Applied Linguistics

Li Wei

• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781118348338
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Linguistics
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

In this complete survey of the theories, methods, and key findings within applied linguistics, students are introduced to core research questions and the various approaches to tackling these.

• Provides a comprehensive introduction to this interdisciplinary field of research and practice, dealing with practical issues of language and communication
• Takes a problem-solving approach, introducing students to key research questions and guiding them through the various ways of tackling these
• Features additional study aids throughout, including chapter outlines, learning objectives, key terms, research questions and answers, study questions, and recommended further readings
• Enables students to identify every-day language and communication issues, and to draw on their own personal experiences
• Edited by a leading figure in the field, heading up an experienced and interdisciplinary team of contributors from the renowned department of applied linguistics at Birkbeck College, University of London – resulting in unique combination of knowledge, skills, and strength from scholars who teach and research together

chapter 1
Introducing Applied Linguistics

Li Wei

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Chapter Outline

1. 1.1 What is Language and What is Linguistics?
2. 1.2 Applied Linguistics as a Problem-solving Approach
3. 1.3 Doing Applied Linguistics: Methodological Considerations
4. 1.4 Structure and Content of this Volume

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Learning Outcomes

After reading this chapter, you should

• have an understanding of the different approaches to language;
• be able to appreciate the connections between different branches of linguistics;
• be able to appreciate the scope of Applied Linguistics as a problem-solving approach to language;
• have an understanding of the process of doing Applied Linguistics research;
• have an understanding of the different research designs.

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Key Terms

• Applied Linguistics
• Bilingualism
• Language
• Linguistics
• Methodology
• Research design
• Sociolinguistics

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If you describe yourself as a linguist to other people outside the discipline, chances are that they will ask you, ‘How many languages do you speak?’ But if you describe yourself as an Applied Linguist, they may well go silent completely, wondering what they should say to you next. If you are lucky, you might get asked, ‘Is that how to teach languages?’ or ‘Is that translation?’ These questions are not entirely unreasonable, as Applied Linguistics can mean different things to different people, even among those who would describe themselves as Applied Linguists.

The International Association of Applied Linguistics (AILA) proclaims:

Applied Linguistics is an interdisciplinary field of research and practice dealing with practical problems of language and communication that can be identified, analysed or solved by applying available theories, methods or results of Linguistics or by developing new theoretical and methodological frameworks in linguistics to work on these problems

The AILA definition is both broad in including, potentially, many different areas such as child language acquisition, language and communication disorders, multilingualism, language testing, communication in the workplace, and so on, and narrow in relating Applied Linguistics to linguistics proper. The latter has caused a perpetual controversy, not least because linguistics has also been conceptualized in many different ways to produce a unified theory. In this introductory chapter, we begin with a discussion of what linguistics is, focusing, in particular, on the differences as well as the similarities between the different approaches to language. The main objective is to highlight the connections between the various branches and sub-branches of linguistics, as Applied Linguists may apply one specific approach or a combination of several different ones to the problems that they wish to solve. We then go on to describe Applied Linguistics as a problem-solving approach, outlining its key elements and characteristics. A substantial part of the chapter, Section 1.3, is on the methodological considerations in doing Applied Linguistics, covering all the main stages of doing a research project. The last section outlines the structure and content of the book.

1.1 What is Language and What is Linguistics?

All linguistics work, whatever specific perspective one may adopt, should ultimately have something to say about the question, ‘What is this thing called language?’ (Nunan, 2013). Ron Macaulay (2011) presents ‘Seven Ways of Looking at Language’:

• language as meaning
• language as sound
• language as form
• language as communication
• language as identity
• language as history
• language as symbol.

These can be summarized in three rather different conceptualizations of language:

• as a particular representational system based on the biologically rooted language faculty;
• as complex and historically evolved patterns of structures;
• as a social practice and a culturally loaded value system.

The different conceptualizations of language lead to very different methodological perspectives which together constitute the field of linguistics today. The following is a list of some of the commonly occurring terms for different branches of linguistics:

• theoretical linguistics
• formal linguistics
• descriptive linguistics
• historical linguistics
• sociolinguistics
• psycholinguistics
• neurolinguistics
• clinical linguistics
• cognitive linguistics
• forensic linguistics
• educational linguistics
• computational linguistics
• corpus linguistics
• geolinguistics.

