WHAT IS APPLIED LINGUISTICS?

WHAT IS APPLIED LINGUISTICS?

1. Applied Linguistics definitions

   • Some linguists state that AL has to do with anything related to language teaching or learning. Others consider that AL consists of applying theoretical linguistic to actual information. The others treat applied linguistics as a synonym of SLA.

2. Components

   • Linguistics
     • With the deep study of languages in a hollistic way.
   • Education
     • To study how testing and learning are working in language education and which are the required reforms to the syllabi, and the functional approaches.
   • Language acquisition
     • Most theory is based on SLA, more than First Language Acquisition
   • Psychology
     • The study of learner's cognition and behavior appears in many courses.
   • Computational linguistics
     • With new programs an apps that help to understand how language works - and correct it -.
       • My Reflection
         • As future teachers, it is really important to know what are the questions about the world of education and what are the main aspects to consider when teaching a foreing language. Talking about Applied Linguistics is a way to recognizing all the different roads to explore language itself, language understood beneath all the conditions society demands, such as political decisions, cultural interpretations, testing human beings, fairness, justice, discourse, power relations, technology and humans behavior. Undoubtedly, to know how to teach, it is mandatory to start by questioning how the world works, recognizing classrooms as complex representations of World.
   • Teaching
     • How can we teach languages in a better way? Who is the teacher? Who is the learner?

3. Critical Applied Linguistics

   • “Is a way of exploring language in social context that goes beyond mere correlations between language and society, and instead raises more critical questions to do with access, power, disparity, desire, differences and resistant" (Pennycook, A.)
     • Concerned by
       • Critical discourse analysis:
         • Assuming language practice and linguistic practice as one body, Cricital linguists focus on investigating how power relations are established and reinforced through language use in a given society.
       • Critical Literacy
         • It is "characterized by a commitment to reshape literacy education in the interest of marginalized groups of learners, who on the basis of gender, cultural and socioeconomic background have been excluded from access to the discourses and texts of dominant economies and cultures” (Luke, 1997)
       • Translation
         • This focuses on the politics of translation, the way in which translating and interpreting are related to class, gender, difference, ideology, history, and social context.
       • Critical Pedagogy
         • This transformative pedagogy questions how the different approaches - and the particular Critical Approach - can be a hope and an actual proposal to change the exclusive educational model.
       • Language planning
         • The goals differ depending on the nation or organization, but in general terms it includes making planning decisions and possible changes for the benefit of communication. Having an effective communication can lead to other social changes such as language shift or assimilation, thereby providing another motivation to plan the structure, function and acquisition of languages.
       • Language Testing
         • To give a substantial response to the challenges about the “fairness” and applicability of language assessment.
   • Special concepts:
     • Ideology: set of conscious and unconscious ideas which make up one's goals, expectations, and motivations. Some standards are followed by people, government, and/or other groups, considered the "norm".
     • Discourse: Secuences of information (written/spoken) and context which involves that data.
     • Difference: The existent diversity among all the members of a community, with special distinctions and needs.
     • Identity: The set of features and characteristics that define a person. Beliefs, culture, preferences and customs.
   • Critical work and theory::
     • Gender studies, queer theory, post-colonial studies and anti-racist pedagogy.

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