Applied Linguistics in the Contemporary World

Chapter 1

Applied Linguistics in the Contemporary World

(James Simpson)

This handbook is a reference work covering key topics in applied linguistics. Each chapter provides an accessible introductory overview of an area of applied linguistics.

A.   Applied Linguistics

Applied linguistics is the academic field which connects knowledge about language to decision-making in the real world. Applied linguistics mediates between theory and practice. The origins of applied linguistics lie in the mid-twentieth century effort to give an academic underpinning to the study of language teaching and learning. Until at least the 1980s applied linguistics was most closely associated with the problems and puzzles surrounding language pedagogy, learning and acquisition.

This handbook show us that applied linguistics concerns range from the well-established ones of language learning, teaching, testing, and teacher education, to matters as disparate as language and the law, the language of institutions, medical communication, media discourse, translation and interpreting, and language planning. Applied linguistics engages with contemporary social questions of culture, ethnicity, gender, identity, ageing, and migration. Applied linguistics adopt perpectives on language in use spanning critical discourse analysis, linguistics ethnography, sociocultural theories, literacy, stylistics and sociolinguistics. And applied linguistics drawn upon descriptions of language from traditions such as cognitive linguistics, corpus linguitics, generative linguistics and systemic functional linguistics, among others.

B.    The Scope of This Volume

Each chapter in this volume focuses on specific area of applied linguistics, covering a history of the area, a critical discussion of its main current issues, and an indication of its emergent debates and future trajectory.

1.    Part I : Applied linguistics in action

This part consists of chapters on a variety of applied linguistics topics which explain ways in which the study of language involves not only the description of real-world matters, but suggestions about how they can be addressed.

a.    Language Policy and Planning

It has a long history in terms of interventions into language practices, as Lionel Wee says. Wee examines the valuable contributions which applied linguistics can make in this difficult area that is language policy and planning.

b.    Business Communication

It refers specifically to English business communication and English for Busines Purposes. They trace the development of an applied linguistics interest in business communication to sociolinguistically-informed English for Specific Purposes (ESP), genre analysis, and communication studies.

c.     Translation and Interpreting

Mona Baker and Luis Perez-Gonzales adopt an ideologically critical stance towards their topic, that is translation and interpreting. It has social relevance in gobalized, postcolonial society.

d.    Lexicography

Thierry Fontenelle focuses on the pedagogical dictionaries for foreign language learners and bilingual dictionaries.

e.    The Media

Anne O'Keeffe concerned with new technology, her chapter on The Media. It discusses the applied linguistic interest in print and broadcast genres.

f.     Institutional Discourse

It describes how institutions are held together by language, and how a study of the language of institutions can afford insights into the way they function.

g.    Medical Communication

It focuses on the language practices surrounding the doctor-patient relationship, in consultations and other encounters.

h.    Clinical Linguistics

It involves the study of how language and communication may be impaired. It has interdisciplinarity and connections with social and medical sciences as well as linguistics.

i.      Language and Ageing

It is covering the effects of ageing on language use and cognitive processing.

j.      Forensic Linguistics

It permits linguists to make positive contributions to the operation of law and thus society.

2.    Part II : Language learning, language education

The topics in this part clears the ground for a considered reflection of the field for those professionals for whom language learning and teaching are their daily concern.

a.    Key Concepts in Language Learning and Language Education

b.   Second Language Acquisition

c.    Language Teaching Methodology

d.   Technology and Language Learning

It describes the purposes for which digital technology has been used in language learning.

e.   Language Teacher Education

It stresses the connections between contexts an initial and continuing teacher education, regardless of the languages at issue or where the activity takes place.

f.     Bilingual Education

g.    English for Academic Purposes

Although EAP relates to the very practical matter of assisting learner's study of English, research in the are has contributed to applied linguistics theory more generally.

h.   Language Testing

It includes a treatment of validity and test validation, and critical discussion of emerging debates.

i.     Classroom Discourse

It explains how discourse analysis is employed to study a range of issues relating to language use in language classrooms.

j.     Language Socialization

It is concerned with how novices are socialized to be competent members in the 'target culture' through language use, and how they are socialized to use language.

