A Returning Question: Defining the Field of Applied Linguistics
Do more recent definitions of applied linguistics take us any further than earlier attempts? Is linguistics its parent discipline, or does it have a multi-disciplinary character? Does it include “everything and anything”? The narrowing of linguistics may
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A Returning Question: Defining the Field of Applied Linguistics
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A Returning Question
Does the recurrent question of how applied linguistics must be defined, and the answers it elicits, take us any further as regards our understanding of the discipline? And will there ever be anything close to a consensus answer about the nature of the field? What effect does an attempted redefinition have on the unity of the discipline? How may a possible redefinition of applied linguistics either benefit from, or contribute to the ongoing contestation of modernist and postmodernist paradigms in the field (Cook 2015)? This chapter will survey some renewed (if recurring) discussion among applied linguists in order to examine this question, and see whether these discussions have brought us any further than some of the earlier attempts we have considered in the preceding analysis. Some attribute the continuing divergence of definitions for applied linguistics to the recentness of its emergence as a discipline (Hellermann 2015: 419; Cook 2015: 426); others will ascribe the ongoing differences to paradigmatically opposing perspectives of its work. I shall refer in this chapter particularly to the definitions proposed in a special edition of a centrally important journal in the field, Applied linguistics (Hellermann 2015). In this special issue, seven specialists and their editor bring together a number of conceptualizations of the field under the theme of “Definitions for applied linguistics”. Apart from these recent attempts at defining applied linguistics, there are also others who address similar issues (e.g. Paltridge 2014; De Bot 2015: 4). The relatively short history of applied linguistics indeed provides some explanation for the multiplicity of ways in which the field has been conceptualized and defined. The argument appears to be that one might expect a younger discipline not yet to have a settled or generally accepted definition. Still, right from the outset, the divergence that one notes in definitions of the field is clearly related to the paradigm differences we have noted and discussed so far. The initial, founding ideas, that date back at least to 1925, consider it to be firmly located in linguistics. When applied © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2017 A. Weideman, Responsible Design in Applied Linguistics: Theory and Practice, Educational Linguistics 28, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-41731-8_10
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A Returning Question: Defining the Field of Applied Linguistics
linguistics is viewed as part of linguistics, that places upon linguistics the responsibility of providing a scientific basis for work done in the public interest in order to address societal issues and problems (Tarone 2015: 445). As we have seen in Chap. 8, the definition of linguistics itself was subsequently broadened to include sociolinguistic perspectives, giving the social emphasis of applied work further validation. The emphasis in second generation applied linguistics was on language being used for interactional purposes. Its purpose, as a different
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