An Introduction to Applied Linguistics

4.7 Rampton’s ‘open field’
Finally in this discussion of the critical and the postmodern, I turn to Rampton
(1997). Rampton points to the still-present fault line between the linguistics and the
applied linguistics views of applied linguistics and argues that the attempt to develop
an applied linguistics model (citing both Widdowson and Brumfit) has failed
because it simply has not accounted adequately for the work in second-language
acquisition research and English-language teaching that has been done under its
aegis. If applied linguistics is not to slip back into a comfortable accom modation
with the linguistics model (here he mentions Corder) then it needs to be re -
positioned. Citing the work of Hymes and Bernstein, Rampton argues for a model
so different that it would seem to abandon completely any coherence to which
applied linguistics might lay claim:
If in the past in applied linguistics there has been a tendency to attribute special
privileges to the generalist, casting him or her as either the central character, sage
or master of ceremonies, this now seems less relevant. Understood as an open field
of interest in language, in which those inhabiting or passing through simply show
a common commitment to the potential value of dialogue with people who
are different, there is no knowing where, between whom or on what the most
productive discussions will emerge.
(1997: 14)
It is hard not to see such a scenario as dismissive totally of the attempt since the
1950s to develop a coherent applied linguistics. The fact that the coherence is shaky
and that the definitions are uncertain does not mean that the attempt should be
abandoned. Rampton is in essence denying the value of a profession which seeks to
address institutional problems of language in use. They are, he seems to be saying,
open to all. Well indeed, of course they are; but the right of others to address them
does not mean that we have to give up on the coherence of applied linguistics.
Brumfit is more resolute. Writing in the Rampton-edited issue of 
The International
Journal of Applied Linguistics
, which we have already quoted from, he argues:
[A] discipline that is solely the place of meeting of people who could equally well
be psychologists, linguistics, cultural theorists – or indeed teachers, therapists or
translators – will fragment into separate groupings for each of these practical
activities and each of those disciplines, and will fail to address the complexity of
language. What holds applied linguistics together is the concern to theorise and
analyse social roles and institutions which address language problems, and thus
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An Introduction to Applied Linguistics
the problems which non-researchers, sometimes unwittingly, confront … A work-
ing definition of applied linguistics will then be: the theoretical and empirical
investigation of real-world problems in which language is a central issue.
(1997b: 91–3)
Rampton’s recipe for applied linguistics takes us to the extreme of post -
modernism, even if unintentionally, since what he proposes suggests that there is
no vocation of applied linguist, just individuals working in some loose sense of
collaboration. This would seem to fly in the face of all the efforts we have described
in Chapter 6 towards the professionalising of applied linguistics and also, as Brumfit
points out, to counter the normal condition of any science which is to exist in a
permanent state of tension with overlapping disciplines. It is not clear that Rampton
does himself take up a postmodern stance, but his advice to applied linguistics could
certainly be construed in that way, in the sense that it denies the existence of applied
linguists. All is practice: there is no theory except in the Lyotard sense of theories or,
as he maintained, no unique reason, just reasons.
If Rampton take us to the edge of postmodernism in his proposals, then what
Brumfit (1997b) does is to return us to a very Enlightenment view of applied
linguistics. This view insists that there is a coherence to applied linguistics – its
blurrings at the edges are no different from those of any other discipline. And while
properly dismissing the chaos to which Peim (1993) invites us, he also avoids the
attractive relativism to which Block (1996) beckons.