processing system”. To Jim Lantolf the whole discussion generated by the Firth
and Wagner article was frustrating, because as he said:“we [people working in
a sociocultural approach] had made the turn already or, rather, it wasn’ta
change because the cognitive and the social are always connected in SCT.”
3.2 The autonomy of AL
One of the issues with defining AL is whether it can stand on its own, taking
from other disciplines as much as giving to them. Some informants feel that
AL is still taking more than it gives. Suresh Canagarajah disagrees:“AL is no
longer a stepchild of linguistics; AL doesn’t only borrow from otherfields.
We have tools and theories that are relevant for sociology.”But still, applied
linguists do borrow heavily from other disciplines; from education to neuro-
imaging and from ethnography to power analysis in statistics. This may not
be a weakness, even though it makes the position of AL as an independent
discipline weaker.
3.3 Unity, fragmentation or compartmentalization?
As will be discussed in Chapters 6 and 7 on major trends, many informants
refer to what some call fragmentation and others more positively as com-
partmentalization. Claire Kramsch even states:“What defines AL most, is its
openness to influences from outside.”According to Gabriele Kasper the
compartmentalization of AL is not a weakness, but a sign of maturity. Just
like other branches of science, AL will diversify. Worldwide, we see that
what used to be core science (e.g. psychology, biology) is now compartmen-
talized (social psychology, neuropsychology/socio-biology, marine biology).
“AL is a broad church. Thefield should be open to new sub-disciplines to
grow within the system and become more independent over time.”She sees
testing as a good example; it used to be one of the core components of AL,
but branched out and became more or less independent with its own con-
ferences, journals and books. It is not desirable tofight such developments.
At the same time, there should be a dialogue between the branches, since
they have many intersections. Gabriele Kasper sees her own interest in oral
testing and conversational analysis (CA) as an example. Another advantage
of this specialization, she mentions, is that it allows students to choose: stu-
dents interested in Socio-Cultural Theory (SCT) opt for the AL program at
Pennsylvania State University, while students interested in cognitive proces-
sing opt for the program at the University of Maryland.
Howard Nicholas says:
I do not think that applied linguistics is comfortably singular. The ideo-
logical and content differences are enormous and so it is at best a loose
coalition of overlapping interests, where even the reasons for the coalition
(applied linguistics vs. linguistics applied) are contested.Defining AL 31