33 Applied Linguistics

Dr. Sridhar Maisa

Learning Outcome:

This module deals with the applied linguistics in particular. It presented the definition, the difference between linguistics and applied linguistics, an overview and history of applied linguistics. It also gave an account of essential areas of applied linguistics and the detail description of various branches of applied linguistics. Multiple-choice exercises will help them in assessing their knowledge and understanding of the work. The reference and further reading list will help them in their in-depth study and further reading.

Introduction

Applied Linguistics is an interdisciplinary field of inquiry that addresses a broad range of language-related issues in order to understand their roles in the lives of individuals and conditions in society. It draws on a wide range of theoretical and methodological approaches from various disciplines–from the humanities to the social and natural sciences–as it develops its own knowledge-base about language, its users and uses, and their underlying social and material conditions. It studies how language is used, learned and taught.

OVERVIEW

Linguistics is the study of language in all its aspects including its structure, its diversity,   how it changes and evolves, how people learn and make use of it to communicate, and how   it is implicated in relations of power. It provides students with an insight into the most fundamental of all human faculties, develops strong analytical skills and a foundation for work in many diverse areas. Linguistics and Applied Linguistics in the  School  of  Languages and Linguistics has strengths in many significant areas of research. It has an outstanding record in attracting nationally competitive publication and research grants and has established extensive collaborative networks with local and international scholars in the field.

LINGUISTICS & APPLIEDLINGUISTICS

Linguistics is the study of human language in all its aspects. It provides a methodology for exploring the structure of particular languages; it investigates what is universal to all human languages: how language varies over time and between different societies, how language is learnt, and how language is used for human communication.

Applied Linguistics is concerned with practical issues involving language in the life of the community. The most important of these is the learning of second or foreign languages. Others include language policy, multilingualism, language education, the preservation and revival of endangered languages, and the assessment and treatment of language difficulties. Other areas of interest include corpus linguistics, lexicography, study of professional communication, psycholinguistics, language policy issues. Applied Linguistics is a challenging and stimulating discipline, offering many opportunities for original work.

History of Applied Linguistics

The tradition of applied linguistics established itself in part as a response to the narrowing of focus in linguistics with the advent in the late 1950s of generative linguistics, and has always maintained a socially-accountable role, demonstrated by its central interest in language problems. Although the field of applied linguistics started from Europe and the United States, the field rapidly flourished in the international context.

Applied linguistics first concerned itself with principles and practices on the basis of linguistics. In the early days, applied linguistics was thought as “linguistics-applied” at least from the outside of the field. In the 1960s, however, applied linguistics was expanded to include language assessment, language policy, and second language acquisition. As early as the 1970s, applied linguistics became a problem-driven field rather than theoretical linguistics, including the solution of language-related problems in the real world. By the 1990s, applied linguistics had broadened including critical studies and multilingualism. Research in applied linguistics was shifted to the theoretical and empirical investigation of real world problems in which language is a central issue.

In the United States, applied linguistics also began narrowly as the application of insights from structural linguistics—first to the teaching of English in schools and subsequently to second and foreign language teaching. The linguistics applied approach to language teaching was promulgated most strenuously by Leonard Bloomfield, who developed the foundation for the Army Specialized Training Program, and by Charles C. Fries, who established the English Language Institute (ELI) at the University of Michigan in 1941. In 1948, the Research Club at Michigan established Language Learning: A Journal of Applied Linguistics, the first journal to bear the term applied linguistics. In Britain, a school of applied linguistics was established by J.C. Cartford at the University of Edinburgh in 1956 and Charles Ferguson set up the centre for applied linguistics in Washington.D.C. in 1959. From late 1960s, applied linguistics began to establish its own identity as an interdisciplinary field of linguistics concerned with real-world language issues. The new identity was solidified by the creation of the American Association for Applied Linguistics in 1977.

Applied Linguistics answer questions such as:

1. How can we teach a language?
2. What kind of individual differences do we have in language learning?
3. How can we write a language examination?
4. What is correct language test?
5. What are social influences that affect language learning?
6. How can we advise curriculum planners and stakeholders of education ?
7. What are challenges in translation?

Major Branches of Applied Linguistics

Applied linguistics is an interdisciplinary field of linguistics. Major branches of applied linguistics include bilingualism and multilingualism, conversation analysis, contrastive linguistics, sign linguistics, language assessment, literacies, discourse analysis, language pedagogy, second language acquisition, language planning and policy, inter-linguistics, stylistics, pragmatics, forensic linguistics and translation studies.

Essential areas of Enquiry in Applied linguistics

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 semi autonomous and interdisciplinary study ( James Simpson,2011).

Second Language Acquisition

Second language acquisition research focuses on the developing knowledge and use of a language by children and adults who already know at least one other language. This field of research has both theoretical and practical importance. The theoretical importance is related to our understanding of how language is represented in the mind and whether there is a difference between the way language is acquired and processed and the way other kinds of information are acquired and processed. The practical importance arises from the assumption that an understanding of how languages are learned will lead to more effective teaching practices. In a broader context, knowledge of second language acquisition may help educational policy makers set more realistic goals for programmes for both foreign language courses and the learning of the majority language by minority language children and adults.

