This Volume
In preparing this volume, we were struck by the tension between our descriptive responsibility – setting out the range of current interpretations of applied linguistics – and what we may ourselves regard as our normative concern, to attempt to define applied linguistics as being a coherent and limiting enterprise. That is how we see applied linguistics. When we planned this volume, we had in mind the distinction A-L/L-A, where A-L looks outward, beyond language in an attempt to explain, perhaps even ameliorate social problems, while L-A looks inward, concerned not to solve language problems “in the real world” but to explicate and test theories about language it self. Therefore decided to make two divisions in this volume. The first is that of linguistics-applied; the second that of applied-linguistics.
We have argued in our general introduction that while the distinction between Linguistics Applied (L-A) and Applied Linguistics (A-L) is fugitive, it remains necessary and that it is at its most obvious in the orientation of the researchers, why they are investigating a problem and collecting their data. For Mike Stubbs, the advent of computerized corpora provides a kind of paradigm shift in linguistic description and in our understanding of language and its development over time. What corpus study does is to bring together as parameters (and therefore unfalsifiable) populations of language tokens across individuals. In other words, what linguistics has always done manually and partially. For our purposes, then, corpus study necessarily falls into the L-A area: “no linguist” Stubbs claims “can now ignore corpus data”. For Stubbs there are areas of application: he mentions language teaching, lexicography, translation studies, stylistics, forensic linguistics, cultural representation, and psycholinguistics. But his claims are modest. While he is unapologetic regarding the value of corpus study for linguistic descriptions (he calls himself an enthusiast here), he offers a conservative view of applications “arguing that applications are indirect, and that before findings can be applied to real-world problems, they require careful interpretation”. What we can be sure of is that corpus studies, like lexicography, like discourse analysis, are good for linguistics.
One of the ways in which linguistic theory can be applied to language problems is by differing ways of linguistic description: we saw that in Section 1, particularly with the Liddicoat and Curnow chapter which provides a methodology for description at a level more abstract than an individual language. Thus the writing of a grammar of English (or of Japanese) would be a way of describing language at a somewhat less abstract level. we examine approaches that uncover the connections between speakers and their language, thus Giles and Billings, Schmid and de Bot, studies, stylistics, forensic linguistics, cultural representation, and psycholinguistics. But his claims are modest. While he is unapologetic regarding the value of corpus study for linguistic descriptions (he calls himself an enthusiast here), He offers a conservative view of applications “arguing that applications are indirect, and that before findings can be applied to real-world problems, they require careful interpretation”.
Gendered language is therefore a (deliberate) choice made by speakers. In the same way that lawyers construct their legal identity through language, so do men and women construct their (gendered) identity through linguistic practices. Interestingly, Ehrlich makes a convincing case for bringing together the two main areas of language and gender research: the study of language use and the study of sexist language. Her argument is that the one is the product of the other, that sexism is an act (doing things with words) with outcomes affecting identity and judgments. This is a relativist neo-Whorfian view and fits well with the Kramsch discussion above on language, thought, and culture. Language and politics is aimed at understanding the role of linguistic communication in the functioning of social units, and how this role shapes language tself”. Language influences the political; equally the political influences language.
