APPLIED LINGUISTICS

FLED 201
LECTURE 1

AYŞE GÜREL
What is linguistics?

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What is Linguistics?
Linguistics is the study of language.

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What is Linguistics?
Why is knowledge of linguistics different from knowledge of
a language?

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What is Linguistics?
◦ A speaker can use a language without any conscious
knowledge of its internal structure.
◦ A linguist can know the internal structure of a language
without actually speaking it.

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What is Linguistics?
Formal linguistics tries to identify how language works and
how it is organized.

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 What is Linguistics?
Major components of grammar (different linguistic levels):
Syntax: the grammatical principles, units, and relations involved in sentence
structure.
Morphology: the study of internal structure of words.
Phonetics: studies the physical properties of speech sounds and their
articulation and perception.
Phonology: the study of how sounds are organized and used in natural
languages.
Semantics: the study of the relationship between words/sentences and
their meanings.
Pragmatics: the study of the aspects of meaning and language use that are
dependent on the speaker, the addressee and other features of the context
of utterance (i.e., the meaning of a sentence in context )

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Main subfields of linguistics:
Sociolinguistics: the study of language in relation to social
factors such as social class, educational level and type of
education, age, sex, ethnic origin.
Sociolinguistic research examines language use in its social
context, incorporating both quantitative and qualitative
methods.
E.g.,
 Language and culture
 Language policy and ideology
 Variation in language use

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Main subfields of linguistics:
Discourse analysis: is the study of language in use, both in
spoken and written contexts.
“Context” here refers to the social, cultural, political, and
historical background of the discourse, and it is important to
take this into account to understand underlying meanings
expressed through language.
• How is a conversation structured.
• Differences between native and non-native speakers'
conversational style.
• Newspaper Bias: a critical discourse analysis of
newspapers to examine how they frame agents (i.e.
groups of people from a particular ideological, political,
or cultural perspective).

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Main subfields of linguistics
Anthropological linguistics: studies the relationship between
language and culture in a community (e.g. its beliefs,
traditions and family structure).
◦ E.g., it studies the ways in which relationships within the
family are expressed in different kinship terms or how
people communicate with each other at certain social and
cultural events, ceremonies, etc.

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Main subfields of linguistics
Historical linguistics (Comparative historical linguistics):
studies language change and language relationships by
comparing earlier and later forms of a language and
comparing different languages.

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 Main subfields of linguistics
Psycholinguistics: the study of the mental processes that a
person uses in producing and understanding language.
◦ It includes the study of speech perception, the role of
memory, and other cognitive and psychological
processes involved in language use.

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Main subfields of linguistics
Neurolinguistics: the study of the function the brain performs
in language learning and language use.
◦ It includes research into how the structure of the brain
influences language learning, how and in what parts of the
brain language is stored and how damage to the brain affects
the ability to use language.

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Main Subfields of Linguistics:
Clinical linguistics: the application of the linguistic sciences to
the study of language disability in all its forms (Crystal,
2001:673).
It uses linguistics to describe, analyze, and treat speech
and language impairments in children and adults.
It is the core subject in the education of speech and
language therapists.

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Main Subfields of Linguistics
Forensic linguistics (legal linguistics; language and the law):
is the application of linguistic knowledge and methods/tools
to the forensic context of law, language, crime investigation,
trial, and judicial procedure.
It mainly focuses on:
◦ understanding the language of the written law
◦ understanding language use in forensic and judicial
processes
◦ the provision of linguistic evidence.

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 Main Subfields of Linguistics
Corpus Linguistics: the study of language through authentic
examples of language in use.
◦ uses a large collections of both spoken and written natural
texts that are stored on computers to explore patterns of
language use.
Three main types of corpus-based linguistic study:
◦ Lexical: e.g. word use, idioms, irregular plurals.
◦ Syntactic: sentence level features (e.g. use of prepositions, verb forms,
pronouns, agreement).
◦ Discourse: the structure of text e.g. cohesion above the sentence level
◦ E.g. The BROWN Corpus, The CHILDES.

