Introduction to Applied Linguistics: From Practice to Theory

Applied linguistics

Doing Being Applied Linguistics: The Importance of Experience.

Article information:

Davies, Alan. Introduction to Applied Linguistics: From Practice to Theory: From Practice to Theory. Edinburgh University Press, 2007.

The term applied linguistics (AL) has been under the eye of a controversial discussion in regards to its exact definition. According to Vivian Cooks (2006) “applied linguistics means many things to people”. That is why, it’s definition is vague and has been described differently by many people. One of those definitions is made by Kapplan and Widdowson (1992) who argue that is a “mediation between theory and practice”. As well as these authors, many others have tried to give a definition to AL by using its concerns and activities in order to analyse what Applied Linguistics' methods and purposes are. This is called the approach by ostensive. However, the problem with this approach is the lack of guidance in the construction of introductory syllabuses, as well as the lack of comprehensibility. Thus, scholars such as Widdowson have rejected this theory arguing for the existence of coherence in AL. Similarly to Widdowson, Cook states that AL is “a discipline with the relation of knowledge about language to make decisions in the real world”.

Nevertheless the discussion on how to define AL, it is a common thought that AL is the investigation both theoretical and empirical of the problems of language in the the real world (Brumfit, 1997). Nonetheless, is important to understand that AL is not the same as linguistics applied. In order to understand, AL uses the disciplines of the linguistics to explore solutions without applying linguistics’ theories. That is to say, AL takes a critical approach to those theories, which leads to the use of a larger range of disciplines i.e psychology, sociology, education, measurement theory and others. ( Davis, 2007). Furthermore, as Corder mentioned (1973), the target of AL is language teaching, due to the fact that most people who study AL are in the teaching field who engage with the problems of the real world. This led to the use of a wider range of foundation theories and methodologies to attend issues in language learning such as multilingualism, language acquisition, second and foreign language education, literacy, culture, cognition, pragmatics, and inter group relationships. ( Cumming, 1993)

The points discussed on Applied Linguistics make clear that although AL has been difficult to define, it can be seen as a discipline of real world language problems. Moreover, the practice of this discipline needs the help of linguistics as well as other disciplines such as sociology, psychology and more, to solve said problems. However, it does not mean that Applied Linguistics have the same