French), but that younger researchers increasingly protest against this practice
since that impedes their work from becoming known internationally.
Finally, the power of English when it comes to publishing is such that most
researchers will publish their best work in English-language media. So, as
Robert DeKeyser noticed, to a certain extent the publications written in
another language seldom represent an individual researcher’s best work.
This may lead to a gap between researchers and practitioners.
2.7 Educational background
Educational systems differ between countries, but in most systems there are
three steps in academic education: BA, MA and PhD. In the British system,
there are also diplomas, honors degrees and there is not necessarily an MA
when there is a PhD. I will report on where the informants’MA and PhD
degrees were awarded. The question behind the analysis of the educational
backgrounds is whether there are, or were, specific centers or programs that
produced significant numbers of applied linguists who have shaped thefield.
The 106 informants have been educated in 64 different institutions for
their MA. Four universities have been mentioned four times: Essex, London
(UCL and Institute of Education), Reading and the University of Southern
California. For the PhD, 63 different universities are mentioned. UCLA is
mentionedfive times, London and Georgetown four times and McGill three
times. As far as countries are concerned,five informants mention a German
institute, three a Dutch institute, two a Danish institute, two a Belgian insti-
tute and two a Spanish institute. One institute is mentioned for Australia,
China, Finland, France, Hungary, Italy, Poland, New Zealand, Poland and
Sweden.
There is an interesting switch toward North American universities from
MA to PhD: while for the MA, 25 informants mention a UK-based institution,
the number goes down to 14 for the PhD, which reflects the move to the
United States mentioned by many British informants. At the same time, the
Edinburgh program set up by Pit Corder is mentioned frequently also by
American informants who spent some time there, but apparently few informants
actually completed their degree there.
For the US situation, Thomas (2013) describes the institutional history of
PhD programs, addressing only those which specifically offer doctoral
degrees in“Second Language Acquisition”or“Second Language Studies”.
The point was to study the emergence of graduate programs that adopted those
names, as symbolic of the rising sense of independence in thefield. Thomas
focuses on nine existing programs in order of their foundation:
University of Hawaii at Manoa (1989)
University of Arizona (1991)
Carnegie Mellon University (1995)
University of South Florida (1999)
The informants 15