Alberto Bruzos (Ph.D. in Linguistics) has been working at Princeton University since 2005. Since 2011 he holds a position as director of the Spanish Language Program and co-director of the study abroad program Princeton in Spain.
He received his Bachelor’s degree in Spanish Linguistics and Ph.D. in Linguistics at the University of León (Spain), with a dissertation on the pragmatics of ironic discourse. During his doctoral studies, he was a visiting scholar at K. U. Leuven (Belgium) and the Université René Descartes, Paris V (France). After completing his doctoral studies and before coming to Princeton, he taught Spanish language and culture at the Fazekas Mihály Gimnázium in Debrecen (Hungary).
His view of foreign language education is informed by a wide range of theories and approaches, which includes sociocultural theory and critical pedagogy. As director of the Spanish Language Program at Princeton, he supervises and facilitates the work of around 25 instructors, both lecturers and graduate student assistants in instruction. In the same role, he has overseen the redesign of the whole Spanish language curriculum since 2012, including the development of the language-learning platforms Aprendo and ConTextos.
Currently, his research focuses on the relationship between linguistic theory and language ideologies, exploring the ways in which historical change and changes in the political economy influence how language is understood, theorized, and managed. As part of this wider project, he is also interested in the history and politics of Spanish in the United States. His work is interdisciplinary and employs theories and methods from a variety of disciplines including applied linguistics, language policy, linguistic anthropology, educational linguistics, sociolinguistics, and critical discourse analysis. He has presented his research at national and international conferences and has published articles in journals such as Critical Inquiry in Language Studies, International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, Language Policy, and Spanish in Context. In 2018, he received the Outstanding Scholarly Publication Award from the American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese for the best scholarly article published in Hispania in 2016-2017.
From 2018-2023, he collaborated as a visiting professor with the MA program in Spanish Language Teaching at the Instituto de Lengua y Cultura Españolas (ILCE), University of Navarra.
Since 2022, he has been one of the organizers of the seminar "Language, Power and Capital" at the Museo Reina Sofía’s Study Programme in Critical Museology, Artistic Research Practices and Cultural Studies.
Recent publications
Can language be commodified? Toward a Marxist theory of language commodification. Critical Inquiry in Language Studies
La visión de los métodos de enseñanza de lengua de George Ticknor en relación con las orientaciones a la enseñanza del español en Estados Unidos. In Del Pino, J. (Ed.), George Ticknor y la fundación del hispanismo en Estados Unidos. Iberoamericana / Vervuert, 2022
‘Language hackers’: YouTube polyglots as representative figures of language learning in late capitalism. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism
Linguistic landscape as an antidote to the commodification of study abroad language programs: A case study in the center of Madrid. In S. Dubreil, H. Maxim and D. Malinowski (Eds.) Language Teaching in the Linguistic Landscape. Springer, 2020
Who Pays for Cheap Language Instruction? Boston Review, July 14 2020
The path to naturalization in Spain: Old ideologies, new language testing regimes and the problem of test use. Language Policy, 17(4), 419-441
“Encuentros con el español:” A case study of critical service learning in the Latino community. In S. Dubreil and S. Thorne (Eds.), AAUSC Volume 2017: Engaging the World: Social Pedagogies and Language Learning
El futuro de los programas de español y portugués en los departamentos de lenguas modernas: Visiones alternativas, Hispania, 100/5, 2017, 192-193
Apuntes para una visión del ELE como campo. Revista Electrónica del Lenguaje, 4, 2017
“De camareros a profesores” de ELE: La mercantilización del español y de su enseñanza como lengua extranjera. Spanish in Context, 14/2, 230–249
Paradojas de la enseñanza universitaria del español como lengua extranjera en Estados Unidos. En Panhispanismo y variedades en la enseñanza del español L2-LE, 2017
El capital cultural del español y su enseñanza como lengua extranjera en EE.UU. Hispania, 99/1, 2016, 5-16 [AATPS Outstanding Scholarly Publication Award 2018]
Media
- Interview at the Teachers as Workers SIG blog. October 2020
- Princeton Alumni Weekly profile. January 2020
- Profesorado ELE: las kellys de la enseñanza. El Salto. June 2018
- Entrevista en TVProfeDeELE sobre el análisis del discurso sobre ELE. December 2016
- Radio Ambulante: Entering the classroom with Alberto Bruzos Moro. February 2016