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 Main subfields of linguistics
Computational linguistics: a field which brings together
resources from linguistics and computer science to address
the question of how human language works.
Computational linguistics is usually performed by computer
scientistists and electrical engineers who specialized in the
application of computers to the processing of a natural language.
Research into machine translation, speech recognition systems,
text-to-speech synthesizers, automated voice response systems, web
search engines, text editors, computerized language instruction
materials falls into the domain of computational linguistics.

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 Two fundamental views of
Applied Linguistics
Linguistics applied
Applied linguistics

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 Two fundamental views of
Applied Linguistics
View 1: Applied Linguistics is the application of linguistics
oApplied Linguistics is a component of linguistics.
oAll linguists can participate in this field and most importantly
only linguists can participate.
oAlong the line of this view, while applied linguists are expected
to know something of linguistics, there is no reciprocal
requirement for linguists.
oThere could be no theory of applied linguistics.
oApplied linguistics mediated between linguistics and language
teaching.

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 Two fundamental views of Applied
Linguistics
View 2: Applied Linguistics is a separate field.
◦ This is a broader view of Applied Linguistics.
◦ Richards et al. (1997) define Applied Linguistics as:
◦ the study of second and foreign language learning and
teaching
◦ the study of language and linguistics in relation to
practical problems

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 Two fundamental views of Applied
Linguistics:
View 2: Applied Linguistics is a separate field.
◦ Applied linguistics uses information from sociology,
psychology, anthropology, and information theory as well
as from linguistics in order to develop its own theoretical
models of language and language use, and then uses this
information and theory in practical areas such as syllabus
design, speech therapy, language planning, stylistics etc.

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Defining Applied Linguistics
Applied linguistics is using what we know about (i)
language; (ii) how it is learned, and (iii) how it is used, in
order to achieve some purpose or solve some problem in
the real world.
In a broad sense, applied linguistics is concerned with
increasing understanding of the role of language in human
affairs and thereby with providing the knowledge
necessary for those who are responsible for taking
language-related decisions whether the need for these
arises in the classroom, the workplace, the law court, or
the laboratory (Wilkins (1999: 7).

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 Main research areas of
Applied Linguistics
Second language acquisition (SLA):
◦ Theories of SLA: Adult and child L2 acquisition.
◦ Cognitive processes involved in learning and acquiring a second
language.
◦ The role of learning strategies and styles in SLA.
Bilingualism:
◦ Code-switching
◦ Brain and language:
◦ Storage of multiple languages in the brain
◦ Language attrition: (non)pathological loss of L1 and L2
◦ Issues of bilingual education
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 Main research areas of
Applied Linguistics
Second language pedagogy:
◦ Theories of second language teaching
◦ Language and instruction (reading, writing, speaking,
listening)
◦ Language assessment
◦ Language and research methodology
◦ Language and technology
◦ Linguistic aspects of computer-assisted language learning

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 Main research areas of Applied Linguistics
Traditionally, the primary concern of applied linguistics has
been SLA theory, L2 pedagogy and the interface between the
two.

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The Routledge Handbook of Applied
Linguistics (2024)
Edited By Li Wei, Zhu Hua, James
Simpson (2024)

See its table of contents>>>>>

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 The Routledge Handbook of Applied
Linguistics (2024)
Table of contents
PART I Applied linguistics in society
1. Multilingualism -- Jasone Cenoz and Durk Gorter
2. Language and migration -- Mike Baynham and James Simpson
3. Language policy and planning -- Lionel Wee
4. Family language policy – Kendall A. King
5. Critical discourse analysis, critical discourse studies, and critical applied
linguistics– Karin Zotzmann and John P. O’Regan
6. Digital language and communication – Caroline Tagg
7. Intercultural communication – Zhu Hua

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 The Routledge Handbook of Applied
Linguistics (2024)
Table of contents
PART I Applied linguistics in society
8. Institutional discourse –Zsófia Demjén and Miguel Pérez-Milans
9. Medical communication -- Sarah Collins, Sarah Peters and Ian Watt
10. English for professional communication: A critical genre analytical perspective -- Vijay K. Bhatia and
Aditi Bhatia
11. Identity -- Bonny Norton and Monica Shank Lauwo
12. Gender and sexuality – Helen Sauntson
13. Language and race – Jennifer B. Delfino and H. Samy Alim
13. Language and race – Jennifer B. Delfino and H. Samy Alim
14. Politics and applied linguistics – Philip Seargeant
15. World Englishes and English as a lingua franca -- Andy Kirkpatrick and David Deterding

