Directions in Applied Linguistics: Essays in Honor of Robert B. Kaplan (Multilingual Matters, 133, Band 133) - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1853598496 ISBN 13: 9781853598494

Verlag: Multilingual Matters, 2005

Inhaltsangabe

The essays and research papers in this collection explore current issues in Language Education, English for Academic Purposes, Contrastive Discourse Analysis, and Language Policy and Planning, and outline promising directions for theory and practice in applied linguistics. The collection also honours the life-long contribution of Robert B. Kaplan to the field.

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Paul Bruthiaux, Dwight Atkinson, William G. Eggington, William Grabe and Vaidehi Ramanathan conducted their doctoral research at the University of Southern California in the 1980s and 1990s, with Robert B. Kaplan playing a significant role in their development as applied linguists. Now they have joined forces to co-edit a collection of essays and research papers that review current trends across the spectrum of applied linguistics and discuss their implications for the future the field.

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Directions in Applied Linguistics

Essays in Honor of Robert B. Kaplan

By Paul Bruthiaux, Dwight Atkinson, William G. Eggington, William Grabe, Vaidehi Ramanathan

Multilingual Matters

Copyright © 2005 Paul Bruthiaux, Dwight Atkinson, William G. Eggington, William Grabe, Vaidehi Ramanathan and the authors of individual chapters
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-85359-849-4

Contents

Contributors, vii, 
Part 1: Perspectives on Applied Linguistics, 
Introduction Paul Bruthiaux, 3, 
1 Applied Linguistics, Interdisciplinarity, and Disparate Realities Henry G. Widdowson, 12, 
2 Is Language Policy Applied Linguistics? Bernard Spolsky, 26, 
Part 2: Language Education, 
Introduction Vaidehi Ramanathan, 39, 
3 Sharing Community Languages: Utopian Dream or Realistic Vision? Michael Clyne, 42, 
4 Documenting Curricular Reform: Innovative Foreign Language Education in Elementary School Rocío Domínguez, G. Richard Tucker and Richard Donato, 56, 
5 Research Perspectives on Non-native English-speaking Educators Lía D. Kamhi-Stein, 72, 
Part 3: English for Academic Purposes, 
Introduction Dwight Atkinson, 87, 
6 Reflections of a 'Blue Collar Linguist:' Analysis of Written Discourse, Classroom Research, and EAP Pedagogy Dana R. Ferris, 91, 
7 English for Academic Purposes: Issues in Undergraduate Writing and Reading Ann M. Johns, 101, 
8 'Ear' Learners and Error in US College Writing Joy Reid, 117, 
9 Teachers' Perceptions of Lexical Anomalies: A Pilot Study Cheryl Boyd Zimmerman, 131, 
Part 4: Contrastive Discourse Analysis, 
Introduction William Grabe, 149, 
10 Tertium Comparationis: A Vital Component in Contrastive Rhetoric Research Ulla M. Connor and Ana I. Moreno, 153, 
11 Structure and Style in the Narrative Writings of Mexican-American and African-American Adolescents Ann Daubney-Davis and Genevieve Patthey-Chavez, 165, 
12 Functions of Personal Examples and Narratives in L1 and L2 Academic Prose Eli Hinkel, 186, 
13 Cross-cultural Variation in Classroom Turn-taking Practices Deborah Poole, 201, 
Part 5: Language Policy and Planning, 
Introduction William G. Eggington, 223, 
14 Micro Language Planning Richard B. Baldauf Jr, 227, 
15 The Englishization of Spanish in Mexico Robert J. Baumgardner, 240, 
16 Including Discourse in Language Planning Theory Joseph Lo Bianco, 255, 
17 World-Language: Foreign Language Policy in Hungary Péter Medgyes, 264, 
References, 279, 
Robert Kaplan: Biography and Publications, 310, 
Index, 324, 

CHAPTER 1

Applied Linguistics, Interdisciplinarity, and Disparate Realities

HENRY G. WIDDOWSON

Robert Kaplan and I, both recently retired from the academic fray, have been busy professing and promoting something called applied linguistics all our professional lives. Every now and again I feel the need to take up a critical position and reflect on just what it is that defines this field of enquiry we have been working in. Retirement is a good time for reflection. And what better place could there be for doing it in public than in a book honoring a scholar who has himself reflected on applied linguistics to such good effect over a long and distinguished career, culminating in the editorship of what must be the most comprehensive coverage of the field within one volume (Kaplan, 2002).

