Skip to main content
Skip to main content

University of Maryland School of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures Home

Register for Winter term online classes

Gain ground and earn UMD credits through this convenient 3-week session. January 4-22nd. Courses offered include CINE, HEBR, FREN and SPAN

Read More about Winter Session January 4-22, 2027

Terps find connection through global poetry night at the Language House

Students showcased their multilingualism by reciting traditional and original poems at Global Poetry Open Mic Night.

Read More about Terps find connection through global poetry night at the Language House

SLLC's 25th Anniversary Gala: Honoring Our Past, Celebrating Our Future

Join us as we honor our achievements, celebrate our community, and look ahead to the next 25 years!

Read More about SLLC's 25th Anniversary Gala

Faculty Promotions

Congratulations to our faculty members on their promotions

Read More about Congratulations to our Recently Promoted Faculty

Welcome to the School of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures in the College of Arts and Humanities at the University of Maryland, College Park.

We invite you to learn more about our languages and programs, our undergraduate and graduate degrees and our special programs like the Language House Living-Learning Program, the Language Partner Program, the Persian Flagship Program, and the Summer Language Institutes.

About Us

Undergraduate Programs

Undergraduate Programs

The School is a transdisciplinary teaching and research unit. Our students, faculty, and staff investigate and engage with the linguistic, cultural, cinematic, and literary worlds of speakers of Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Persian, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish, as well as Cinema and Media Studies and Global Culture and Thought.


Graduate Programs

Graduate Programs

The School of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures offers three Ph.D. programs, four M.A. programs and an advanced graduate certificate in Second Language Acquisition. Our students pursue successful careers in academia, the government, secondary education and the private sector.

Graduate Programs

Faculty and Staff

Faculty and Staff

Search our directory to learn about our faculty and staff.

Directory

Alumni

Alumni

Stay connected with SLLC as an alum by sharing news of your accomplishments, joining our newsletter, attending events and giving back.

 

 


See SLLC in Action

TEJIDOS DE MEMORIA: LA VOZ DEL TEXTIL EN LA NUEVA CORÓNICA, DE GUAMÁN POMA

Este ensayo argumenta que Guamán Poma de Ayala introduce motivos textiles en ilustraciones y textos para articular un espacio de comunicación cultural y de resistencia en su Primer nueva corónica y buen gobierno. Por medio de la estética del tejido –tok

School of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures, Spanish and Portuguese

Author/Lead: Andrea Torres Armas
Dates:

This essay argues that Guamán Poma de Ayala introduces textile motifs in both illustrations and text to articulate a space of cultural communication and resistance in his Primer nueva corónica y buen gobierno. Through the aesthetics of weaving—tokapu, khipu, bands, and plain-weave structures—the author interlaces the logic of Andean textiles with Western alphabetic writing, generating a ch’ixi space that challenges colonial impositions and affirms Andean agency. This symbolic universe shows how the textile, beyond its material function, operates as a language of resistance that sustains cultural memory and continuity within a colonial setting.

This article was published open access under a CC BY-NC-ND licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.

Read More about TEJIDOS DE MEMORIA: LA VOZ DEL TEXTIL EN LA NUEVA CORÓNICA, DE GUAMÁN POMA

The Qualitative Phase in Individual Differences Scale Development in SLA: A Methodological Synthesis

Four research questions examined how qualitative item development was documented, which methods and frameworks were employed, how item inclusion was justified, and how content validity was assessed.

Second Language Acquisition

Author/Lead: Moning Lyu
Contributor(s): Congyao Wu, Ruirui Jia, Ekaterina Sudina
Dates:

Self-report questionnaires on individual differences (IDs) are central to second language acquisition (SLA) research, yet the qualitative procedures that generate their item pools remain largely unexamined. Drawing on argument-based validation theory and cross-disciplinary measurement guidelines, this study offers the first systematic methodological synthesis of how that formative phase is reported. We reviewed 85 peer-reviewed SLA studies published between 1983 and 2025 that developed or substantially revised an ID scale, coding each along four dimensions: transparency, theoretical grounding, methodological rigor, and content-validity evidence. Four research questions examined how qualitative item development was documented, which methods and frameworks were employed, how item inclusion was justified, and how content validity was assessed. Results expose a pervasive reporting gap: Only 25% of studies described any qualitative data collection, 16% referenced an explicit theoretical framework, 2% linked draft items to participant quotations, and only one study reported a numerical content validity index. Details on coder agreement, reflexivity, and response-process evidence were nearly absent. These gaps threaten construct representativeness, invite cultural bias, and undermine validation claims. We translate our findings into a seven-section reporting checklist for the qualitative phase, with implications for editorial policy, doctoral training, and future meta-analyses.

Read More about The Qualitative Phase in Individual Differences Scale Development in SLA: A Methodological Synthesis

Discourse Markers in Persian Talk-in-Interaction: Actions and Practices

Provides the first book-length work on the subject of discourse markers in Persian

Persian, Persian Flagship, School of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures

Author/Lead: Ali Reza Abasi
Dates:
book cover for discourse markers in Persian

This book describes five ubiquitous discourse markers in Persian talk-in-interaction. It begins with a critical overview of literature on discourse markers and discusses why (neo)Gricean approaches have failed to provide descriptions that are grounded in and demonstrably relevant to how speakers actually use them in interaction, thus limiting their pedagogical value for teaching second language interactional competence.

Advocating the adoption of Conversation Analytic methodology (CA) to ground descriptions in empirical data, the book discusses the key fundamental structures of conversation implicated in the use of these markers. It then proceeds to describe in detail the interactional work of the five markers in separate chapters.

The book further addresses the challenging task of teaching discourse markers to second language learners. Uniquely, it offers a comprehensive pedagogical model informed by current knowledge about second language acquisition as well as CA descriptions, which can guide teachers and materials developers across all languages. It will be of interest to teachers and language learners (especially of Persian) worldwide, as well as academics and students in the field of Applied Linguistics.

Read More about Discourse Markers in Persian Talk-in-Interaction: Actions and Practices

Land Acknowledgement

Every community owes its existence and strength to the generations before them, around the world, who contributed their hopes, dreams, and energy into making the history that led to this moment.

Truth and acknowledgement are critical in building mutual respect and connections across all barriers of heritage and difference.

So, we acknowledge the truth that is often buried: We are on the ancestral lands of the Piscataway People, who are the ancestral stewards of this sacred land. It is their historical responsibility to advocate for the four-legged, the winged, those that crawl and those that swim. They remind us that clean air and pristine waterways are essential to all life.

This Land Acknowledgement is a vocal reminder for each of us as two-leggeds to ensure our physical environment is in better condition than what we inherited, for the health and prosperity of future generations.

Office of Diversity and Inclusion