To these we can add sub-branches:

• phonetics
• phonology
• morphology
• syntax
• semantics
• pragmatics
• dialectology
• Discourse Analysis
• Critical Discourse Analysis
• stylistics
• genre analysis
• second language acquisition
• language pathology.

Figure 1.1 Approach to Linguistics 1.

Figure 1.2 Approach to Linguistics 2.

Indeed, the list can go on. It may be useful to look at the differences, but also similarities, between these different kinds of linguistics in terms of the relationship between the linguist who does the studying of language and the evidence he or she uses for the study, paying particular attention to how the evidence is gathered and used in the analysis.

In the first schematized approach (Figure 1.1), the linguist arrives at an analysis of the language being studied using his or her own intuition or intimate knowledge of it. The linguist may test the intuition and intimate knowledge on other speakers who are deemed to have similarly intimate knowledge of the target language. But other than that, no separately collected linguistic data would be used as evidence for the analysis the linguist undertakes. The focus of the analysis tends to be on general rules and principles. This approach characterizes much of formal and descriptive linguistics.

The second schematized approach (Figure 1.2) differs from the first in that it involves a separately collected body of data, rather than the linguist’s own knowledge and intuition, for the analysis. The focus of the analysis may still be the general rules and principles, or specific patterns and features, but they are derived from the database. This characterizes corpus linguistics approaches, which have in turn been applied to various contexts including, for example, writing grammar books, compiling dictionaries, designing language tests and teaching material, doing genre analysis, contrastive analysis and comparative analysis. Sometimes, this approach can also be used to show that the linguist’s own intuitions about a particular language may be ‘wrong’ in the sense that the majority of its users use it differently from the linguist’s own intuition about the usage.

There are three other approaches, which are schematized in Figure 1.3, Figure 1.4 and Figure 1.5. Like the second approach, a separately collected database is used for the analysis in each of these. But here, particular attention is paid to the language users, who are carefully selected to provide the data in specific contexts. And the analytic focus is on the relationship between the language users and the linguistic evidence they provide. In the third approach, which characterizes that of pragmatics and Discourse Analysis, for instance, the focus is on how the language user produces context-dependent linguistic patterns. In the fourth approach, on the other hand, the focus is on the language users’ internal state, personal characteristics and the cognitive process when producing the language data. For example, how does age impact on the language user’s ability to discriminate sound differences in different languages; how does anxiety affect the retrieval of certain lexical items; or what level of cognitive control is needed when a bilingual language user changes from one language to another in the middle of an utterance as opposed to switching with different interlocutors. Such an approach is typical of psycholinguistic and clinical linguistic studies. The last schematized approach is characteristic of that of sociolinguistics, which focuses more on the influence of external factors on the language user – for example, audience, setting, topic and how the language user uses language strategically in response to the external factors.

Figure 1.3 Approach to Linguistics 3.

Figure 1.4 Approach to Linguistics 4.

Figure 1.5 Approach to Linguistics 5.

The schematization of the various approaches helps to highlight the commonalities as well as differences between the various branches and sub-branches of linguistics. Applied Linguists may apply one specific approach from these to the problems they wish to solve, or be eclectic and use a combination of approaches. Moreover, Applied Linguists have applied theories and models from other disciplines beyond linguistics. Indeed, contemporary Applied Linguists feel free to draw on almost any field of human knowledge, and use ideas from philosophy, education, sociology, feminism, Marxism and media studies, to name a random few. They have, for example, explored psychological models such as declarative/procedural memory and emergentism, mathematical models such as dynamic systems theory or chaos theory, early Soviet theories of child development such as those of Vygotsky, French thinkers such as Foucault and Bourdieu, and so on. Ben Rampton (1997: 14) described Applied Linguistics as ‘an open field of interest in language’, while David Block (2009) called it ‘an amalgam of research interests’.

1.2 Applied Linguistics as a Problem-solving Approach

While most App...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Table of Contents
• Introducing Linguistics
• Title
• Copyright
• Notes on Contributors
• Acknowledgements
• chapter 1: Introducing Applied Linguistics
• part I: Language in Development
• part II: Language in Use
• part III: Language in Society
• part IV: Language in Public Life
• End User License Agreement