3301 eup linguistics 24/5/07 13:19 Page 1 EDINBURGH TEXTBOOKS IN APPLIED LINGUISTICS An Introduction to Applied Linguistics SERIES EDITORS: ALAN DAVIES & KEITH MITCHELL This new textbook series provides advanced introductions to the main areas of study in contemporary Applied Linguistics, with a principal focus on the theory and practice of language teaching and language learning and on the processes and problems of language in use. An Introduction to Applied Linguistics An Introduction to From Practice to Theory Second Edition Applied Linguistics ALAN DAVIES Second Edition This Second Edition of the foundational textbook An Introduction to Applied Linguistics provides a state-of-the-art account of contemporary applied linguistics. The kinds of language problems of interest to applied linguists are discussed and a distinction drawn between the different research approach taken by theoretical linguists and by applied linguists to what seem to be the same problems. Professor Davies describes a variety of projects which illustrate the interests of the field and highlight the marriage it offers between practical experience and theoretical understanding. The increasing emphasis of applied linguistics on ethicality is linked to the growth of professionalism and to the concern for accountability, manifested in the widening emphasis on critical stances. This, Davies argues, is at its most acute in the tension From Practice to Theory between giving advice as the outcome of research and taking political action in order to change a situation which, it is claimed, needs ameliorisation. This dilemma is not confined to applied linguistics and may now be endemic in the applied disciplines. Key features • surveys current issues in applied linguistics, including the concept of the Native Speaker and the development of World Englishes • examines the influence of linguistics, cognitive science and philosophy on applied linguistics and ALAN DAVIES makes a contrast with educational linguistics •proposes that a key issue for the profession will increasingly be the tension between advice and action • suggests that applied linguistics is a theorising rather than a theoretical discipline. Alan Davies is a long-term member of staff of the Department of Applied Linguistics in the ALAN DAVIES University of Edinburgh. His publications include Principles of Language Testing, The Native Speaker: Myth and Reality, Dictionary of Language Testing, The Handbook of Applied Linguistics and A Glossary of Applied Linguistics. Cover design: River Design, Edinburgh Edinburgh University Press 22 George Square, Edinburgh Edinburgh ISBN 978 0 7486 3355 5 www.eup.ed.ac.uk EDINBURGH TEXTBOOKS IN APPLIED LINGUISTICS SERIES EDITORS: ALAN DAVIES & KEITH MITCHELL 01 pages i-xiv:APPLIED LINGUISTICS 31/5/07 09:30 Page i From reviews of the first edition ‘Alan Davies’ introductory text forcefully re-echoes the famous Edinburgh series in applied linguistics, which he contributed to in a major way.’ Applied Linguistics ‘Every discipline coming of age needs to reflect on its origins, its history, its conflicts, in order to gain a better understanding of its identity and its long term objectives. Alan Davies, one of the founding fathers of applied linguistics, is the ideal person for this soul-searching exercise … Introduction to Applied Linguistics is obligatory reading for students and researchers in applied linguistics, for language professionals and for anyone interested in the link between linguistics and applied linguistics.’ Modern Language Review 01 pages i-xiv:APPLIED LINGUISTICS 31/5/07 09:30 Page ii ‘’Tis of great use to the sailor to know the length of his line, though he cannot with it fathom all the depths of the ocean. ’Tis well he knows that it is long enough to reach the bottom, at such places as are necessary to direct his voyage, and caution him against running upon shoals that may ruin him. Our business here is not to know all things, but those which concern our conduct. If we can find out those measures whereby a rational creature, put in that state which man is in the world, may and ought to govern his opinions and actions depending thereon, we need not be troubled that some other things escape our knowledge.’ (John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, 1695) 01 pages i-xiv:APPLIED LINGUISTICS 31/5/07 09:30 Page iii Edinburgh Textbooks in Applied Linguistics Series Editors: Alan Davies and Keith Mitchell An Introduction to Applied Linguistics From Practice to Theory Second Edition Alan Davies Edinburgh University Press 01 pages i-xiv:APPLIED LINGUISTICS 31/5/07 09:30 Page iv Grateful acknowledgement is made for permission to reproduce material previously published elsewhere. Every effort has been made to trace the copyright holders, but if any have been inadvertently overlooked, the publisher will be pleased to make the necessary arrangements at the first opportunity. © Alan Davies, 1999, 2007 Edinburgh University Press Ltd 22 George Square, Edinburgh First edition published 1999 by Edinburgh University Press Typeset in Garamond by Norman Tilley Graphics, Northampton, and printed and bound in Great Britain by Cromwell Press, Trowbridge, Wilts A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978 0 7486 3354 8 (hardback) ISBN 978 0 7486 3355 5 (paperback) The right of Alan Davies to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. 