some area(s) outside of linguistics as well to address language-related
issues.Alastair Pennycook sees a continued struggle with identity:“AL is still
asking itself what it is and how it relates to linguistics, though it has started
to come of age and see itself as a discipline in itself rather than continue to
struggle with the linguistics applied label.”
The problem is that there is no consensus in thefield on what kind of
linguistics might be applied. During the period covered here, Chomsky’s
Universal Grammar (UG) was overall the leading linguistic model, but
researchers using this paradigm were not primarily interested in applications.
As Lydia White mentions in her reaction to the question“to what extent
and if so, how has AL research led to an improvement of language education?”:
“Researchfindings do not necessarily have direct applications.”
In recent years, we have seen the growth of approaches to language that
can best be labeled as “usage based”. What these approaches have in
common is that no innate language capacity is assumed or seen as necessary,
since the input in language learning is rich enough and complexity can
emerge from the interaction of simple procedures. This type of linguistics is
much more amenable to views of language as a social construct. The focus
on the social also means that AL as aimed at language problems as experienced
in the real world, can more easily contribute to such problems.
The strict distinction between theoretical linguistics and AL favored by a
majority of the informants is not shared by everyone. In reaction to the
invitation to participate in the study, Antonella Sorace mentions:“I’dbe
happy to participate, though I regard myself as an eclectic bridge builder and
I’ve never liked labels like‘applied linguistics’and‘theoretical linguistics’.”
Over the years, not only the relation between linguistics and AL changed.
Also the foci in research changed. Suresh Canagarajah says:
In its conception AL was very cognitive, as you can see in the early litera-
ture such as Corder (1976). My own view changed, as did thefield. Now it
is connected to migration studies, ethnography, identity issues, from
teaching to more multi-disciplinarity. Earlier modernist controlled
experiments are now less important. Now it is more post modern, which
includes studying values and a role for researcher’s views.The change Canagarajah refers to is often referred to as“the social turn”,
a term originally coined by Block (2003), but for many informants linked to
the Firth and Wagner article of 2007 inThe Modern Language Journal. This is
seen as a watershed in AL over the last decades. The article seemed to have
said what so many applied linguists could not or did not dare to say
according to Heidi Byrnes. When asked why the Firth and Wagner article
had such an impact, Karin Johnson said that it was“possibly a liberation of
the psycholinguistic chains that reduced the human to an information
30 Defining AL