News Number 93 Winter 2009 British Association for Applied Linguistics Registered charity no. 264800 Promoting understanding of language in use. http://www.baal.org.uk THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION FOR APPLIED LINGUISTICS Membership Individual Membership is open to anyone qualified or active in applied linguistics. Applied linguists who are not normally resident in Great Britain or Northern Ireland are welcome to join, although they will normally be expected to join their local AILA affiliate in addition to BAAL. Associate Membership is available to publishing houses and to other appropriate bodies at the discretion of the Executive Committee. Institution membership entitles up to three people to be full members of BAAL. Chair (2006-2009) Susan Hunston Department of English University of Birmingham Birmingham B15 2TT email: [email protected] Membership Secretary (2007-2010) Lynn Erler Department of Education University of Oxford 15 Norham Gardens Oxford OX2 6PY [email protected] Membership administration Jeanie Taylor, Administrator c/o Dovetail Management Consultancy PO Box 6688 London SE15 3WB email: [email protected] Editorial Dear all, Welcome to the Autumn/Winter 2009 issue of BAALNews. As always, the Autumn/Winter issue of the BAAL Newsletter is a feature-packed one; so much so, in fact that I will not even try to summarise everything contained within these pages. Instead, I would simply like to draw your attention to the fact that this issue contains the inaugural report of incoming BAAL chair Guy Cook. Guy begins by rightly praising his predecessor, Susan Hunston, for the energy and commitment that she brought to her role, and for her many and various achievements as chair for the period 2006 – 2009. He then goes on to outline some key issues and challenges that still face applied linguistics as a field of study, and BAAL as an organisation that aims to promote this field. The agenda that Guy’s article sets out should be seen as an exhilirating rather than a forbidding one, however, and I hope you will agree with me that reading his report leaves one with the feeling that there has probably never been a more exciting time to be an applied linguist than the present. Nicholas Groom Newsletter Editor 1 BAAL Executive Committee BAAL Executive Committee 2009-2010 Steve Walsh (Publications Secretary 2009-2012) Guy Cook (Chair 2009-2012) Steve Williams (Postgraduate Lynn Erler (Membership Secretary Development and Liaison Officer 2007-2010) (2009-2011) David Evans (Ordinary Member 2009- 2011) Tess Fitzpatrick (Ordinary Member 2009-2011) John Gray (Ordinary Member 2009- 2011) Nicholas Groom (Newsletter Editor 2007-2010) Tilly Harrison (SIG Officer 2009-2012) Valerie Hobbs (Web Editor 2007-2010) Jim Milton (Treasurer 2009-2012) Hilary Nesi (Ordinary Member 2009- 2011) Richard Pemberton (Ordinary Member 2008-2010) Erik Schleef (Meetings Secretary 2007- 2010) Paul Thompson (Secretary 2007-2010) Catherine Walter (Co-opted Member 2009-2010 - CLIE Representative) 2 Chair’s Report I took over from Susan Hunston as Chair growth of comparatively new areas (e.g. of BAAL at the annual general meeting in medical communication, forensic Newcastle this September. My term will linguistics) new links with established run until 2012. Susan has been an areas (e.g. translation studies, clinical outstanding chair. BAAL has immensely linguistics), and continuing development benefited from her dedicated and expert in more traditional core areas (SLA, leadership, and we all owe her a great language teaching). Such variety deal. She is also a hard act to follow! however carries with it a danger of factionalism and fragmentation. BAAL There have been changes on the should be seen as the natural home for all Executive Committee too. We have lost branches of the discipline, and should Richard Badger as treasurer, John Field as seek to attract a wider representation of SIG officer, Dawn Knight as postgraduate areas than it does at present. officer, Veronika Koller as publications secretary, and ordinary members Lynne 3. Within British universities, applied Cameron, Alice Deignan, and Sheena linguistics is a popular, expanding and Gardner. All have exceeded the call of dynamic area. Yet its success and duty and deserve the thanks of the importance receives inadequate association for their energy, work and recognition. It is often treated as a lodger commitment. within faculties and departments of education, English, linguistics, modern Good leadership has not been able to languages or TESOL. BAAL should solve all problems though. There are campaign for greater institutional perennial issues for BAAL which will be recognition and status for applied increasingly important in the coming linguistics. three years and beyond. These are the main concerns I have for the future. 