Applied Linguistics

Section I Survey.

The need for applied linguistics

Language is at the heart of human life, we can’t conceive many of our most important activities without using words.

But there are some important activities which language is not necessary, like eating, listening music, the visual arts.

Language use, then, is in many ways a natural phenomenon beyond conscious control. Yet there are also aspects of language use in which we can intervene and about which, consequently, there are decisions to be made, in making this decisions there are many questions and subsidiary questions to be asked each one admitting many different and opposed answers.

To answer some questions in applied linguistics it seems reasonable that we should set out and investigate and understand the facts of language use, to organize and formalize what we know.

Take for example language in education:

Should children speaking a dialect be encouraged to maintain it or steered towards the standard form of a language?

The Scope of applied linguistics:

Lenguage and educationThis area includes: First language education Aditional language education Foreign language education Clincal liguistics Language testing

Language work and lawThis area includes: World place communication Language planning Forensic linguistics

Language, information, and effectThis area includes: Literary stylistics Critical discourse analysis Translation and interpretation Information design Lexicography

CHAPTER 2

Theory Viewed by “the

expert”

Practice Viewed by

“Everyone’s lived experience”

Prescribing and describing; Popular and academic views of “correctness”

Children’s Language at home and at school;

As every parent knows every children speak idiosyncratically. A child growing up in an English-Speaking family, for exapmle might say “ I brang it” even though everyone around them says “I brought it” to mean the same thing.

Even when the child does say “ I brought it” they might still not pronounce the words as adults do. They might for example say, “I bwort it”. Parents -even the most anxious ones- are usually indulgent of such deviations

They are the stuff of anecdotes and affectionate memories rather than serious concern.

At school, however the situation is very different, here the child is expected, and taught, to use language “correctly”.

Not only are English-Speaking children expected to say the words “I brought it” clearly and properly pronounced, but also to write them correctly spelt and punctuated (“I brought it”)

The voices of school and home are not always the same and to make matters more complex still, a third voice the voice of the peer group, speaks ever louder and more persuasively children grow older, they put “RU” instead of “are you” in text messages, they give words different fashionable senses, invent new ones, and include slang

Example

A child who has recently moved to Britain from the USA and says as their parents do, “I’ve gotten it” instead of “I’ve got it”, and writes color, instead of colour, should the teacher eliminate this dialectal and national variations, thus seeming to correct the parents as well.

The voices of school and home are not always the same.

The most controversial aspect of this situation involves:

The relationship of the standard form of the language dialects.

The standard is generally used in written communication, thought in schools and codified in dictionaries and in grammar books.

Dialects are regional and social class varieties of the language which differ from the standard in pronunciation grammar and vocabulary.

The teaching of the standard can be viewed in two quite contradictory ways:

On the one hand it can be seen as conferring an unfair advantage upon those children who already speak a variety close to it, while simultaneously denying the worth of other dialects and damaging the heritage of those children to speak them.

On the other hand given that the standard exists, has prestige and power, and provides gateway to written knowladge.

Description vs prescription

Description (Saying what does happen) Prescription(Saying what ought

happen)

If there was never any deviation from the norm then languages would never change. We would all still be saying Wherefore art thou? Instead of saying Why are you?

An applied linguistics perspective:

To make any headway, applied linguistics has the very difficult task of trying to find points of contact in the contrary views so that necessary decisions can be made.

Perhaps the first step is to recognize that, as points of view they can be taken as different perceptions which need not to be seen as competing alternatives.

In my opinion about children’s language at home and at school, I think parents should correct them when they are not using “correct” use of language so they won’t have a hard time when they go to school.