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7th Mach 2016

Notes of Applied linguistics
APPLIED LINGUISTICS

1. THE NEED FOR APPLIED LINGUISTICS

Language is at the heart of human life. Without language many of our most important activities
are inconceivable. Language use is in many ways a natural phenomenon beyond conscious
control, because it does not seem that we need to know about language to use it effectively.

Applied linguistics is the academic discipline concerned with the relation of knowledge about
language to decision making in the real world, that is to say applied linguistics sets out to
investigate problems (educational and social) in the world in which language is implicated.

2. THE SCOPE OF APPLED LINGUISTICS

LANGUAGE AND EDUCATION LANGUAGE, WORK, AND LANGUAGE, INFORMATION,

LAW AND EFFECT
 First - Language  Workplace  Literary stylistics: the
Education, when a child communication: how relationship between
studies their home language is used in the linguistic choices and
language or languages. workplace. effects in literature.
 Additional-Language  Language planning: the  Critical Discourse
Education: making of decisions, often Analysis: the relationship
 Second-language supported by legislation, between linguistic choices
education = the about the official status of and effects in persuasive
society´s majority or languages and their uses of language: politics
official language which institutional use. and marketing.
is not their home  Forensic linguistics: the  Translation and
language. deployment of linguistic interpretation: the
 Foreign-language evidence in criminal and formulation of principles
education = language other legal investigations, underlying the perceived
of another country. e. g. to establish the equivalence between a
 Clinical Linguistics: the authorship of a document, stretch of language and its
study and treatment of or a profile of a speaker translation.
speech and from a tape-recording.  Information design: the
communication arrangement and
impairments, whether presentation of written
hereditary, developmental language, including issues
or acquired (through relating to typography
injury, stroke, illness or and layouts.
age)  Lexicography: the
 Language Testing: the planning and compiling of
assessment and both monolingual and
evaluation of language bilingual dictionaries.
achievement and
proficiency.
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3. LINGUISTICS AND APPLIED LINGUISTICS: A DIFFICULT RELATIONSHIP

There are some concepts that are very important in order to understand the relationship
between linguistics and applied linguistics:

⌘ Linguistics the academic discipline concerned with the study of language in general. It
looks for generalities and is bound to represent an abstract idealization of language rather
than the way it is experienced in the real world

⌘ Generative linguistics it is an approach introduced by Noam Chomsky in the 1950s. it

says that the proper subject matter of linguistics should be the representation of language
in the mind rather than the way in which people actually use language in everyday life.

⌘ Sociolinguistics it studies the relation between language and society.

⌘ Functional linguistics in which the concern is with language as a means of

communication, the purposes it fulfils, and how people actually use their language.

⌘ Corpus linguistics it deals with vast databanks containing millions of words of actual
language in use can be searched within seconds to yield extensive information about word
frequencies and combinations which is not revealed by intuition.

⌘ Applied linguistics establishes a reciprocal relationship between experience and

expertise, between professional concerns with language problems and linguistics.
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Notes of Applied linguistics

LANGUAGE, LEARNING, AND TEACHING

Learning a second language is a long and complex undertaking. It implies a total commitment of
the learner (physical, intellectual, and emotional). Many variables are involved in the acquisition
process. It is not a set of easy steps.

1. CURRENT ISSUES IN SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

WHO? WHAT? HOW?

 Who does the learning  What is it that the learner  How does the learning
and teaching? must learn and the take place?
 What is the teacher´s teacher teach?  How can a person ensure
native language?  The subject matter = the success in language
 What is the teacher´s English language learning?
philosophy of education?  The language teacher  What kinds of strategies
needs to understand the does the learner use?
system and functioning on
the second language and
the differences between
the first and second
language of the learner.
WHEN? WHERE? WHY?
 When does second  Where are the learners  Why are learners
language learning take acquiring the language? attempting to acquire the
place?  Language context, in second language?
 Children are “better” which the second  What are their purposes?
language learners than language is heard and  Are they motivating by
adults, is this true? spoken. the achievement of a
 What is the amount of  Artificial environment, a successful career?
time spent in the activity classroom.
of learning the second  What are the socio-
language? political conditions of a
particular country?

