the traditional Chinese world order to contemporary Chinese political life, the module then focuses on two core themes: (1) Chinese domestic politics; (2) China’s external relations. Units on Chinese politics wil...

Democratisation in Global Politics: why do some regimes thrive and others flounder?

Less than a century ago democracy was a relatively rare form of government. Today it is typically seen as the only legitimate type of political regime. Indeed, the language of democracy has assumed such usage that even dictators employ supposedly democrat...

Discourse Analysis

This module highlights and analyses the link between language structure and its situation of occurrence.

Ethnography of Latin America

This module uses ethnographic approaches to understand the diversity of Latin America’s peoples and cultures. Emphasizing the emergence within Latin American anthropology of focuses on everyday life through topics such as kinship and family, ritual and re...

European Security Governance

It is the first time in history that we can approach the problem of European security architecture in terms of governance, rather than hegemony or the balance of power. The proliferation of European and global institutions concerned with addressing differ...

Exploring Spanish Linguistics

The module introduces you to relevant issues and topics of contemporary Spanish linguistics and establishes the basis for future application of linguistic principles.

Globalisation: Culture, Language and The Nation State

This module will problematize the concept of globalisation and explore and develop an understanding of its meaning in economic, political and cultural terms. Furthermore, we will examine the ideological struggle between competing forces over the nature an...

High, Popular, Mass Culture: Cultural Hybridity and Globalization in Latin America and Spain

This module examines high, popular and mass cultural forms in twentieth century Spain and Latin America. Attention is particularly paid to the political uses made of those different forms. The module explores the function of popular culture in predominant...

International Security and Climate Change

The module provides a wide overview of the key theories and issues related to contemporary international security. The module includes eight theme-based lectures, preceded by general introductions and finishing with revision and assessment. Each theme-bas...

Learning about Culture: Introduction to Ethnography

Multilingualism

This module will introduce you to the notion of ‘Multilingualism’, how this is understood and represented in different ways, and why it matters to you. You will explore how people become multilingual, and whether it makes a difference if multilinguals are...

Partisans, Public Opinion and Elections: Understanding the Political Mind

Equal opportunity In line with the University’s Equal Opportunities Policy, individuals are treated on their relevant merits and abilities and are given equal opportunities within the module, School and University. The aim of the policy is to ensure t...

Political Thinking

An introduction to political thinking, focusing on major thinkers and themes and exploring how to engage in political theorising. Pre-requisite for PAIR3015

Psycholinguistics

This module examines three areas of psycholinguistics which help to understand what the relationship between language and the human mind might be.

Qualitative Research in Politics & International Relations

This module will introduce students to the practice of qualitative research in politics and international relations. Students will learn and apply key skills involved in gathering and analysing qualitative data, and reflect on the strengths and limitation...

Realism and Idealism in International Relations

The subfields of international relations and political theory have a long history of cross-fertilization. Scholars in one field have often developed the ideas and debates that emerge in the other field in interesting ways. Despite this cross-fertilizatio...

Sound and Voice

This module builds on the basic concepts of articulatory phonetics introduced in the first year, and introduces theory and methodology of acoustic science for the study of the production and perception of speech sounds.

Syntax: Studying Language Structure

This module will provide introduce you to the study of syntax within current linguistic theory.

Teaching English as a Foreign Language

This module will introduce you to key issues, concepts and methods in teaching English as a second/foreign language.

The EU and European Identity

The course seeks to provide an overview of the evolution of the European Union (EU) from its early stages to the present. In so doing, it examines the ideas and history of the EU, the institutions of the EU, examples of specific issue areas and the presen...

The Struggle for Democracy

To introduce the theoretical underpinnings of the democratic state; to outline theoretical and practical changes and challenges to the democratic state both today and in the future; to draw links between theoretical ideas about the democratic state and de...

Theorising International Politics

Although a ‘common sense’ view of world politics is often presented in non-academic contexts, there is little agreement among experts on what international relations is, and how we should think about the discipline. This module enables students to critica...

You must study the following module in year 4:

Seeing and Being Seen. Period Abroad re-entry

This module is designed to accompany you as you resume your programme of studies in Southampton and grapple with the challenges of re-entry. We will support you as you reflect upon your experience of study abroad, enable you to articulate those experience...

You must also choose from the following modules in year 4:

English as a Global Language

This module explores the rise of English as a global language focusing on the factors that have led to, and the issues that have arisen from, its dominant status. You will learn about the interrelation between globalisation, standardisation and variabilit...

