PRC, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Israel, the Netherlands, Austria, Australia,
New Zealand, South Africa and Spain. There are no informants from South/
Middle America and the southern and eastern part of Europe, apart from
Spain.
This does not mean that there is no relevant research being done in the
countries that have not been included, but during the period covered no
centers of gravity in these regions have played a major role, maybe with the
exception of Singapore. Looking at the presentations at the annual AAAL
conference and related conferences, there is an enormous volume of work
by researchers from countries like Japan, Korea and China, but most of that
work results from graduate training in western universities, since few of
them give a university outside the United States/Canada/Australia as their
affiliation. No doubt this will have an impact on thefield in the long run, but
it is not yet really visible in the period covered here. Writing a history of AL
in Asia would make a fascinating study, but it is not the one reported
on here.
Representativeness may therefore be a problem, but is it really? There is
no doubt a lot of relevant research being carried out all over the world. But
not all of that is accessible, which means published in English-language
media. As Andrew Cohen noticed, there is a very active AL community with
several journals in Brazil, but all of that is published in Portuguese, which
very few applied linguists in other countries will be able to read. I know that
there is excellent research on AL in Germany because I happen to be able to
read German, but the fact is that I do not read German articles and books
on a regular basis. Furthermore, as far as researchers from German-speaking
Table 2.1List of interviewees
Lyle Bachman Keiko Koda
Camilla Bardel Claire Kramsch
Heidi Byrnes Richard Lambert
Suresh Canagarajah James Lantolf
Chris Candlin Diane Larsen-Freeman
Andrew Cohen Tim McNamara
Vivian Cook Sinfree Makoni
Jodi Crandall Lourdes Ortega
Robert DeKeyser Norbert Schmitt
Rod Ellis John Schumann
Theo van Els Elana Shohamy
Suzanne Flynn Barbara Seidlhofer
Susan Gass David Singleton
William Grabe Merrill Swain
Karen Johnson Elaine Tarone
Alan Juffs Margaret Thomas
Gabrielle Kasper Richard Tucker
Eric Kellerman Andrea Tyler
Joan Kelly Hall Henry Widdowson
Celeste Kinginger Terrence Wiley
10 The informants