4. Give three examples of ‘socially institutionalised linguistic exchange’ in which
you have participated during the past week.
EXERCISE 2B (ON CHAPTER 2)
R. B. Kaplan, ‘On the scope of linguistics, applied and non-’, in R. B. Kaplan (ed.),
On the Scope of Applied Linguistics
, Rowley, MA: Newbury House, 1980, pp. 63–6.
The following text is taken from a 1980 collection of articles by different authors
who present their views on the scope of applied linguistics. Robert Kaplan, who edits
the collection, makes clear in this article his commitment to a mature and confident
applied linguistics which is no longer subservient to linguistics. He considers that
applied linguists have identified themselves too closely with language teaching and
that it is now time for them to turn to the many areas of human activity that need
their attention. To do this,
Kaplan argues, they must develop a theory of applied
linguistics.
I would contend that there is virtually no human activity in which the applied
linguist cannot play a role. The analysis of literature, in which cultural traditions
are stored over time, may be an appropriate area for the applied linguist to apply
certain aspects of linguistics, leaving arguments over aesthetics to more traditional
literary scholars. Indeed, the uses of language for the storage and retrieval of all
sorts
of information, including cultural and aesthetic information, whether the
storage occurs in oral forms, traditional books, or computerized systems, is a
proper sphere for the activities of applied linguists.
What I have been trying to argue is that applied linguists are the most
humanistic among the breed of linguists who are most directly concerned with the
solution of human problems stemming from various uses of language. Linguists,
on the other hand, are specialists who solve language
problems related to some of
the sub-systems of the body of language. Because their study is scientific, they are
limited to those sub-systems which can be made static and which can be isolated
from the complex range of variables that affect human behavior. What they find
is of the greatest use to applied linguists; and the problems that applied linguists
discover in their attempts to deal with human problems ought to be the central
concern of theoretical linguists. That has not, unfortunately, been the case; on the
contrary, applied linguists have convulsed themselves
trying to apply to some -
thing every new notion of the theoretical linguist, whether that notion has been
demonstrated valid or useful, or not …
This paper is not a clarion call to the service of humanity. I do not mean to
suggest that the world will go to hell in a handbasket if applied linguists do not
get cracking. I do mean to suggest that the peculiar circumstances of the time …
the enormous impetus in the developing world for equality of opportunity and
improvement in the general standard of living through the instant attainment
of modernity and technology, and the peculiar place of the languages of wider
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communication
in these global circumstances, have created a situation in which
the services of the applied linguist are perhaps more necessary than they have
been in the past. Those services are not yet more welcome, but I think the need
will soon create the welcome. If applied linguists have become identified with
language teaching, it is an identification they must work to overcome; if applied
linguists are not seen as contributing members of society, it
may be the result
of their own lethargy and their acceptance of the identification with language
teaching. If there is a polarity between applied and theoretical linguistics, it may
result from a myopia on both sides. Thus, if applied linguists choose to assert
the independence of their discipline, the time seems to be appropriate, but the
assertion of that independence depends upon the willingness to do applied
linguistics rather than merely to apply linguistics. The speculations raised in this
paper as examples of possible spheres of activity for
applied linguistics may be
lunatic speculations; if they are, someone ought to demonstrate their lunacy. Even
if they are, surely there are areas of activity both less lunatic and less abstract that
applied linguists can busy themselves with. It seems to me unnecessary to expend
more time in defining the scope of applied linguistics; rather, it seems to me time
to develop a theory of applied linguistics which will permit the development
of algorithms which in turn will permit applied linguists to deal systematically
(rather than willy-nilly) with the kinds of human
problems that obviously do
concern them, a theory which will make it unnecessary to perpetuate the kind
of intentional fallacy … which attempts to place applied linguistics at the center
of the known universe. That is a clarion call.
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