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 The Routledge Handbook of Applied
Linguistics (2024)
PART II Broadening Horizons
16. Sign languages -- Bencie Woll and Rachel Sutton-Spence
17. Lexicography -- Thierry Fontenelle
18. Translation and interpreting -- Mona Baker and Luis Pérez-González
19. First language attrition: bridging sociolinguistic narratives and psycholinguistic
models of attrition – Beatriz Duarte Wirth, Anita Auer and Merel Keijzer
20. Clinical linguistics – Vesna Stojanovik, Michael Perkins and Sara Howard
21. Language and ageing – Lihe Huang
22. Forensic linguistics – Tim Grant and Tahmineh Tayebi
23. Linguistic ethnography -- Karin Tusting

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 The Routledge Handbook of Applied
Linguistics (2024)
PART II Broadening Horizons
24. Posthumanism and applied linguistics – Kelleen Toohey
25. Social semiotics and multimodality -- Theo van Leeuwen
26. Linguistic landscapes – Robert Blackwood and Will Amos
27. Minoritised/Indigenous language revitalization – Nancy H. Hornberger and
Haley De Korne
28. Endangered languages – Julia Sallabank and Peter K. Austin
29. Ecolinguistics in practice -- Stephen Cowley
30. Translanguaging -- Li Wei

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 The Development of
Applied Linguistics
Different methods used in foreign language teaching over the
years:

The late 18th Century-until the beginning of the 20th

Century: ‘Grammar-Translation Method’.
Beginning of the 20th Century: the Direct Method.
During the 2nd World War: the Audiolingual Method
(based on structural linguistics and behaviorism)

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The Development of Applied Linguistics

Behaviourism (e.g., John Watson, B. F.

Skinner):
Language learning is a result of habit
formation.
Children learn to speak their L1 through
imitation.
Children learn to produce ‘correct’
utterances because they are rewarded
when they utter them correctly (operant
conditioning).
Correction is believed to have a major role
in L1 acquisition (parents give negative
feedback, i.e. correct their children’s
grammatical errors).

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 The Development of Applied Linguistics

Chomsky’s (1959) attack on

behaviourism opened up an new era in
the history of linguistics.
Generative linguistics, with its interest
in Universal Grammar (UG), became
dominant in the field of linguistics.
Chomsky suggested that children do
not get negative feedback from their
parents yet they come to know what is
ungrammatical in a language. How is
this possible?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Cgpfw
4z8cw

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 The Development of Applied Linguistics
Chomsky’s UG framework:
 Children’s grammars are innately constrained.
 Children innately have an understanding of how
languages work on the basis of Universal Grammar
(UG).
 Generative linguistics is interested in idealized speaker-
hearer knowledge. However, this is the point on which
it has been criticized.
This core linguistic view of language focuses on language
forms, ignoring the context in which those forms are used.

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 The Development of Applied Linguistics
Halliday’s Functional Approach to language(1973) :
offered an alternative to Chomksy’s approach which
emphasized linguistic competence.
does not see language as something exclusively internal
to a learner, but rather as a means of functioning in
society.
emphasizes the communicative and dynamic nature of
language.
led to a more ‘communicative’ type of language pedagogy
(e.g., textbooks based on a notional-functional syllabus
became widespread).

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 The Development of Applied Linguistics
In the early 1980s, Krashen’s ‘Monitor Model’ posited that, like L1
learners, L2 learners should be exposed to a new language
unconsciously.
Explicit grammar teaching can only lead to ‘learning’ but not
natural, implicit acquisition.
Classrooms should supply a rich source of language exposure.
There should be more focus on meaning but not on form.
The methodology which developed from these ideas is known as
Communicative Language Teaching (CLT).
More eclectic approaches in recent teaching practices.

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References
Schmitt, N. & Celce-Murcia, M. (2010). An overview of
applied linguistics. In N. Schmitt (Ed). An introduction to
Applied Linguistics.2nd edition. London: Hodder. (Chapter:
1)

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