critically examine a central dimension of language in everyday use which is relevant to applied linguistic scholarship and practice;Part A
We start mapping the field of applied linguistics with a bird’s-eye view of the general terrain, which we’ve organized into four chapters, each of which explores a different dimension of language in everyday use, and each of which highlights issues which are at the heart of the sub-fields of the discipline described in Parts B and C.
Chapter 2, on language variation, tackles the troublesome truisms that we all speak different versions of the language(s) we share with others, and that these versions differ in different ways on different occasions and with different people. This variation in structure and use is invisible to most of us, most of the time, and is at the root of many of the problems applied linguists are called upon to address. The different individuals and groups experiencing these problems are the topic of Chapter 3, on key populations. Here we count some of the ways that language is implicated in the everyday lives of all of us, whoever we are and whatever our circumstances may be, and we forefront some of the significant features of ‘client’ groups that applied linguists need to be aware of and sensitive to.
Chapter 4 is dedicated to a method – we might call it also a philosophical tool – which has the potential to penetrate the meanings and assumptions behind everyday language use. Discourse analysis, although not the only way to do applied linguistics, is used in most of the sub-fields of the discipline, and is relevant to all of them. We outline in this chapter the various ways in which it may be used to bring to the surface the unconscious beliefs and practices, as well as the more deliberate purposes, underlying talk and text. The final dimension of everyday language use that we explore in this part relates to the extent to which we can influence it. Chapter 5, dealing with language policy and planning, recognizes that as students and scholars in an applied discipline we are inevitably involved in making decisions about language. But our role and influence in the linguistically modulated world around us is (alas!) limited, to say the least. It is, of course, non-specialists who make most of the language-related decisions, all the way from immigrant parents deciding which language to use with their children to legislators voting on funding for bilingual education. All these decisions affect the everyday language practices of ordinary people. We argue in this chapter that applied linguists from every sub-field must seek to influence, understand and inform the decision-makers, and must ensure that their own decisions and advice on policy are responsive to the needs of the populations affected by them.
There are some common themes in all of the chapters in Part A. One is the danger of ‘monolithic’ thinking: about language, languages and linguistics. We stress throughout these chapters that although the sociocultural interfaces and manifestations of language are often the primary sites in which applied linguistic work is relevant, we must acknowledge and address also the cognitive underpinning of all language use, even when these are less accessible to us and have no, or only a superficial, place in many scholarly approaches. The broad approach we take in Part A also suggests we need to abandon, or at least problematize, monolithic views of languages – questioning the objective reality of English and all the other named languages, and embracing, instead, a conception of language hybridity, played out simultaneously within individual minds and across socially constructed communities of practice, identity and belief.
In advocating such a plurilithic approach to language(s), we are inevitably and transparently articulating a critical perspective on the non-linguistic forces which mould everyday language use: essentially, the sociopsychological motives of power, prestige and identity which hijack the language capacity for their (our) own ends. In Chapter 2 we demonstrate how these factors determine the values we attach to our own and others’ ways of speaking, and how these values, in turn, influence the ways in which the clients described in Chapter 3 (and often more powerful outside agents) treat their diverse language practices and needs. Chapter 4 presents a flawed but still potent antidote to the often harmful assumption that language ‘says what it means’, independently of the diversity of its users and of the circumstances in which it is used. The critical strand continues in Chapter 5, where we address the tensions between policy-makers and policy-proposers, between the privileged and the marginalized, between those ‘in the know’ and those ‘on the outside’.
More mundanely, perhaps, the four chapters in Part A illustrate the diverse nature of the data and evidence which inform the various sub-fields of applied linguistics, but at the same time they demonstrate the fundamental unity of purpose between what may appear, on the surface, to be a heterogeneous collection of callings. So, for example, our understanding of variation in language in Chapter 2 comes from meticulous linguistic descriptions of language data, as well as from surveys of attitudes and ethnographies of speaking. Chapters 3 and 4 juxtapose scholarship from a broad range of cross-disciplinary perspectives in the former, with a common, but technically and philosophically diverse, focus on one linguistic interface level (discourse) in the latter. The topic of Chapter 5, policy and planning, is characterized by methodogical eclecticism: clients and applied linguists alike must use the methods and data they have available in order to make the most effective decisions and monitor their effectiveness.
So, in each chapter, we:
critically examine a central dimension of language in everyday use which is relevant to applied linguistic scholarship and practice;
identify and explain key concepts, terms and references;
provide representative examples of applied linguistic theory and practice;
emphasize the attitudes, abilities and roles of applied linguists in the consideration of these issues.
At the end of each chapter, we suggest a series of activities designed primarily to encourage you to reflect on, and engage with, what we’ve had to say, from the different perspectives that each reader brings to the text. We know that each reader is different, so we invite you to adapt each activity to your own circumstances, interests and abilities, and to visit our companion website to share your ideas and check for more detailed content.