Larry D. King
Professor
of Spanish and Chair, Department of Romance Languages
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Puerta Principal, Reales Alcázares, Sevilla
CB#
3170, 238 Dey Hall, UNC-CH
Chapel Hill, NC 27599
larking@unc.edu
My undergraduate work at the University of Virginia (B.A. 1969) included a major in Spanish language and literature and a minor in Portuguese. During my graduate studies at Indiana University (M.A. 1972, Ph.D. 1976) my interests became more focused on language, which led me to concentrate on Spanish and Portuguese linguistics and the application of linguistics to the teaching of foreign languages. I began as a medievalist and worked with the Portuguese historian A.H. de Oliveira Marques while holding a Fulbright Grant in Portugal (1972-73). In Lisbon I collected material for my dissertation on the language and works of the fifteenth century Portuguese chronicler Gomes Eanes de Zurara. After joining the linguistics faculty of Cornell University in 1974, I became interested in the synchronic description of languages, and began research on the the meaning of grammatical forms in Spanish, Portuguese, and English. In 1980 I joined the Chapel Hill faculty and directed the Spanish language program for a number of years. In 1985-86 I served for the first time as Resident Director of the UNC Year at Sevilla, Spain, and thus began what was to become my primary administrative responsibility within the department. In 1987 I became Program Director in Chapel Hill and have also been in residence with the program in Sevilla several semesters during the last seven years. On June 30, 2004 I left the directorship after seventeen years of continuous service to the program. I was interim chair of the Department of Romance Languages 2006-2008, and since 2008 have served as permanent chair of the department.