The School of Philosophy and Letters of the University of Navarra will launch next academic year 2022-23 a new Degree in language and Spanish Literature. Aimed at students with cultural concerns, interested in delving into issues related to literary creation, as well as in the study of the language and its applications, it will have two diplomas of specialization in Creative Writing and in Language Sciences. Students will also have the possibility of taking the Degree without itineraries and defining their professional profile through elective subjects.

"The demand for professionals trained in the areas of Philology, linguistics and their literatures is growing," explains Javier de Navascués, director of department of Philology of the academic center. "This new Degree, pending verification by the National Agency for Assessment of Quality and Accreditation, arises after a process of revision and renovation of the Degrees in Philology and in Literature and Creative Writing (LEC) and brings together in a single offer the best of each. In addition to providing philological training , it offers two very attractive specific itineraries with broad employability, something that makes it a pioneer and unique in Spain".

As Professor de Navascués points out, the growth of the sector related to creative writing is increasing: "There is a large market emerging that this new Degree wants to serve". In this sense, the diploma in Creative Writing will train students to be able to develop professionally in the field of literary creation in its different genres, as well as in the world publishing house and management cultural. Their training in the good use of language will also allow them to work in copywriting, audiovisual, business, institutional and literary linguistic consultancy, or to work in the teaching of Spanish, "a language of growing importance on the world scene", using the technologies demanded by current communication and culture.

For its part, the diploma in Language Sciences will train the student to work in areas related to new technologies and applied linguistics, sectors where the demand for linguists is growing: experimental phonetics, assessment and intervention of language pathologies, speech recognition, or machine translation, among others. "Numerous professionals are required for the digital domain and artificial intelligence in Spanish, the second language most widely spoken in the Western world. There has been a great development of computational linguistics in English, but you have to make machines speak in an understandable Spanish , and this is a area that is yet to emerge," explains de Navascués.

Workshop with Lorenzo Silva

During their training, students will actively participate in the Writing Center, where they will acquire oral and written communication techniques; in the laboratory del Habla, which is currently developing research at partnership with speech therapy associations; and eventually at the high school de language y Cultura Españolas (ILCE). "The students' professional profile will be reinforced throughout the degree program, thanks to the internships they will perform in these centers."

To publicize the new Degree, award Planeta 2012 Lorenzo Silva, Visiting Professor of the University of Navarra, will give a writing workshop to students of high school diploma and 4th of ESO a writing workshop. It will take place on November 24, at 6:30 p.m., at the headquarters of the academic center in Madrid. During the meeting, participants will learn some notions about the creation of historical and fiction novels from one of the masters of contemporary literature.