Area Stud­ies 2 - Span­ish: Mar­kets, in­sti­tu­tions and glob­al­iz­a­tion pro­cesses

Course content

The second semester of Area Studies in Spanish is built on two dimensions: Content and Language

The content dimension of the course builds on the themes presented in Spanish 1 and focuses on markets, economic institutions, organisations and the interplay between globalization and selected Spanish-speaking regions of the world.

The topics, concepts, perspectives and theories raised during the course will help to further develop the students cultural sensitivity and ability to understand and analyze present day values, practices and developments specific to Spain and the Spanish American countries.

Topics dealt with during the course include: The contemporary economic development in Spanish American countries and Spain, and performance in the two regions in terms of international and regional competitiveness. The course addresses Latin America’s contemporary economic development and international competitiveness in relation to specific topics such as the role of multinationals and democracy, and the role of business as an increasingly important political force in the region.

Key topics include: Foreign direct investments, and the development of the regional economic and trade blocs, such as Mercosur, Pacific Alliance and Prosur. We will also look at the implications of human development for economic development in both regions.

The language dimension aims at improving the students’ grammar and lexical skills, pronunciation and fluency as well as their listening and comprehension skills. Emphasis is also be placed on learning and exercising phrases, use of conjunctions, and idiomatic expressions needed in order to make presentations and participate actively in class discussions.  

Integration

Building on the historical, geographical, political and cultural introduction to the Spanish-speaking countries of the first semester, the course seeks to illustrate and contextualise notions and debates that the student is familiar with from globalisation studies by means of examples from the Spanish-speaking countries.    

The course integrates with the course in Globalisation and Sustainability by focussing on how globalisation processes and sustainability issues affect the economic, industrial and social development in the Spanish-speaking countries. Special attention is paid to how these issues figure in the different political discourses in the Spanish-speaking countries and how the different countries try to cope with issues of globalisation and sustainability in view of their different identities and historical background.

Nordic nine

In the course the students learn to detect patterns in empirical data and to reflect on different ways of addressing identical issues and topics linguistically in different cultures. They learn new ways to achieve communicative goals with linguistic knowledge and to reflect on their own tacit assumptions about countries and cultures to interact professionally with members of foreign cultures and to create and maintain networks across borders and cultures.