3.    Part III : Language, culture, and identity

Chapters in this part give voice to the recognition that matters of culture and identity are intertwined with language use, and with knowledge about language.

a.    Culture

Claire Kramsch discusses the development of an interest in culture in apllied linguistics.

b.   Identity and The Individual

For Bonny Norton, the study of identity affords an insight into 'the relationship between the language learner and the larger social world'.

c.    Gender

d.   Ethnicity

e.   Sign Languages

It is defined as the very particular issues relating to the description and use of the group of languages.

f.     Globalization

It discusses the dominance of one language or variety of a language over others.

g.    World Englishes

It is concerned the position and role of word languages, and the growth of English in particular.

h.   Linguistic Imperialism

In this chapter, Suresh Canagarajah and Selim Bin Said examined world languages from a more critical perspective.

i.     Multilingualism

Jasone Cenoz and Durk Gorter note that 'a traditional monolingual view has seen multilingualism as a problem'.

j.     Language and Migration

Migration is increasingly of interest to language professionals.

4.    Part IV : Perspectives on language in use

The varied and intersecting chapters in this part examine approaches to the study of language use, language development in the brain and the mind, and language in society.

a.    Discourse Analysis

It has been highly influential in pushing the entire field of applied linguistics towards its current independent status.

b.   Critical Discourse Analysis

It is concerned the investigation of how 'language use may be affirming and indeed reproducing the perspectives, values and ways of talkung of the powerful, which may not be in the interests of the less powerful'.

c.    Neurolinguistics

It is the study of language and the brain, is a truly interdiciplinary pursuit, involving neuroscience, psychology, linguistics, speech pathology and biology.

d.   Psycholinguistics

It explores some familiar territory for applied linguistics.

e.   Sociocultural and Cultural-Historical Theories of Language Development

It stresses the relationship between an individual's development and 'the social and material conditions of everyday life, including those comprising formal instructional settings'.

f.     Sociolinguistics

It concerns language in social context, language change and variation, and the signalling and interpretation of meaning in interaction, all matters of central relevance and connection to applied linguistics.

g.    Linguistics Ethnography

It is a fast-growing area which combines ethnography with linguistics and other strategies to investigate social processes.

h.   Literacy

Doris Warriner regards language and literacy practices as contextually situated.

i.     Stylistics

It is concerned with the description and interpretation of distinctive linguistic choices and patterns in general and literacy texts.

5.    Part V : Descriptions of language for applied linguistics

This part opens with three chapters of importance to language teaching and learning.

a.    Grammar

Grammar in its 'narrow sense' that is morphology and syntax.

b.   Lexis

Lexis is described as the area of language study where form and meaning meet.

c.    Phonetics and Phonology

The following three chapters present competing accounts of language description.

a.       Systemic Functional Linguistics

It views language as a social semiotic, a system of meaning-making embedded in social contexts of use.

b.      Generative Grammar

It is concerned with the relevance of an area of language description frequently misunderstood as not relevant to applied linguistics.

c.       The Emergence of Language as a Complex Adaptive System

It describes the emergent patternings of language, and how these are revealed when it is viewed as a complex system.

Question and Answer

Questions :

   1.       What is second language acquisition?

   2.       What is the difference between ‘second’ and ‘foreign’ language?

   3.       What are the goals of SLA?

   4.       Give an example of a ‘naturalistic’ learner. Why?

   5.       What is the difference between ‘mistakes’ and ‘errors’?

   6.       Explain and give one example of ‘overgeneralization’!

  7.       Explain two learning theories: Behaviorist and Mentalist. What are the implications of these learning theories for language teachers?

   8.       Consider the following data:

A : I like your shoes (expressing compliments)

B : Thank you

How can you explain the B’s response in terms of the acquisition of discourse rules?

