An applied linguist’s response to the linguists’ Projet de reconfiguration

-Tom Cobb, 6 Feb 09

The linguists’ Projet de reconfiguration contains two incorrect assumptions. From these flow both their general position and their specific demands. The first assumption concerns the relationship between linguistics and applied linguistics; the second concerns the definition of applied linguistics.

The writers of the Projet conceive the relationship between linguistics and applied linguistics in the following terms (p. 3, underline indicating present author’s emphasis):

Le terme linguistique appliquée recouvre, selon l’Association internationale de linguistique appliquée, l’ensemble des domaines interdisciplinaires de recherche et de pratique portant sur des problèmes de langage et de communication qui peuvent être identifiés, analysés et résolus en appliquant des connaissances linguistiques et qui peuvent en retour informer les connaissances linguistiques…

In this view, then, applied linguistics is, simply, linguistics applied.

The use of this unreferenced and selective quotation from the AILA website shows an unawareness of the evolution of applied linguistics over the past 20 years. The theme of this evolution has been the gradual and principled separation of applied linguistics from theoretical linguistics.

This separation has been documented at many times and in many ways. For an extended explicit account, Henry Widdowson’s seminal article “On the limitations of linguistics applied” (Applied Linguistics, 2001 (1):3-25) may be consulted. More concise is a selection of solicited messages from past presidents of the American Association for Applied Linguistics (AAAL) on the occasion of the Association’s 30^th anniversary in 2007 (assembled in a convenient single document at

http://www.aaal.org/images/CollectedPastPresidents.pdf), which have as a recurring theme the development of applied linguistics as an independent discipline.

Sandra Sauvignon, AAAL President 1992-93, describes the birth of applied linguistics as specifically not linguistics

The first [event I wish to discuss] was the decision in 1977 by a small group of professionals gathered in a room at the annual ACTFL Conference to found a professional organization to support and bring together those involved in applied linguistic research. Not linguistics, not language pedagogy or teacher education, but applied linguistics. We unanimously selected Wilga Rivers of Harvard University as our first president and the Linguistic Society of America (LSA) graciously offered to provide our fledgling group with an administrative home. AAAL was born!

Patricia Carrell, 2000-01, carries forward the birth and separation themes, adding a suggestion that applied linguistics has now outgrown linguistics, at least in conference sizes:

On the occasion of AAAL’s 30th anniversary it seems appropriate to say: “You’ve come a long way, baby”! Those of us who are old enough will remember those early days of AAAL when our annual meetings took place along with the Linguistic Society of America meetings—occurring between Christmas and New Year’s--and, it seemed, always in wintry places at that time of year! Today the annual AAAL conventions routinely draw more people than attended the combined LSA-AAAL conventions. With the founding of AAAL, applied linguistics began coming into its own as a distinct field of study, establishing its own identity separate and apart from theoretical linguistics.

James Lantolf, 2004-05, carries the preceding themes forward but notes in addition that the going is not all smooth:

Despite its successes, however, the field [of applied linguistics] still has a way to go, at least in the U.S. academic scene, before it achieves full status on a par with other disciplines in the social sciences and humanities. For example, the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences, the entity that evaluates graduate programs at major research universities in the US every ten years, is, at the moment unwilling to recognize our field as anything other than a subfield of general linguistics. In addition, some of our junior colleagues continue to encounter unnecessary obstacles in the tenure and promotion process. Unfortunately, in many academic units, in particular foreign language departments, applied linguistics carries the stigma of the past when the field was at best seen as linguistics applied to language teaching rather than as a stand-alone theoretically grounded research enterprise.

It is rather odd that the AILA writer cited in the Projet and appearing in the first quotation above are not more familiar with this trend toward the independence of applied linguistics. But, of course they are, if one takes the trouble to read the entire quotation rather than just a piece of it. The complete text, in English and available at http://www.aila.info/about.html, reads as follows, with the part the linguists cite underlined and the important parts they leave out in bold:

Applied Linguistics is an interdisciplinary field of research and practice dealing with practical problems of language and communication that can be identified, analysed or solved by applying available theories, methods and results of Linguistics or by developing new theoretical and methodological frameworks in Linguistics to work on these problems.

In fact, read whole, the AILA pronouncement leaves a rather large space for applied linguistics to develop in its own directions and at the most fundamental levels (if “new theoretical and methodological frameworks” can be so conceived) in its endeavour to deal with “practical” problems (like language teaching) as distinct from purely linguistic problems.

There are many less explicit types of evidence for the growing independence of applied linguistics. Most telling is that the most prominent universities in North America at present have thriving applied linguistics departments and dwindling linguistics departments. Further, the strongest departments of applied linguistics do not bear the word “linguistics” (as a single unit) in their names, nor the names of any theoretical linguists on their faculty Web pages. One can see this at the Web sites of either of the two most prominent departments of applied linguistics:

• Penn State’s Dept of Applied Linguistics (http://aplng.la.psu.edu/)
• UCLA’s Dept of Applied Linguistics and TESL (http://www.appling.ucla.edu/)

Examples of the same phenomenon can be multiplied simply by Googling the keywords department, applied and linguistics without quotation marks. Doing this will produce a list of department names, showing that most departments or schools of applied linguistics either have never been or are not any longer attached to a department of linguistics. It will also reveal the amount of ingenuity that has gone into department naming to avoid the implication of linguistics applied. Two such instances are Paul Meara’s Centre for Applied Language Studies (CALS) at Swansea University in Wales (http://www.swan.ac.uk/cals/) and the University of Hawaii’s Dept of Second Language Studies (http://www.hawaii.edu/sls/).

