An Introduction to Applied Linguistics

6 CONCLUSION
In this chapter I have queried how far current developments in the humanities
and the social sciences have affected applied linguistics, with particular reference
to the various ‘critical’ stances. I suggested that what Critical Discourse Analysis
(and Critical Applied Linguistics) represent is an offshoot of postmodernism,
masquerading as modernity. Such approaches, I concluded, are marginal to the
applied linguistics enterprise.
In Chapter 8, I consider where we are now with that central applied linguistic
token, the native speaker, offer a brief critique of socio-cultural theory and of the
current state of applied linguistics thinking and research. The chapter ends with an
overview of the whole volume.
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Chapter 8
The applied linguistics challenge
‘die Philosophen haben die Welt nur verschieden interpretiert; es kommt aber
darauf an, sie zu verandern.’
(‘Philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways, but now it is a
matter of changing it.’)
(Karl Marx, 
Theses on Feuerbach
, 1888)
1 THE NATIVE SPEAKER AND THE STANDARD L ANGUAGE
In this chapter, I consider current issues in applied linguistics, suggest connections
between them and look ahead to future developments. My survey will range widely
but I begin with the central – and contentious – issue of the native speaker (Davies
2003a). Preston remarks that ‘nativeness is almost the entire question of SLA’
(Preston 1989: 78). Central to second language acquisition (SLA), central too to
applied linguistics. But definitions of the native speaker are difficult to agree on.
Being and doing definitions appear to be incommensurate. Being definitions
(psycholinguistic, cognitive, ascribed) insist on first language (L1) childhood
acquisition. Doing definitions (sociolinguistic, behavioural, attained) argue that
‘being’ definitions are uncertain and that language identities are not fixed. The
cognitive ‘being’ approach must emphasise the individual, but individual variation is
such that for representative purposes an idealised social model is needed. Cognitive
research investigates ‘the native speaker’, paying no attention to variation among
native speakers. What that means is that the cognitive view is still that of the
Chomskian idealised native speaker. Sociolinguistics, on the other hand, places
variation at the heart of its investigations, but when it needs to describe ‘the native
speaker’ (rather than native speakers), it too must idealise. Paradoxically, therefore,
the cognitive and the social meet in an idealisation which operationalises itself as the
standard language. It is, after all the standard language, uncertain and fugitive
though it may be, that is the model for language learners: the native speaker as social
fact is the standard language.