Exiles, Migrants and Citizens: Narrating and documenting displacement in contemporary Spain

Migration has been a recurrent theme that has characterized Spain’s social, political and cultural history since its emergence as a modern nation in 1492. By drawing on narrative inquiry, this module will focus on the most recent migration movements of th...

Audiovisual Translation

This module will introduce you to the different types of audiovisual translation and the various kinds of subtitles produced nowadays. You will learn about the interaction between text and image and the technical issues and constraints involved in creatin...

Barrios and Borders: Language and Identity amongst US Latinos

This module will introduce the main theoretical ideas of language and identity alongside tracing the historical, social and linguistic background to the presence of the so-called Latinos in the USA. By considering a range of texts, as well as cultural ou...

Chinese Politics

Development and International Relations

The module will reflect on who or what constitutions the "South" in internal relationships, to take a deep and critical look at the contested nature of development and to evaluate the development achievement, and to study in depth the mainstream economic ...

Dissertation in Politics & International Relations

The researching and writing of an 8,000-word dissertation provides you with the opportunity to integrate and hone a variety of skills acquired and extended during your studies, and to significantly deepen your knowledge of a topic of your choice. In m...

Encounters with Bodies in Lusophone Cultural Narrative

Based on written texts, films and visual materials from and about Portugal, Brazil, Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau and Mozambique, this course is intended to show you the cutting edge of cultural production and research from the Portuguese-speaking wo...

European Security Governance

Globalisation and World Politics

The module will look at the main issues and trends, concepts and definitions on globalisation within the discipline of international relations.

Historical Memory in Modern Latin America

International Security and Climate Change

Language Teaching Theory and Practice

This module examines the theory and practice of language teaching and explores 'reflective practice' as a set of skills that can be applied to your future working life.

Language Testing and Assessment in Society

This module develops awareness of how language testing and assessment have developed in educational and wider social contexts. It focusses on both purposes and processes of language testing and assessment, and critically examines applications in policy ar...

Modern Languages Dissertation

This unit will allow students to undertake independent research to produce an in-depth study of a specific topic located in one of the fields within Modern Languages. You will also have the option of producing a professional project. In that case, your d...

Partisans, Public Opinion and Elections: Understanding the Political Mind

This course introduces key theories and models in the study of political behaviour and political psychology and seeks to encourage students to develop a critical appreciation of how people develop their political beliefs and preferences, and how this affe...

Public Service Interpreting

This module will provide students with both a practical and theoretical insight into the role of a Public Service Interpreter. Beginning with a general introduction to interpreting, it will go on to focus more in depth on the wide range of issues and chal...

Second Language Acquisition

This module provides an insight into the cognitive processes involved in the acquisition of language. Different theories of first and second language acquisition will be examined and critically assessed in the light of empirical evidence. Various factors ...

Sex, Soap Operas and Female Dissidents: Representations of Women in the Hispanic World

This course will introduce you to a range of examples of Spanish American (e.g. may include Puerto Rican, Argentinean, and Mexican [American]) and Iberian cultural production from the period of the 1980s to the 21st century, in order to provide a sense o...

Sociophonetic Project Module

This final year module builds on the theoretical grounding students gain in LING 2011 Variation and Change in English and the instrumental analysis techniques from LING 2008 Sound and Voice. Through a series of computer, lab-based sessions, students test ...

The Politics and Governance of the EU

This module focuses on the European Union (EU) as a system of public policy-making and aims to provide students with a working knowledge of the history of European integration, the main EU institutions, the EU policy process, main theoretical debates as w...

Writing in a Second Language

The module will take you through the process, the product and the place of writing. Process will deal primarily with modelling cognitive operations, analysis of composing strategies, and individual differences and changes in processes over time. Product w...

Fees, costs and funding

Tuition fees

Fees for a year's study:

UK students pay £9,250.
EU and international students pay £19,300.

What your fees pay for

Your tuition fees pay for the full cost of tuition and all examinations.

Find out how to:

Accommodation and living costs, such as travel and food, are not included in your tuition fees. Explore:

Bursaries, scholarships and other funding

If you're a UK or EU student and your household income is under £25,000 a year, you may be able to get a University of Southampton bursary to help with your living costs. Find out about bursaries and other funding we offer at Southampton.

If you're a care leaver or estranged from your parents, you may be able to get a specific bursary.

Get in touch for advice about student money matters.

Scholarships and grants

You may be able to get a scholarship or grant to help fund your studies.

We award scholarships and grants for travel, academic excellence, or to students from under-represented backgrounds.

Support during your course

The Student Services Centre offers support and advice on money to students. You may be able to access our Student Support fund and other sources of financial support during your course.