An instructor of World Languages and Cultures having a discussion with her peers.

Department of World Languages and Cultures News

The Department of World Language and Cultures emphasizes linguistic, cultural, and critical skills to give students the foundation needed to understand other cultures. These essential skills enable our graduates to pursue a wide range of careers in an increasingly global environment.

Current World Languages and Cultures News

mourners laying flowers in front of photos at vigil
Campus News |

A vigil honored Patricia Navarro Velez, Jerry Cha-Jan Chang, and Naoko Takemaru, who were killed in a campus shooting Dec. 6.

framed photo of woman at vigil
Campus News |

The Japanese studies professor inspired students with her high standards and kind approach.

collage of portraits of a man and two women
Campus News |

Community support will fund future scholarships in accounting, information systems, and Japanese studies.

Graduates seated in red caps and gown during a previous UNLV commencement
People |

An enduring commencement tradition continues this spring as UNLV president honors seven outstanding students who exemplify the academic, research, and community impact of the graduating class.

portrait of woman
People |

Professor Elena Gandía García created a service-learning class to address the need for medical interpretation services for the Lied Pediatric Clinic and served as a mentor to colleagues.

Deborah Arteaga headshot
People |

UNLV Spanish professor Deborah Arteaga volunteers to provide valuable medical interpretation services to under-served patients.

World Languages and Cultures In The News

Las Vegas Review Journal

It’s a celebration that involves wearing costumes, visiting cemeteries, honoring departed loved ones and thinking about death on an occasion when, some believe, the boundary that separates our world from the next weakens.

Las Vegas Sun

Las Vegas is now the fastest-warming city in the United States.

El Tiempo

José Iván Cervantes came to Las Vegas as a freshman in high school, amazed to be in “one of the most important cities in the United States,” and he hardly speaks English. Now ready to graduate, he also advocates for his school, which has faced uncertainty as the Clark County School District considers changes to the way English Learners are taught.

Las Vegas Review Journal

Jose Ivan Cervantes arrived in Las Vegas as a high school freshman, speaking almost no English. Now poised to graduate, he’s also advocating for his school, which has faced uncertainty as the Clark County School District considers changes to how English learner students are taught.

Las Vegas Sun

Last week, readers of the Sun got a treat in being introduced to Adugna “Adu” Siweya, one of the Las Vegas Valley’s outstanding college graduates this spring. Inspirational stories Siweya's make college graduation season a special time in Las Vegas, an annual reminder of the remarkable minds in our community, and the commitment of students to academic achievement.

College of Liberal Arts Newsletter

A handful of UNLV master's students in Hispanic Studies have been accepted to top doctoral programs over the past two years, including the University of Virginia, UCLA, University of Alabama, University of Chicago, and the University of Kansas.

Recent World Languages and Cultures Accomplishments

Andrew Kauffman (World Languages and Cultures) chaired a panel and presented a paper at the 2023 Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association Convention in Denver, CO. His paper was titled, "Representations of Aging and Old Age in Zhou Daxin's The Sky Darkens Slowly." 
Margarita Jara (World Languages and Cultures) presented “Exploring Present Perfect Grammaticalization in Peruvian Amazonian Spanish” at the Linguistic Association of the Southwest annual meeting at the University of Colorado Denver. This study analyzes verb forms in sociolinguistic interviews and explores language variation in an Amazonian Spanish…
Professor Julián Barroso-Merino (World Languages and Cultures Department) presented "Cognitive, metacognitive strategies and processing fluency in acquisition of Spanish vocabulary" during the American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese 2023 Conference in Salamanca, Spain, on June 26-29. This case analysis demonstrates that…
Julián Barroso-Merino and Sergio Guzmán (both World Languages and Cultures) presented preliminary results of their ongoing research into actions taken to combat declining enrollments by world languages departments in community colleges across the country. The presentation titled, "What are we doing about low enrollment?" was part of the Community…
Susan Byrne (World Languages and Cultures) presented a paper titled, "La estética de la belleza en Cervantes," during the XXI Conference of the Asociación Internacional de Hispanistas, held in Neuchatel, Switzerland, from July 10-15, 2023.
The department of world languages and cultures hosted the French government's DELF/DALF exams from June 12-15. Coordinated by Margaret Harp and the Alliance Française de Las Vegas, the DELF (Diplôme d'Etudes en Langue Française) and DALF (Diplôme approfondi de langue française) are official qualifications awarded by the French…