application of linguistic knowledge. Most of the informants who provide a
definition of AL seem to agree with this. Susan Gass, a former AILA president,
argues against a definition of AL that is too open. Her definition is:“AL is
concerned with real life problems that can be solved with linguistic knowl-
edge.”William Grabe’s:“AL addresses real world problems as they relate
to discrimination, language learning problems, attrition, aging migrants,
assessment and instruction and contact. These are all fundamental sources of
problems.”
Says Anne Burns:
For me it has to do with using in-depth knowledge and theories of how
language works to understand and contribute to a wide range of cultural
and social contexts and behaviors. Also the diversification of paradig-
matic and methodological approaches, and the development of these
trends differently in different geographical locations.But not all agree. For Michael Sharwood Smith, AL is“a very disparate
field and I regard SLA, more familiar to me, as separate from applied lin-
guistics, that is, it represents afield with explanation rather than application
on its agenda”. Stephen Krashen sees that differently:
I don’t think the term applied linguistics is accurate. To me it means that
what we do is apply the results of grammatical theory, which we don’t.
Rather, I consider our work to be part of language acquisition. We are
“applied”in the sense that our work has practical implications, but we
are also concerned with theory at the same time. We are not involved
in aspects of application that do not intersect with theory.Anne Mauranen takes the following position:Applied linguistics means the study of language with its impact in mind:
linguistics with a focus on issues where language is relevant to the lives
of individuals and communities. In applied linguistics, many of the
developments originated in trends in linguistic research, but in actual
language education my impression is that the main trendsetter is educa-
tional, pedagogical thinking, and because applied linguistics originated in
language teaching and learning, the pedagogical strain has remained
strong.The question is whether these different views are a real problem for the
academic identity of AL. Reflecting on the need to define AL, Henry Wid-
dowson continues:“One might take the view, of course, that people who
call themselves applied linguists should stop agonizing about the nature of
their enquiry, and just get on with it”(2000: 4). I tend to embrace this view
and the one expressed by Eric Kellerman:“I think we can agree on what AL
Defining AL 27