4. In national academic bodies, applied linguistics has a similarly low profile. In 1. As an applied discipline concerned addition to maintaining our presence “with real world issues in which language where we are already represented, we will is central”, the worth of our field should need to be active in the Academy of be measured in large part by its impact on Social Sciences, and the new University the world outside academia. Yet applied Council for General and Applied linguistics has a poor record in Linguistics. Most importantly of all we influencing public policy and perception. need to campaign urgently and We should seek to increase the profile of energetically for greater representation in BAAL in public, media, political and the coming REF (see below). commercial discussions of language- related issues. From these general points, I move on to more specific one. 2. Applied linguistics is an expanding discipline. Recent years have seen the 3 Response to the REF consultation. In September we responded through the One of Susan Hunston’s legacies to AcSS to a request by the Commons BAAL is the expert panels she established Science and Technology Committee on to respond quickly and effectively to the government’s use of evidence. We consultations and requests. I have been were asked to give an example of how working with one of these panels, and policy could be informed by applied with the Executive Committee, and with linguistic research. Our submission is the BAAL membership, on the BAAL given in full below (Appendix A). response to the REF consultation. By the time this newsletter is published, this will In October we responded to an AcSS call have been submitted to HEFCE by their for an example of social science research deadline of December 16th 2009. which has had a beneficial effect on society to be included in their briefing A key issue for BAAL is the panel documents. (Many thanks to members configuration proposed in the consultation who sent in suggestions in response to my document request on BAALmail.) We submitted http://www.hefce.ac.uk/pubs/hefce/2009/ both a general statement and one specific 09_38/. As in the RAE, applied example (Appendix B). linguistics submissions are likely to be spread across several units of assessment. There are currently seven members of HEFCE seems determined to have bigger BAAL who are academicians of the units, so there is virtually no chance of AcSS. We are making a number of applied linguistics having one of its own, nominations for new ones. nor is this necessarily desirable. We do however need to make a strong case for greater applied linguistics representation Guy Cook in all the relevant units. To do this we 30 October 2009 need hard evidence of the extent and high quality of applied linguistics submissions to the last RAE, and I am currently collecting this to make a case. Academy of Social Sciences (AcSS). Founded ten years ago, this is now an active and powerful voice for 36 learned societies, speaking on our behalf to government, media, universities, and the public. Deadlines for response are typically very tight, and again the advice of expert panels is crucial. Responses we have made since I became Chair include the following: 4 Appendix A: BAAL submission to process and the categories have serious Commons Committee on Science and weaknesses. Research has shown self- Technology. (via AcSS) 28 September identification to lead to inaccuracies. 2009. ‘First language’ is not necessarily the same as a child’s main language, home Languages Spoken in the UK and the language, best language, or the language Teaching of English as an Additional with which they identify. Applied Language linguistic research could provide evidence which would enable the government to In an era of globalisation and mass refine its categories and to elicit migration, informed language policy and information more effectively. planning becomes ever more important for democratic, prosperous, and tolerant For the adult population there is no societies. Yet academic research on equivalent mechanism to the PLASC. language is consistently undervalued in Past censuses have missed the opportunity policy. to include a question about languages. It seems likely that any question included in There is for example no reliable data on future censuses will suffer from the same the numbers of speakers of different limitations as the PLASC. Informed languages within the UK, nor evidence- evidence-based advice on how to count based policy on assessing or improving speakers of different languages and to proficiency in English, although both are analyse the results of any study or census crucial to effective educational and social is urgently needed. policies promoting inter-ethnic relations and economic efficiency. This is the case A similarly inefficient use of evidence is for both school pupils and the adult apparent in government policy for the population. teaching and learning of English as an additional language (EAL), both in In schools, the established practice for schools and for adults. Current policy in collecting ethnic and language data falls schools does not separate assessment of short of being ‘evidence-based policy’.