In his preface to that voluminous work, Kaplan notes that the diversity of topics included within the field has the consequence that 'applied linguistics is a difficult notion to define' (Kaplan, 2002: vii), and he makes it clear that it is not his purpose to provide a definition. Elusive of definition though it may be, however, there are two things that are generally said to characterize work that is undertaken in the name of applied linguistics. One is that it deals with problems in the 'real world:' 'problems in the world in which language is implicated,' as Cook puts it (2003: 5). The second is that it is, of its nature, interdisciplinary; it does not, in spite of its name, draw only on linguistics, but on a much wider range of scholarly enquiry. The two features are taken to be related in that the second follows by implication from the first: to solve real world problems you need to be interdisciplinary. This is made quite explicit in a recent editorial in one of the principal journals in the field:

It is perhaps uncontroversial to claim that applied linguistics, in becoming more interdisciplinary, is better prepared for the principled handling of a range of distinct types of real world issues, and more critically aware of its methodologies. (Bygate & Kramsch, 2000: 2)

The claim here is that the more interdisciplinary applied linguistics is, the more capable it becomes of dealing with problems in the real world. This might be taken as uncontroversial, but that does not make it valid. And it seems to me that, on closer inspection, it turns out to be a very questionable claim indeed, and that, far from interdisciplinarity leading to a critical awareness of methodological issues, it actually distracts attention from them.

The belief in interdisciplinarity as the essential enabling feature of applied linguistics rests, I think, on rather shaky foundations. But a belief does not have to be valid to be effective as a basis for action, and I want to stress that, in raising questions about this belief, I do not deny the value of the work that has been inspired by it. I recognize that much has been achieved in the field of applied linguistics through the publications and associations that bear its name.

One such association is the British Association of Applied Linguistics (BAAL), which provides an indispensable service in all kinds of ways, and has many an achievement to its credit. I would not want to question this. What I am concerned with, however, is how it defines what it stands for. As we might expect, interdisciplinarity figures prominently. As stated in its newsletter, BAAL's aims 'are to promote the study of language in use,' and 'to foster interdisciplinary collaboration' to that end. It has indeed incorporated the first of these aims in the slogan 'promoting understanding of language in use.' This statement of aims prompts a number of questions. One might ask, for example, where the study of language learning and teaching comes in. This has perhaps been too exclusive a preoccupation of applied linguistics in the past, but that does not seem a good reason for now excluding it completely. One might argue, of course, that learning is a 'kind' of language use, but this surely smacks of casuistry. But leaving that aside, and returning to the main issue, one might ask what is distinctive about applied linguistics as described here. If its scope is to be confined to the study of language in use, then how does it differ from the discipline that defines its aims in the same terms, namely sociolinguistics? It is not a matter, it would seem, of collaborating with this discipline but of incorporating it, in which case one wonders why there is a need for applied linguistics at all.

At this point we might invoke the first feature that is routinely said to characterize applied linguistics: its concern with real-world problems. But there is no mention of this in the BAAL statement of aims. Furthermore many sociolinguists would take the view that real-world problems fall within their purview as well and that their responsibility is not only to promote an understanding of language in use, but to intervene in linguistic affairs...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Multilingual Matters
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2005
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1853598496
• ISBN 13: 9781853598494
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 344
• Herausgeber: Bruthiaux Paul, Atkinson Dwight, Eggington William
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: gpsr@libri.de; gpsr@libri.de; ; Europaallee 1; Bad Hersfeld; 36244; Deutschland