An Introduction to Applied Linguistics

3 L ANGUAGE LEARNING
The journal 
Language Learning: A Journal of Applied Linguistics
, published from the
University of Michigan, is an important chronicle of the development of applied
linguistics over the past sixty years (Catford 1998). In a 1993 editorial the journal
gave late recognition to the range of coverage beyond linguistics which applied
linguistics embraced. Such recognition is significant. Coming out of the tradition of
Charles Fries and Robert Lado at the University of Michigan, 
Language Learning
,
founded in 1948, was ‘the first journal in the world to carry the term “applied
linguistics” in its title’ (
Language Learning
1967:1). But by ‘applied linguistics’ what
was meant was the application of linguistics.
In the 1990s, the journal seems to have finally accepted a more catholic view.
The 1993 editors remark on ‘the wide range of foundation theories and research
methodologies now used to study language issues’ (Cumming 1993) and they state
that they intend to:
Encourage the submission of more manuscripts from (a) diverse disciplines,
including applications of methods and theories from linguistics, psycho -
linguistics, cognitive science, ethnography, ethnomethodology, sociolinguistics,
sociology, semiotics, educational inquiry and cultural or historical studies, to
address (b) fundamental issues in language learning, such as multilingualism,
language acquisition, second and foreign language education, literacy, culture,
cognition, pragmatics and intergroup relations.
However, the official recognition of ‘the wide range of foundation theories and
research methodologies now used to study language issues’ comes at a price. That
price is the abandoning of the term ‘applied linguistics’ as a sub-heading in the
journal’s title. The explanation for this removal is that its replacement title, 
Language
Learning: A Journal of Research in Language Studies
, is now seen to be wider. What
the editor appears to have meant by this change of title is to declare his interpretation
of what applied linguistics is, knowing full well that the readers of the journal will
understand ‘a journal of research in language studies’ as a functional interpretation
of ‘applied linguistics’.
Getting rid of the label ‘applied linguistics’ has been widely canvassed, on the
grounds that it was the wrong term in the first place, introduced only to give
academic respectability to degrees, courses and departments. Such was the view
taken in the 1960s by the authors of the key text (Halliday, McIntosh and Strevens
1964). They recognised the oddity of the label ‘applied linguistics’ but seemed
prepared to live with it. The label was, they opined, misleading. It was misleading
because (at the time of writing) it excluded many activities of linguistics (for
example, machine translation, sociolinguistics) as well as activities which had a
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An Introduction to Applied Linguistics
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bearing on language teaching (for example psychology, educational theory). They
wrote: ‘the aim of courses in applied linguistics, such as are now available, for
example at Edinburgh, Leeds and London, is not to produce specialists in linguistics
and phonetics … but to give a solid grounding in those aspects of these and other
subjects which lie behind the language class’ (ibid: 169).
In consequence, the label ‘applied linguistics’ was not used in the title of their
book: 
The Linguistics Sciences and Language Teaching
. Shades of the 
Language
Learning
unease about the term?