01 pages i-xiv:APPLIED LINGUISTICS 31/5/07 09:30 Page v Contents Series Editors’ Preface vii Preface ix Acknowledgements x Abbreviations xii 1 History and ‘definitions’ 1 2 Doing being applied linguists: the importance of experience 13 3 Language and language practices 41 4 Applied linguistics and language learning/teaching 63 5 Applied linguistics and language use 92 6 The professionalising of applied linguists 115 7 Applied linguistics: no ‘bookish theoric’ 133 8 The applied linguistics challenge 149 Glossary 160 Exercises 169 References 180 Index 194 01 pages i-xiv:APPLIED LINGUISTICS 31/5/07 09:30 Page vi 01 pages i-xiv:APPLIED LINGUISTICS 31/5/07 09:30 Page vii Series Editors’ Preface This series of single-author volumes published by Edinburgh University Press takes a contemporary view of applied linguistics. The intention is to make provision for the wide range of interests in contemporary applied linguistics which are pro vided for at the Master’s level. The expansion of Master’s postgraduate courses in recent years has had two effects: 1. What began almost half a century ago as a wholly cross-disciplinary subject has found a measure of coherence so that now most training courses in Applied Linguistics have similar core content. 2. At the same time the range of specialisms has grown, as in any developing discipline. Training courses (and professional needs) vary in the extent to which these specialisms are included and taught. Some volumes in the series will address the first development noted above, while the others will explore the second. It is hoped that the series as a whole will provide students beginning postgraduate courses in Applied Linguistics, as well as language teachers and other professionals wishing to become acquainted with the subject, with a sufficient introduction for them to develop their own thinking in applied linguistics and to build further into specialist areas of their own choosing. The view taken of applied linguistics in the Edinburgh Textbooks in Applied Linguistics Series is that of a theorising approach to practical experience in the language professions, notably, but not exclusively, those concerned with language learning and teaching. It is concerned with the problems, the processes, the mech - anisms and the purposes of language in use. Like any other applied discipline, applied linguistics draws on theories from related disciplines with which it explores the professional experience of its practitioners and which in turn are themselves illuminated by that experience. This two-way relationship between theory and practice is what we mean by a theorising discipline. The volumes in the series are all premised on this view of Applied Linguistics as a theorising discipline which is developing its own coherence. At the same time, in order to present as complete a contemporary view of applied linguistics as possible other approaches will occasionally be expressed. 01 pages i-xiv:APPLIED LINGUISTICS 31/5/07 09:30 Page viii viii Series Editors’ Preface Some twelve years from its first planning meeting, the Edinburgh Textbooks in Applied Linguistics (ETAL) Series reaches double figures with the publication of this volume by Alan Davies: An Introduction to Applied Linguistics: from practice to theory. It is hoped that the range of topics dealt with in these ten volumes (all listed on the inside cover) offers a helpful idea of the variety of contemporary applied linguistics concerns both in teaching and in research. The fact that Davies’s volume is a second edition of the book that introduced the series in 1999 does not deny our claim for range and variety. Davies’s volume has been brought up to date eight years on and contains two wholly new chapters (1 and 8). Furthermore, the need for a second edition attests to the continuing interest in the scholarly pursuit of applied linguistics and in the ETAL Series. Alan Davies W. Keith Mitchell 01 pages i-xiv:APPLIED LINGUISTICS 31/5/07 09:30 Page ix Preface A generous review of the First Edition (Davies: 1999) of this book suggested that I had taken on ‘an impossible task, that of simultaneously addressing both the concerns of disciplinary theorists and those of students. It would have been best to limit the audience to those “interested in reviewing arguments about the relationship between linguistics and applied linguistics. [That being so, the review continues] It is those with considerable professional and professionalizing experience … who can best appreciate and critically evaluate this very theory-driven exposition.”’ I am persuaded by this argument and accept that the audience I had – and now have – in mind is my professional colleagues and graduate students.