Spanish and Contemporary Chinese Studies BA

Welcome to Spanish at the University of Nottingham — this is where your journey to Spanish fluency shall really begin to take off!

Designed for students who have completed an A level in the language, this module will support you to improve in all the key areas of language acquisition: reading, writing, listening and speaking. To keep the classes interesting and relevant we'll use a wide range of source material from newspapers, audio-visual content and websites.

Through this, not only will your speaking and comprehension skills improve, but also your grammar usage and ability to understand the language in different contexts.

You'll also become more culturally aware of the countries that make up the Spanish-speaking world and get a better understanding of their varying current affairs and cultures.

This module is designed as a foundation for all later modules covering Spanish and Portuguese literatures. The main aims of this module are to give you a general introduction to literature and the study of literature, while providing you with a partial overview of literary writing in the Spanish language. As well as to introduce some of the key theoretical issues of literary study and instil good reading and critical habits. Through this you will be tested on your skills in close reading, textual analysis, seminar participation and the ability to write cogent and convincing commentaries and essays. This module is worth 20 credits.

Through a combination of lectures, guided reading and research you'll explore the main patterns of Latin American political, economic and social history, between independence in the 1820s and the end of the twentieth century.

We'll focus on specific concepts, terminology, events and people, so as to develop an understanding of different perspectives and interpretations of the history in question. We'll also encourage you to appreciate the interaction between the ‘political history’ of major events and protagonists in official positions of power, and the ‘social history' of populations who both contributed to, and were affected by, political change.

You will learn to develop a critical approach to the study of history through a variety of materials; gain an ability to distinguish between the particular and the general and to develop the tools for comparative analysis.

This module provides you with a foundation in Chinese phonetics, grammar and vocabulary in order to develop your competence in Mandarin Chinese. The focus is on communicative competence in both spoken and written language, and you will begin thorough training in use of the Mandarin Chinese script. As well as equipping you with skills in the language, the module also informs you about Chinese culture and society.

This module builds on the knowledge you acquired in semester 1, introducing post-elementary grammatical structures and the phonology of Mandarin Chinese. You will learn to write notes, simple letters and a diary, as well as to use more diverse basic vocabulary for social and everyday situations. You will continue to expand your knowledge of contemporary society and culture.

This module intends to provide the fundamental knowledge of China's economic transformation and business development. It assists you to establish an understanding of issues including economic strategies, industrial sector transformation, investment, trade and business management.

This module will build on the language and cultural skills developed in year one and get you started on your exciting journey towards degree-level Spanish. Over the year, we're going to take you to the next level so by the end of the module you'll be ready to spend time living in a Spanish-speaking country.

We'll further develop your grammar and communication skills, building your confidence so that you feel happy working or studying abroad during year 3. We know the thought of essay writing in another language may feel daunting, but we will help you develop these skills to competence.

To prepare you for participating in conversation with fluency we'll pay special attention to developing your ability to use complex sentence structures and rhetoric. You'll get plenty of practice during laboratory classes where you'll have access to a wide range of contemporary audio-visual materials.

This module consolidates the skills you have acquired in the first year and further develops your oral and written communicative ability in Mandarin. It introduces use in more complex situations and broadens your vocabulary. A range of activities, including listening exercises, discussion, reading comprehension and producing short written texts, will improve your fluency and confidence.

Mandarin Chinese for the Intermediate Level 2B

In preparation for your year abroad this module further develops your use of and confidence with Mandarin in increasingly complex situations. Teaching continues to focus on the four key skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing, and takes place in Mandarin wherever possible. By the end of the module you will have firm knowledge of Mandarin at intermediate level.

In this module you will explore a cultural period in the Hispanic world characterised by profound social change and the emergence of major world-figures of modern art (eg Pablo Picasso). It is structured around key literary and artistic movements from Spain and Spanish America from the early 19th century to the late 20th century, such as Romanticism, Realism, and Modernism. A large part of your focus will be reading literary and visual texts of the period in relation to the socio-economic and political context of Spain’s and Spanish America’s rapid, but hugely uneven, modernisation.

Individual novels, plays, films, paintings or poems will also be used to exemplify and explore particular movements and historical moments. You will develop skills in close analysis of complex texts, an understanding of some of the major directions of Spanish and Spanish American literature in the 20th century, and the ability to relate texts studied to historico-cultural contexts. This module is worth 20 credits.

