An Introduction to Applied Linguistics

the business aspect
More relevant perhaps in a private language school which
tailors its courses to the fluctuations in student demand and market share.
9. 
the planning/policy aspect
Within the context of a national language policy,
it was necessary to consider the school’s overall curriculum in order to
determine whether there was indeed a plan which incorporated work in the
primary and secondary departments or whether the various components at the
two levels had evolved unplanned. It seemed likely that the teachers who raised
the problem in the first instance were convinced that there was no single plan
which encompassed both primary and secondary departments; the question
that needed addressing therefore was whether this was the case and to consider
whether it was necessary to bring to bear techniques derived from the planning
literature.
10. 
the linguistic
Relevant here were the materials used to teach French in the
primary and secondary departments as well as in the two streams, Beginners
and Continuers in the first two years of the secondary department. It turned
out that both streams used the same textbooks. Relevant also were the models
of French, in particular whether native-speaking teachers (and which kinds of
native speaker) were used at the two levels and in the two streams. It was also
important to examine the judgements made of the children’s spoken French by
Applied linguistics and language learning/teaching 73
02 pages 001-202:Layout 1 31/5/07 09:31 Page 73

---

their teachers, and whether similar judgements were being made at the primary
and secondary levels.
5.5 Doing applied linguistics: the process
Taking into consideration so many factors, such wide-ranging eclecticism by the
applied linguist is open to criticism on (1) the grounds of superficiality (trying to
look at everything and as a result observing nothing very much), (2) the lack of a
strong theoretical base, and (3) what may be the excessive demands on professional
training. The criticism of its lack of a strong theoretical base was discussed in
Chapter 3 and the issue of the demands on professional training will be considered
in Chapter 6. These are all related matters but it is important to say something here
about the criticism of superficiality.
What the superficiality criticism means is that if the attempt is made to take
account of so much information, appealing to the various factors mentioned above,
then the result must be the collection of too much data for sifting to take place and
for the necessary priority ranking of the various pieces of information to enable a way
forward to be planned.
But this is to ignore the way in which applied linguistics activities actually
proceed. Yes, an analysis is made which takes account of the various factors we have
mentioned; but then the first elimination takes place because not all factors will
be thought to be relevant: as we saw with our example earlier in this chapter on the
optimum age for starting French in a private girls’ school in Australia, where the
religious factor was discounted. Those factors which are seen to be of direct relevance
are then investigated and data collected for analysis. 
As in any applied profession (e.g. general medicine) the data are not necessarily
collected or analysed by the same person: applied linguistics has its own specialisms
which provide for professional expertise where necessary. Thus there are within
applied linguistics those who specialise in pedagogic grammar, curriculum planning,
applied sociolinguistics, programme evaluation, language testing, language-teacher
training, second-language acquisition research, applied stylistics, language planning
for education, computer-assisted language learning, language-teaching method-
logy, language in the workplace, languages for specific purposes, bilingualism, cross-
cultural communication, clinical applied linguistics, forensic language studies,
and so on. In addition there are textbook writers, lexicographers, interpreting and
translating specialists, as well as theoretical and descriptive linguists, whose advice
and expertise may be called on.