What difference does all this make to the restructuring currently under way in our Department? On a conceptual level, it refutes the suggestion that a Department of didactique des langues separated from linguistics would amount to an atheoretical mini-department that could not be trusted to deal with matters of language adequately. On a practical level, it refutes specific claims in the Projet about who owns which courses (pp. 27-28).

The Projet proposes that many of the courses with language content that are destined for teacher trainees should retain the course designator LIN and be given by linguists:

Toutefois, nous revendiquons le maintien des sigles LIN pour plusieurs autres cours, entre autres, mais non exclusivement, les cours suivants :

- les cours de linguistique (par exemple LIN1400 À la découverte du langage; LIN1130 Language awareness for ESL teachers; LIN1131 Phonetics for ESL teachers),

- les cours de grammaire ou de compétence en langue orale (par exemple LIN1112 Apprentissage de la grammaire du français écrit pour enseignants et enseignantes; LIN1113 Grammaire pour l’enseignement du français au secondaire (1); LIN2012 Grammaire pour l’enseignement du français au secondaire (2); LIN1133 Advanced English Grammar; LIN2233 Grammar for ESL teachers),

- les cours d’acquisition des langues secondes ou de la langue maternelle (par exemple LIN3441 Acquisition d’une langue seconde, LIN3345 Second language acquisition),

- et les cours couvrant plusieurs de ces thèmes (par exemple LIN1075 Fondements linguistiques et enseignement).

In fact, hardly anywhere in the world are courses with names like Phonetics for Teachers, Grammar for Teachers, Language Awareness for Teachers, or especially Second Language Acquisition, any longer taught by theoretical linguists. They are taught by applied linguists or education specialists drawing on a base of research in applied linguistics. Such courses have been specifically removed from departments of linguistics. Why? Linguists have typically refused to deal with language in a pedagogical context because they believe that language and teaching are two things, a belief that ultimately goes back to Chomsky’s belief in the rigid separation of competence and performance.

These days, linguists’ assumption of a separation of language and performance or use-related concerns like teaching is usually more implicit than stated. However, as well as informing the spirit of the Projet throughout, this assumption is in fact stated in one of its passages (p. 22):

La délimitation des missions académiques de chacune des unités éventuelles permettra de partager la banque de cours […] Or, dans le cas du département de linguistique et de didactique des langues, cette délimitation ne va nullement de soi puisque les deux unités éventuelles s’intéressent à la langue et à son acquisition. La linguistique s’y intéresse comme objet d’étude scientifique—l’acquisition des langues étant une composante fondamentale de tout programme de linguistique—et la didactique pour ce qui concerne l’enseignement.

In other words, the Projet proposes dividing up the old Dept’s courses based on the belief in a hard distinction between linguistics (with acquisition as one of its inseparable parts) and language teaching. This proposal is based on a definition of applied linguistics generally and second language acquisition (SLA) specifically that is no longer in line with current practice.

Applied linguists today do interest themselves in concerns of acquisition, and learning, and teaching, in many contexts, but especially in the context that has the greatest consequences for the greatest number of people, the language classroom. The courses they teach, as well as the books they write, reflect this interest, whether in courses “for teachers” or in books about Second Language Acquisition (SLA). The evidence is abundant:

• Lightbown and Spada’s (2006) SLA classic, How Languages are Learned, now in its third re-printing, cites classroom studies and draws frequent pedagogical implications.

• Of the 92 titles for SLA presentations at the AAAL conference in Denver in March 2009, at least one-half include one or more of the words classroom, training, methodology, teacher, or learner (program available at http://clear.msu.edu/tripleal/scripts/schedule2.php?selProposalType=0&selStrand=32&selDay=&selRoom=0).

• In any top SLA journal like Studies in Second Language Acquisition (SSLA, available at http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayJournal?jid=SLA), pedagogical concerns are a formal part of the offering. Here is the masthead description at the SSLA Web portal:

Studies in Second Language Acquisition is a refereed journal of international scope devoted to the scientific discussion of issues in second and foreign language acquisition of any language. Each volume contains four issues, one of which is generally devoted to a current topic in the field. The other three issues contain articles dealing with theoretical topics, some of which have broad pedagogical implications, and reports of quantitative and qualitative empirical research. Other rubrics include replication studies, State-of-the-Art articles, Notes and Discussion, review articles, book reviews, and book notices.

• Or a personal example: I am currently editing the Language and Technology volume of the Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics (general editor Carol Chappelle, for 2010). My first task has been to determine the 50 headwords of this category, and my second to find the best possible applied linguist to comment upon each. I have now found 45 of these, and I can honestly state there is not one of them who does not devote a large part of his or her research time to language pedagogy.

I could go on, but perhaps the point is made and the reader is ready for the conclusion.

The writers of the Projet have not kept up either with the separation of applied linguistics from linguistics, or with the subsequent evolution of applied linguistics as an independent domain. As currently conceived, there is no hard distinction between SLA and language teaching; both are aspects of applied linguistics. The majority of the contended courses in the line-up above must be given to the Dept de didactique des langues, unless we want our future Quebec French and English teachers to take far too many courses that do not “concerne l’enseignement.”