have established themselves with a growing tendency to break away from the
linguistic programs they were traditionally part of. As some of the infor-
mants mentioned:“Is it really useful for an AL student to take courses on
historical phonology?” At the same time, several informants, including
Antonella Sorace, Kathleen Bardovi-Harlig and Martin Bygate, deplore the
decline of the linguistics content in degrees in AL or SLS. Thefight over
what should be in an AL program continues at many universities. In a way,
programs leading to a degree in SLA/SLS have an easier time positioning
themselves vis-à-vis traditional linguistic programs, since they are not con-
fronted with the all too familiar argument that for an applied linguist,
someone who applies linguistics, afirm basis in theoretical linguistics is
mandatory. This is one of the issues that relate to the sociology of a discipline:
due to an array of reasons, there is reportedly an increase in students inter-
ested in AL and a declining number of students opting for theoretical lin-
guistics. Student numbers are relevant for jobs and positions, both existing
and new ones. Fortunately, student numbers, in particular majors, are not
always and everywhere the only criterion for the sustainability of language
programs. Heidi Byrnes points out that at Georgetown the number of stu-
dents that come from other disciplines who take a language course and stay
on to take more courses is seen as a more important criterion, since it shows
that languages are relevant also beyond the humanities.
2.8 Affiliation with AL
This question generated a list of personal stories of how the informants got
involved in AL. When asked how he got involved in AL, Guy Cook replied:
By accident. In 1983, I returned from 3 years teaching English in
Moscow. I had no job, no house, no money, and a young Soviet bride.
Taking pity on me, Terry Sandell at the British Council in Moscow
offered me a full British Council grant to study an MA. I was offered
places at Edinburgh and London. I chose London. I was so enthralled
and inspired by the teaching of Henry Widdowson and Chris Brumfit,
that I became an AL.Ben Rampton’s story was somewhat different:I started out as a state school ESOL teacher, working in a language
center for children who had recently arrived in the UK. One year, chil-
dren stopped arriving, so the Head of the centre went round local
schools picking out children who were having difficulties with reading
and had brown faces. This generated a class that I then had to teach with
ESOL methodologies–it was completely inappropriate as all these kids
werefluent speakers of English and just needed some help with literacy.
I realized that there were problems with the educational and linguisticThe informants 17