Applied Linguistics
Applied Linguistics is the study of how language is used in real-world contexts, such as language teaching, translation, and language policy. It seeks to address practical issues related to language use and to improve communication across different languages and cultures. Applied linguists often work in areas such as language education, language assessment, and language planning.
5 Key excerpts on "Applied Linguistics"
eBook - ePub- James Simpson, James Simpson(Authors)
- 2011(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...Applied Linguistics engages with contemporary social questions of culture, ethnicity, gender, identity, ageing, and migration. Applied linguists adopt perspectives on language in use spanning critical discourse analysis, linguistic ethnography, sociocultural theories, literacy, stylistics and sociolinguistics. And Applied Linguistics draws upon descriptions of language from traditions such as cognitive linguistics, corpus linguistics, generative linguistics and systemic functional linguistics, among others. Though this is an applied field and an interdisciplinary one, it is not fragmented. The distinctive identity of contemporary Applied Linguistics can be characterized both in conceptual terms and in terms of its scope and coverage. The most widely cited definition of Applied Linguistics comes from Christopher Brumfit, who describes it as: ‘the theoretical and empirical investigation of real-world problems in which language is a central issue’ (1995: 27). Brumfit's definition is broad enough to encompass the range of areas of enquiry indicated above. It also firmly distinguishes Applied Linguistics from other related fields by making it problem-oriented. While language is, of course, fundamental to human life, and surrounds us, the problem orientation helps to delimit the field. That is, the motivation for Applied Linguistics lies not with an interest in autonomous or idealized language, as with understandings of linguistics which deal in linguistic universals: Applied Linguistics data is typically collected empirically in contexts of use. Nor is its concern with the entirety of ‘language in use’. It is demarcated by its interest in how language is implicated in real-world decision-making. Yet though the problem orientation helpfully bounds Applied Linguistics, the array of issues opened up by Brumfit's definition can still seem unconstrained, a point made often before...
eBook - ePubDoing Applied Linguistics
A guide for students
- Nicholas Groom, Jeannette Littlemore(Authors)
- 2012(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...A typical example can be found on the website of the International Association for Applied Linguistics (AILA), the leading professional organisation in the field. According to AILA, Applied Linguistics is ‘an interdisciplinary field of research and practice dealing with practical problems of language and communication’. Turning to printed sources, we find that Applied Linguistics, one of the most prestigious academic journals in the field, describes the subject as ‘the study of language and language-related problems in specific situations in which people use and learn languages’, while the respected Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics (Richards et al. 2002: 28) defines Applied Linguistics even more concisely as ‘the study of language and linguistics in relation to practical problems.’ All of these definitions are neatly encapsulated in perhaps the best-known and most frequently-cited definition of all, originally formulated by the eminent applied linguist Chris Brumfit (1995: 27): [Applied Linguistics is] the theoretical and empirical investigation of real-world problems in which language is a central issue. Brumfit’s definition provides a useful starting point for this book, and in the remainder of this chapter we will discuss the two basic questions that this definition raises but does not answer: what ‘real-world problems’ are applied linguists interested in, and how do they go about investigating them? Before moving on to consider these questions in detail, however, we first need to deal with an even more fundamental question about Applied Linguistics: what kind of ‘applied’ subject is it? What is ‘Applied’ About Applied Linguistics? Applied subjects in higher education can be divided into two contrasting types. The first type of applied subjects focuses very clearly on the practical applications of a single branch of academic knowledge...
