The graduate program at the Institute of Letters of the Federal University of Bahia began in 1976 when the UFBA Graduate Teaching Chamber authorized the creation of the Master's program in Letters with three areas of concentration: Portuguese, Linguistics and Literary Theory. In 1983, after being accredited by the Federal Education Council, it became nationally recognized and, in 1990, it was re-accredited.
After a series of restructurings, the Doctorate in Letters was created in December 1995, coming into operation in 1996. In the following year, the reformulation of the Master's Degree in Letters and the recommendation of the Doctorate in Letters were approved by CAPES. In the twenty years prior to the creation of the Doctorate in Letters, our Master's degree was the only one in the state of Bahia, enabling the qualification of teachers, initially, of the Institute of Letters itself, but also of those working in higher education institutions in the state of Bahia, expanding its area of operation to the Northeast and the whole of Brazil.
In 1996, then, the Graduate Program in Letters and Linguistics (PPGLL) was created, which would offer two degrees - the Master of Arts in Letters and the Doctorate in Letters, and two lato sensu courses - the Vernacular Language and Literature course and the Translation Course. To the original research lines a new one was added: Applied Linguistics.
Between 1996 and 2010, until the extinction of PPGLL, the graduate program had three areas, namely, HISTORICAL LINGUISTICS, with the research lines: (1) Historical Constitution of Portuguese, (2) Linguistic Change in Romania, (3) Linguistic Diversity in Brazil; the area of APPLIED LINGUISTICS, with the research lines: (1) Acquisition and Teaching of Portuguese, (2) Foreign Languages Teaching and Learning and Translation; and the area CRITICAL THEORIES OF LITERATURE AND CULTURE, with the research lines: (1) Documents of Cultural Memory, (2) Textual Criticism, (3) Representation and Reading. In addition, during the same period, the PPGLL underwent restructuring aimed at adapting its courses to the new guidelines of the funding agencies, especially CAPES. For example, an annual selection, a more compact, more flexible curriculum with a larger and more diversified offer were implemented, the transdisciplinary perspective was privileged, which allowed for greater integration with other graduate programs in related areas, as well as other higher education institutions.
The expansion of the PPGLL, with new professors, the expansion of the number of annual vacancies to meet the demand resulting from the implementation of new higher education courses in the area of Letters in Bahia, as well as the expansion of Higher Education implemented by the Program of Support for Federal Government Restructuring and Expansion Plan (REUNI), implemented since 2009, resulted in the division of the Program which, in practice, gave rise to the current PPGLinC - Graduate Program in Language and Culture and PPGLitCult - Graduate Program in Literature and Culture. As a result of the consolidation of the Program, in 2010, the Interinstitutional Doctorate project with the Universidade do Oeste do Paraná was implemented, absorbed and managed by PPGLinC, expanding its impact beyond the Brazilian Northeast.
Initially, PPGLinC was organized in two areas: HISTORICAL LINGUISTICS, with four research lines: (1) Historical Constitution of Portuguese and other Romance Languages; (2) Textual Philology; (3) History of Written Culture in Brazil and (4) Variation of Portuguese Language and Theory of Grammar and CONTEMPORARY LANGUAGES AND CULTURES, consisting of three research lines: (1) Acquisition, Teaching and Language Learning; (2) Audiovisual Translation and Accessibility Studies; and (3) Text, Discourse and Culture. The organizational scenario changes after extensive curricular reforms carried out until 2018 and implemented in 2019.
In order to give greater visibility to the theoretical diversity carried out at ILUFBA and, consequently, at PPGLinC and to make the Program even more flexible with regard to disciplinary limits, a Program Evaluation Forum was held in 2017, bringing together professors, students and administrative staff in education, seeking to discuss the Program and propose changes in order to meet the needs that were imposed on PPGLinC.
The PPGLinC curricular structure, which has been in operation since 2019, was created from this Forum and consists of two research areas with three research lines: HISTORY AND FUNCTIONING OF NATURAL LANGUAGES: (1) Historical Linguistics, Philology and History of Written Culture, (2) Dialectology and Sociolinguistics and (3) Theory of Grammar and LANGUAGE AND INTERACTION: (1) Language Acquisition, Translation and Accessibility, (2) Language, Cognition and Discourse and (3) Applied Linguistics.