An Introduction to Applied Linguistics

9 CONCLUSION
In this chapter I first considered the arguments for confining applied linguistics to
a concern with second-language teaching and learning. Then I discussed two ‘prob -
lems’ in the language-teaching field: first, the optimum-age problem and, second, an
investigation into the validity of a large-scale English-language proficiency test, the
English Language Testing Service (ELTS) test. These two ‘problems’ were considered
from the point of view of a number of relevant factors, opening up a discussion on
what it is that needs to be taken into account when the applied linguist is faced with
a language problem. I then considered the methodology used by the applied linguist
in working with a problem, and to that end I took as examples four areas of
importance in language teaching: second-language acquisition, proficiency language
testing, the teaching of languages for specific purposes and curriculum design. The
chief role of applied linguistics in the field of language teaching and learning is, as
elsewhere, to ask the right questions about the enterprise under discussion in its own
context and at the same time to ensure that in spite of its particularities, the
enterprise is approached as an example of the general system of language teaching to
which it belongs. Finally, I suggested that the term educational linguistics is best seen
as a reduced version of applied linguistics.
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Chapter 5
Applied linguistics and language use
‘Language is only the instrument of science and words are but the signs of ideas.’
(Samuel Johnson, Preface to the 
Dictionary of the English Language
, 1755)
1 INTRODUCTION
This chapter is parallel to Chapter 4, where we examined the role of applied
linguistics in language teaching and learning. We move on in Chapter 5 to survey
areas outside institutional language learning: correctness, forensic linguistics, applied
stylistics, lexicography and artificial languages (or language treatment). The role of
applied linguistics is to recognise that these problems often cause deep passions and
may need to be viewed as issues in which language plays only a part. The examples
chosen for discussion are: language correctness because of public fear and outrage
at what is perceived to be a decline in standards; forensic linguistics in order to
determine the authenticity of oral and written texts for both defence and prosecution
purposes; applied stylistics on the grounds of the need to teach literature to foreign
learners; lexicography which determines what to include and what to exclude in
dictionaries for home and school; and language treatment (the creation of artificial
languages) because of the central interest there in communication across frontiers.
As in Chapter 4, we propose here that the chief role of applied linguistics is to ask
the right questions about the context in which a language problem is embedded and
then to generalise to other contexts where the same problem can be shown after
analysis to exist. In that way a systematic approach to language problems can be
made which will both explain and at the same time provide a set of options for
action.