eBook - ePubOn the Subject of English
The Linguistics of Language Use and Learning
- Henry Widdowson(Author)
- 2019(Publication Date)
- De Gruyter Mouton(Publisher)
...Section 2: Linguistics and Applied Linguistics Preamble Although in its original conception, Applied Linguistics was more or less exclusively concerned with the pedagogy of language teaching, its scope of enquiry has now extended to include, in principle, all manner of problematic issues that arise in the use of language. And as its activities have become more diverse, so has its range of disciplinary reference, so that its very name has become something of a misnomer. The name Applied Linguistics indicates a dependent subaltern relationship with linguistics, and its proponents have been anxious to declare their independence and to claim equality by asserting the academic status of their work as an inter-disciplinary field of enquiry. As a consequence, Applied Linguistics has tended also to get dissociated from what purports to be its primary purpose: to engage with problematic issues concerning language that are actually experienced by people in the real world. Although an engagement with these issues necessarily involves the consideration of many factors – socio-political, economic, cultural – factors usually associated with other disciplines – a disciplinary perspective only has relevance to the extent that it can be shown to have a direct bearing on the problems that people actually encounter in the practical domain. And the problems that Applied Linguistics lays claim to address are those which involve language in one way or another, and so it seems reasonable to suppose that linguistics, broadly defined as the study of language cognition and communication, is the area of enquiry that in principle is most immediately relevant to its purpose. So the position I take is that rather than downplay the link with linguistics by asserting the independent inter-disciplinarity of Applied Linguistics, we need a more rigorous and critical exploration of how far the discipline of linguistics can be made relevant and accountable in the practical domain...
eBook - ePub- F.C. Stork, J.D.A. Widdowson(Authors)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...9. Some Practical Applications of Linguistics Language is such a fundamental and important part of human behaviour, particularly in an advanced literate society, that the nature and structure of language is worth studying in its own right and the science of linguistics, or General Linguistics as it is sometimes called, does just that. In the preceding chapters we have surveyed briefly some of the main trends and cross currents in linguistic thought and we have shown how the work of linguists, particularly in the twentieth century, has increased our understanding of what is involved in the use of language as a means of communication. So far, however, we have said nothing about the use made of this new knowledge in practical activities, but since language is basic to our personal and social lives it would be very surprising indeed if the better understanding of language did not have wider applications in many disciplines and fields of human experience. Recently there has been a greater recognition of the fact that linguistics does have such applications and the term Applied Linguistics has been used for some time to refer to a set of methods and procedures involving the application of linguistic theory to practical problems. Language teaching is the most obvious area where linguistics would seem to be relevant, and in some cases the term Applied Linguistics is used synonymously with the application of linguistics to language teaching. It is not difficult to see why this should be, for the language barrier has always been one of the most pressing problems in education and communication. This was true in the days when monks made the earliest interlinear glosses on manuscripts as an aid to learning and teaching Latin and it is even more true today in an age which has experienced an ‘explosion’ in the amount of information to be communicated...
eBook - ePubCritical Applied Linguistics
A Critical Introduction
- Alastair Pennycook(Author)
- 2001(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...Reversing Markee’s (1990) labels, I would argue that this might be more usefully seen as the weak version because it renders Applied Linguistics little more than an application of a parent domain of knowledge (linguistics) to different contexts (mainly language teaching). The Applied Linguistics that critical Applied Linguistics deals with, by contrast, is a strong version marked by breadth of coverage, interdisciplinarity, and a degree of autonomy. From this point of view, Applied Linguistics is an area of work that deals with language use in professional settings, translation, speech pathology, literacy, and language education; and it is not merely the application of linguistic knowledge to such settings but is a semiautonomous and interdisciplinary (or, as I argue later, antidisciplinary) domain of work that draws on but is not dependent on areas such as sociology, education, anthropology, cultural studies, and psychology. Critical Applied Linguistics adds many new domains to this. Praxis A second concern of Applied Linguistics in general, and one that critical Applied Linguistics also needs to address, is the distinction between theory and practice. There is often a problematic tendency to engage in applied linguistic research and theorizing and then to suggest pedagogical or other applications that are not grounded in particular contexts of practice (see Clarke, 1994). This is a common orientation in the linguistics-applied-tolanguage- teaching approach to Applied Linguistics. There is also, on the other hand, a tendency to dismiss applied linguistic theory as not about the real world. I want to resist both versions of Applied Linguistics and instead look at Applied Linguistics in all its contexts as a constant reciprocal relation between theory and practice, or preferably, as “that continuous reflexive integration of thought, desire and action sometimes referred to as ‘praxis’” (Simon, 1992, p. 49)...