2. LANGUAGE

DEFINITIONS OF LANGUAGE: CHARACTERISTICS OF LANGUAGE:

 Language is a systematic communication
by vocal symbols.
 Language is a complex, specialized skill,
which develops in the child
spontaneously, without conscious effort,
id qualitatively the same in every
individual.
 Language is a system of arbitrary
conventionalized vocal, written, or
 It is systematic.
 It is a set of arbitrary symbols.
 Those symbols are primarily vocal, but
may also be visual.
 The symbols have conventionalized
meaning to which they refer.
 It is used for communication.
 It operates in a speech community or
culture.
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gestural symbols that enable members of a  It is essentially human, but not limited to
given community to communicate humans.
intelligibly with one another.  It is acquired by all people in much the
same way.

3. LEARNING AND TEACHING

DEFINITIONS OF LEARNING DEFINITIONS OF TEACHING

 It is acquiring or getting of knowledge of a  It is showing or helping someone to learn
subject or a skill by study, experience, or how to do something, giving instructions,
instruction. guiding in the study of something,
 It is relatively permanent change in a providing with knowledge, giving
behavioural tendency and is the result of instructions, guiding in the study of
reinforced practice. something, providing with knowledge,
causing to know or understand.
 Teaching is guiding and facilitating
learning, enabling the learner to learn,
setting the conditions for learning.

4. SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT IN SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

STRUCTURALISM/BEHAVIORISM
STRUCTURAL OR DESCRIPTIVE BEHAVIOURISM PARADIGM IN
SCHOOL OF LINGUISTICS PSYCHOLOGY

 Years: Early 1900s, 1940s and 1950s.  Advocate: B. F. Skinner

 Advocates: Leonard Bloomfield, Edward  Subject of investigation: publicly
Sapir, Charles Hockett, Charles Fries. observable responses. They can be
 Subject of investigation: the publicly objectively perceived, recorded, and
observable responses. measured.
 The linguistics task: to describe human  Empirical approaches: classical
languages and to identify the structural conditioning, operant conditioning, rote
characteristics of those languages. verbal learning, instrumental learning,
 Axiom: languages can differ from each discrimination learning.
other without limit.  Experiment of Pavlov´s dog: organisms
 Language could be dismantled into small can be conditioned to respond in desired
pieces or units and these units could be ways, given the correct degree and
describe scientifically and contrasted. scheduling of reinforcement.
RATIONALISM AND COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY
GENERATIVE TRANSFORMATIONAL THE COGNITIVE APPROACH IN
SCHOOL OF LINGUISTICS PSYCHOLOGY

 Year: 1960s  Subject of investigation: Cognitivists

 Advocates: Noam Chomsky. He said that tried to discover psychological principles
human language cannot be scrutinized of organization and functioning
simply in terms of observable stimuli and  They sought to discover underlying
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responses. motivations and deeper structures of

 Subject of investigation: it was human behaviour.
interested not only in describing language  Rational approach: they employed the
but also in arriving at an explanatory level tools of logic, reason, extrapolation, and
of adequacy in the study of language. inference in order to derive explanations
 Early seeds of generative transformational for human behaviour.
revolution were related with Ferdinand
de Saussure:

 Parole = performance (the outward

manifestation of language)
 Langue = competence (our underlying
and unobservable language ability)
CONSTRUCTIVISM

 Year: 1980s, 1990s and early 2000

 Advocates: Jean Piaget and Lev Vigotsky.
 Principles: Constructivism says that human beings construct their own version of reality
and therefore multiple contrasting ways of knowing and describing are equally legitimate.
 Constructivism emphasis on the primacy of each individual’s construction of reality.

5. LANGUAGE TEACHING METHODOLOGY

There are a lot of interpretations of the best way to teach a foreign language. So there have been
language teaching trends waxed and waned in popularity. According to Albert Marckwardt a new
paradigm of teaching methodology emerged about every quarter of a century. Some of the most
important methods have been: the audio-lingual method; the direct method; the grammar-
translation paradigm. Nevertheless each teacher can choose particular designs and techniques
for teaching a foreign language in a particular context.