Second or foreign language can be analysed in different ways, these analyses can be organised in four areas: error analysis, developmental patterns, variability of learner language and pragmatic features of learner language.

• Error analysis (EA) concentrates on determining whether the ERRORS students make are systematic or not. Systematicity means that students do not make errors just accidentally but there is some regularity in their errors. Error analysis has four stages: identification, description, explanation and evaluation.
• Developmental patterns: Having acquired some basic L2 expressions in the target language students start learning grammar. One of the most interesting features of people’s language learning is that regardless of students’ age or mother tongue there are some developmental patterns which they follow. These patterns refer to the order the different grammatical elements are acquired and also the stages learners go through while acquiring elements. The definite order in which the different grammatical structures are acquired is called the order of acquisition. In all languages young children go from one-word utterances to two-word sentences and to longer stretches of speech.
• Variability of learner: Learners one day speak English quite well, but on other days they may not speak well and they feel hopeless. It is a natural phenomenon and this is called the variability of learner language, which is also systematic. Normally, Variability depends on at least three factors: (1) linguistic, (2) situational and (3) psycholinguistic.
• Certain utterance can be totally unacceptable because it is not appropriate to use in a particular context. Such study deal with how language is used in communication. It can be called the study of appropriateness, it is also called pragmatics.

Psycholinguistics

Psycholinguistics is the study of the mental processes during language use. Generative linguist Noam Chomsky deeply influenced Psycholinguists. Psycholinguists focus on  how humans acquire language knowledge and how knowledge is put to use. . Psycholinguists try to give very basic answers to the following questions:

• Do people learn their knowledge of language or is it innate?
• How do people acquire language, especially their first language?
• What happens when people produce talk, what happens when try to comprehend it?

Language Teaching, Testing and Language Proficiency

Foreign language proficiency, teaching and testing are important areas in applied linguistics. These three things are strongly related to each other and understanding these aspects very important in applied linguistics. To improve the language proficiency of the learner, teachers use a particular language teaching method and it will be tested later.

To test the proficiency of learners language there are various tests we can use:

1) Achievement tests are based on syllabus or a text book and intend to test how successfully students managed to learn the material covered in that textbook over a week, term or year.

2) Progress tests are very similar to achievement tests as they intend to measure progress during a course.

3) Proficiency tests are not related to any syllabus as they are intended to test students’ level of proficiency.

4) Diagnostic tests intended for diagnosing candidates’ strengths and weaknesses.

5) Discrete-point tests measure students’ language level at sentence level one at a time.

6) Integrative tests test students two or more language skills together.

Corpus linguistics:

A corpus is a body of language material which exists in electronic form, and which may be processed by computer for various purposes such as linguistic research. Corpus linguistics select, structure, store, sort and scrutinize language. They do it on the basis of the billions of words spoken and written language. Corpus linguists have to collect spoken or written language data of daily use do record spoken or written data.

Lexicography

Lexicography itself is a branch of applied linguistics: it uses the insights of linguistics to a practical end. Linguistics who work and prepare dictionaries are called lexicographer. Lexicographers produce and evaluate dictionary. There are two kinds of dictionaries: 1) monolingual dictionaries and 2) bilingual dictionaries.

Translation Studies

A translation study is very popular field of study and it is new one. The phenomenon of translation is probably as old as language itself. The term “translation studies” was coined by Holmes in 1972. He identified three main areas of research:

 1) theoretical translation studies.

2) Descriptive translation studies which describe act of translation itself.

3) Applied translation studies which includes translation training, translation aids, translation policy, translation planning  and translation criticism.  Machine translation is the latest field of study.

Summary

Applied linguistics is interdisciplinary branch of study. It addresses many language related practical issues. This module presented a detail account of applied linguistics (AL). The introduction and the overview has presented in the beginning. The difference between linguistics and applied linguistics has discussed in the module. The detail account of major branches of applied linguistics have discussed in the module. The major branches or areas of applied linguistics are second language acquisition, psycholinguistics, Language teaching and language testing and proficiency, corpus linguistic studies, lexicography and translation studies.

References

• Alan Davies (2007). An Introduction to Applied Linguistics: from Practice to Theory (2nd ed.). UK: Edinburgh University Press.
• Davies Alan & Elder Catherine. (2004). The Handbook of Applied Linguistics. UK: Blackwell Publishing.
• Hunston Susan & Oakey David. (2010). Introducing Applied Linguistics: Concepts and Skills. London: Routledge.
• James Simpson. (2011). The Routledge Handbook of Applied Linguistics. Routledge.
• McCarthy, Michael (2001) Issues in Applied Linguistics, Cambridge University Press.
• Richter Barbala . (2006). First steps in Theoritical and Applied Linguistics. Budapest: Bolcsesz Konzorcium.
• Schmitt Norbert. (2010). An Introduction to Applied Linguistics (2nd Edn.). UK. Hodder and Stoughton Ltd.