Answers :

   1.       A second language is a language learned by a person after his or her native language, especially as a resident of an area where it is in general use. And then, language acquisition is a natural, unconscious progression or development of language. It is a process that occurs through language use in ordinary conversation and is the typical progression by which infants and young children first learn to talk. So, Second Language Acquisition (SLA) is a process by which people learn a language after his or her native language, especially as a resident of an area where it is in general use, inside or outside of a classroom.

   2.       A second language is a language that is learned after one has already learned one language. It is often learned for business purposes because of the second language's dominance in important affairs. For example, many people learn English because of how many important affairs involve the United States. A foreign language is a language that is from a country other than one's native country. Foreign languages are usually learned for the sake of learning about the culture and people who speak it. For example, some people learn ancient Greek for a deeper understanding of the early philosophers from reading their works in their original language. In short, a second language is a language you learn that is not the language you normally speak. For example, if you grow up speaking only English and you learn Spanish later in life, your second language is Spanish. A foreign language is a language you cannot speak.

   3.       One of the goals of SLA is the description of L2 acquisition. Another is explanation; identifying the external and internal factors that account for why learners acquire an L2 in the way they do. One of the external factors is the social milieu in which learning takes place. Social conditions influence the opportunities that learner have to hear and speak the language and the attitudes that they develop towards it. Another external factor is the input that learners receive, that is, the samples of language to which a learner is exposed. A final set of internal factors explain why learners vary in the rate they learn an L2 and how successful they ultimately are. The goals of SLA are to describe how L2 acquisition proceeds and to explain this process and why some learners seem to be better at it than others.

  4.       Naturalistic learner is someone who learns the language at the same time as learning to communicate in it. For example a native speaker from Japanese who has little formal instruction in English, he would visit Hawaii for his business. In connection with his work, he had regular opportunities to use English.

   5.       A mistake is based on knowledge that the students have, but haven't applied properly. An 'error' is a deviation from accuracy or correctness. A 'mistake' is an error caused by a fault: the fault being misjudgment, carelessness, or forgetfulness. The first time it would be an error. The second time it would be a mistake since we should have known better. Error is a more formal word and has various technical meanings.

   6.       the process of extending the application of a rule to items that are excluded from it in the language norm, as when a child uses the regular past tense verb ending -ed  of forms like I walked  to produce forms like *I goed  or *I rided.

   7.       Behaviorism and mentalism are two theories that involve the mind, but one is based on empirical observation and the other is based on pure belief. Behaviorism is a topic that you learn about in a psychology course, a theory that behavior is in response to conditioning without regard to feelings, and mentalism, a theory based on mental perception and thought processes, can be learned through experience or through an apprenticeship with an experienced mentalist. Behaviorism is a theory that is based around the study of behaviors in humans and animals in response to negative or positive stimulation. One of the most well-known studies in behaviorism is the study conducted by Ivan Pavlov. He observed that, over time, a dog would begin to salivate after hearing a bell ring because the dog associated it with food being placed in front of it. This is an aspect of behaviorism known as classical conditioning, in which the bell ringing, which is a conditioned stimulus, caused a reaction in the dog because of the food, an unconditioned stimulus.

   8.       There are rules or, at least, regularities in the ways in which native speakers hold conversations. In American English, for example, compliment responses are usually quite elaborate, involving some attempt on the part of the speaker to play down the compliment by making some unfavourable comment. For example :

A : I like your sweater.

B : It’s so old. My sister bought it for me in Italy some time ago.

However, L2 learners behave differently. Sometimes they fail to respond to a compliment at all. At other times they produce bare responses {for example, ‘Thank you’}.

References :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Error

http://www.quora.com/English-language/What-is-the-difference-between-a-mistake-and-an-error

Ellis. R. (1986). Understanding second language acquisition. Oxford University Press

http://www.unc.edu/~gerfen/Ling30Sp2002/acquisition.html

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/overgeneralization

http://www.ehow.com/info_8378971_difference-between-behaviourism-mentalism.html