In February 2000, the Department of Romance Linguistics and Ibero-Romance Languages and Literatures returned to the structure it had in 1974. The department is formed of four sub-units (Romance linguistics, Spanish Language and Literature, Portuguese Language and Literature, Catalan language) and currently has 11 permanent teaching staff (along with four foreign lecturers) and a number of 4 foreign staff. They include leading figures in Romanian Romance linguistics, well-known specialists in Spanish and Portuguese, and translators from the Ibero-Romance languages. Their academic interests cover a large area, including: comparative Romance linguistics, Spanish linguistics (in a contrastive approach), pragmatics, stylistics, semantics, lexicology, lexicography, methodology, the Spanish/Portuguese Middle Ages, narrative techniques in Spanish/Portuguese contemporary literature, scholarly editions of early Spanish texts, Hispano-American literature, intertextuality, literary currents and schools in the Iberian area, etc.
In their research and teaching pursuits the members of the department proceed from fundamental bibliography in the field published in Romania, as well as a rich choice of some of the most recent foreign scholarship. Relying on an impressive professional background, the specialist of the department have demonstrated outstanding competence in Romance phonetics and phonology, inherited Latin lexicology etc.
Members of the department are noted for their research work, which has led to numerous publications in Romania and abroad, and are at the forefront of Spanish and Portuguese studies in Romania.