This module will provide a general introduction to cinema in the Hispanic and Lusophone worlds. The first semester will examine contemporary cinema from Spain and Latin America and the second semester will examine cinema from Portugal, Brazil and Lusophone Africa. The module will address questions of style, form, socio-historical context and narrative content. The films will be available with English subtitles.

This module examines major public policy programs since the beginning of the reform and opening up in the 1978 in the areas of education, environment, media and communications, health, population, labour, ethnicity, along with social changes and their consequences for people's livelihoods.

In addition to exploring the content, evolution and effects of policy in these areas, the module will examine how policies are made and implemented. Lectures will introduce substantive issues and the appropriate theoretical frameworks for making sense of developments on the ground while seminars will help students to understand the impacts of these policies and the social changes accompnaying them.

This module covers the history of China from the 1840s, through to the establishment of the People's Republic in 1949. It looks at social, cultural, political and economic developments in this period from a variety of angles and approaches.

The module focuses in particular on the ways in which Chinese society responded to the arrival of 'modernity' in the form of the Western powers and Japan throughout the period in question, but also how different groups in China tried to remould or redefine China as a 'modern' nation-state and society.

In this module you’ll learn about the physical, human and geographical issues that have occurred in recent years due to China’s development policies over the past century. You’ll explore these in the context of political, economic and social changes. Topics covered include air and water pollution, the impact of industrialisation and the evolution of the environmental legal system among others. You’ll have two hours per week of lectures studying this module.

This advanced module will be your final step towards fluency, training you in a more formal, sophisticated register of spoken and written Spanish.

We'll continue to use a wide range of authentic Spanish texts to further deepen your knowledge and confidence at this advanced level. We'll look at how the texts are put together so that you may use these skills within your written and spoken Spanish, taking you to the highest level of proficiency.

This module offers coaching and practice in high-level translation from Spanish to English. You will work with a variety of texts over the semester, exploring different registers in Spanish and English, and equivalences between source and target languages. You will be required to reflect on the process of translation through annotations on specific translation decisions which will be part of the given task each week. You will also be given a brief for each translation and asked to research the target publication/context for their translation and specify ways in which the target context may differ from the original.

Mandarin Chinese for the Advanced Level 3A

The final year Mandarin Chinese course will develop your communicative competence in Mandarin Chinese in both spoken and written language to a high level. The module follows on from your work during your time abroad, enabling you to further improve your ability to employ your language skills in both formal and informal situations.

This module follows on from Mandarin Chinese for the Advanced Level 3A, further consolidating your grammatical knowledge and your skills in expressing yourself in different real-life situations. You will improve your abilities to communicate in a range of registers and tackle issues involved in translating between Mandarin and English.

This module looks at key 20th century Spanish American novels and short stories and considers issues such as race, gender, sexuality and the conflict of cultures. You will be trained in using a broad range of tools of narrative and rhetorical analysis so as to engage in debates about literary representation and aesthetics, and will hone your use of these through a programme of research tasks, seminar presentations, group discussions, and written assignments.

This module is concerned with the emergence, nature and evolution of the Cuban Revolution. You will consider the Revolution in question within a wider historical and ideological context: the Latin American tradition of an increasingly radical nationalism. Dating from the 19th and early 20th century this is a time when there was a need to engage in serious and collective nation-building. The module therefore examines how the Cuban Revolution went on to influence the subsequent radicalisation of that tradition, shaping a range of political manifestation. For this module you will have one two-hour seminar each week.

This module focuses on China from the founding of the People's Republic through the pre-reform era (1949-1978), examining how China was organized and governed as well as changes in rural and urban society, the family, the economy and the Chinese workplace under the socialist period (1949-1978). Major topics covered include:

• The CCP's rise to power;
• The transformation of rural and urban society post-1949;
• The Great Leap Forward and subsequent famine;
• In-depth analysis of all phases of the Cultural Revolution;
• Return to Power of the pragmatists and the Beginning of Reform;
• Changing views of Mao as a leader.

The module examines the close linkage between literature and cinema in China. It also explores trends in modern Chinese cinema and literature, with a primary focus on different genres and themes developed since 1978. By placing Chinese cinema and literature within their cultural, social and historical contexts, students will analyse, interpret and appreciate such phenomena.

It will include analyses of individual texts in translation and films with English subtitles. The module requires you to view films in English subtitles each week. It will increase your awareness of the major developments in literature and film as they are embedded in the wider changes in modern China.