Applied Linguistics

Applied linguistics is an interdisciplinary area of linguistics that focuses on the study of social problems that have to do with language.

The development of applied linguistics occurred especially during the 20th century in North America, Great Britain, Europe and Australia in the Anglo-Saxon world. In the United States and Great Britain, the focus was on teaching the English language, while in Australia the concern was with the studies of aboriginal languages and how to teach English to the immense number of immigrants that the country received in that century. Starting in the 1950s, it followed a more interdisciplinary line, concerned with language problems that had to do with education, psychology, anthropology, pedagogy, and sociology. The discipline soon reached other contexts outside the Anglo-Saxon world and currently has a broad international and intercultural scene.

Concept

It is a branch of linguistics that deals with the problems that language poses as a means of social relationship and from which four branches or fields of action derive:

1. Maternal language education.
2. Second language education.
3. Computer-assisted language training (Computer-Assisted Language Learning - CALL.
4. Communication (and its problems) in different social fields (economic, political, legal, etc.).

There are many approaches, among which are:

1. Communicative approach.
2. Task-based approach (TBLT).
3. Cooperative language learning approach.

All of them are based on two major theoretical branches:

1. Structuralism is in the area of linguistics.
2. In the area of education have the currents of constructivism and cognitive.

Main branches of applied linguistics include bilingualism and multilingualism, systems-mediated communication, conversation analysis, contrastive linguistics, linguistic assessment, literacy, discourse analysis, language pedagogy, second language acquisition, lexicography, linguistic normalization, pragmatics, forensic linguistics and translation.

History

Linguistics as a discipline is a field that developed especially throughout the XX century in the context of countries English-speaking countries such as the United States, Great Britain and Australia, especially due to the need to teach English to foreigners.

According to the American Association for Applied Linguistics (AAAL) Symposium held in St. Louis in February 2001, the history of this discipline in North America can be divided into four stages from the 1920s to the 1990s and According to Angelis, it is possible to speak of an applied linguistics with a North American identity.

On the other hand, Australia developed its own contribution to the development of Applied Linguistics that differs from North American and British. Australian linguists in the 20th century focused more on applying this discipline to modern languages and the language of immigrants than to English studies. However, Australian applied linguistics is more strongly influenced by European and North American than by British.

During the 1950s and 1960s he focused on concrete errors and contrastive analysis. During the 1970s, with the failure of this analytical contrast method as a theory to predict errors, applied linguistics began to adopt Noam Chomsky's theory of Universal Grammar to explain the phenomenon of learning a second language. In the 1990s, an increasing number of researchers began to employ study methods based on cognitive psychology.

Today, this field of study is an interdisciplinary mix of primarily linguistics, anthropology, psychology, and education.

The International Association for Applied Linguistics is a forum that encompasses a broad spectrum of researchers in this area.

Some publications in this area include Studies in Second Language Acquisition, Modern Language Review, Language Learning, Applied Linguistics, AILA Journal and the TESOL Journal.

The tradition of applied linguistics is established as a response to the specialization of linguistics with the advent of generative linguistics in the late 1950s and has maintained an important social role ever since, demonstrating a central interest in the problems of language.

Although the field of applied linguistics begins in Europe and the United States, studies spread rapidly internationally. The main cultural contexts occurred historically in the following countries:

United States

Although it is not possible to establish when the discipline called applied linguistics began in particular, the first historically established documents were published by the University of Michigan in 1948 as "Language Learning: A Journal of Applied Linguistics". These documents concentrated on the principles and practices of the language and was seen from an outside perspective as "applied language" Just language problems.

In the 1960s, however, the studies began to be applied to other disciplines such as language tasks, language policy, and second language learning. In the early 1970s the discipline became a leading field for language theory. Applied linguistics then included problems related to the real world of language and their solutions. By the 1990s it was definitively extended to critical studies and multilingualism. The investigations were directed towards the theoretical and empirical investigation of the real problems that have to do with all forms of language.

United Kingdom

The British Association for Applied Linguistics (BAAL) was established in 1967. Its mission is to contribute to the development, growth and promotion of education through legislation favorable to studies of language use, acquisition of a second language and language teaching through interdisciplinary studies.

Germany

The first developments of a praxis-oriented linguistics took place during the National Socialist period; In the 1950s and 1960s, the discipline was refounded based on impulses from the University of Bonn and its Linguistics Seminar under the direction of Leo Weisgerber. The main means of dissemination of this orientation were the Sprachforum magazines. Zeitschrift für angewandte Sprachwissenschaft zur überfachlichen Erörterung gemeinwichtiger Sprachfragen aller Lebensgebiete (1955-1960) and, before, Muttersprache (1949-1955). In these years, German as a foreign language (Deutsch als Fremdsprache) began to gain strength in academic circles.

Australia

Applied linguistics in Australia took as a reference the teaching of English to immigrants in the country. The tradition in the development of the discipline shows a strong European and American influence, rather than the British. The Australian Association of Applied Linguistics (ALAA) was established at the national linguistics congress in August 1976.

Japan

In 1982, the Japan Association for Applied Linguistics (JAAL) was established within the Japan Association of Teachers of English, to link to international activities around this discipline. In 1984 JAAL became a member of the International Association for Applied Linguistics (AILA).

Latin America

During the IX International Congress of Linguistics of the Permanent International Committee of Linguistics held in Massachusetts in 1962, several Spanish-American scholars had the idea of creating an association in the field for Latin America. The project began in January 1964 in Viña del Mar with the backing of the University of Chile.

The main linguistic problems that concerned Latin Americans from the beginning were languages in Latin America, linguistic studies and methods, and indigenous languages.

International Associations

• International Association of Applied Linguistics (http://www.aila.info/)

America

• American Association for Applied Linguistics (http://www.aaal.org/)
• Center for Applied Linguistics (http://www.cal.org/)
• Canadian Association of Applied Linguistics (http://www.aclacaal.org/)
• Mexican Association of Applied Linguistics (http://www.cele.unamx/amla/ Archived on 20 May 2015 in Wayback Machine.)
• Latin American Language and Philology Association/Associação de Lingüística e Filologia da América Latina (http://www.mundoalfal.org/)

Europe

• Association Belge de Linguistique Appliquée (https://web.archive.org/web/20141218223713/http://www.abla.be/)
• Spanish Association of Applied Linguistics (https://web.archive.org/web/20140531071514/http://www.aesla.uji.es/)
• Association Finlandaise de Linguistique Appliquée (https://web.archive.org/web/20070609184345/http://www.cc.jyu.fi/%7Ekmantyla/afinla/%21index.html)
• Association Française de Linguistique Appliquée (http://www.afla-asso.org/)
• Associazione Italiana di Lingüística Applicata (https://web.archive.org/web/20090723170007/http://www.aitla.unimo.it/)
• Association Néerlandaise de Linguistique Appliquée (https://web.archive.org/web/20080908070803/http://www.aila.info/about/org/ic.htm#SG)
• Association Norvegienne de Linguistique Appliquée (https://web.archive.org/web/20111002013853/http://www.hf.ntnu.no/anla/)
• Association Suédoise de Linguistique Appliquée (https://web.archive.org/web/20090625184820/http://www.nordiska.su.se/asla/)
• Association Suisse de Linguistique Appliquée (https://web.archive.org/web/20090818025011/http://www.vals-asla.ch/cms/)
• British Association for Applied Linguistics (http://www.baal.org.uk/)
• Gesellschaft für Angewandte Linguistik (http://www.gal-ev.de/)
• Greek Applied Linguistics Association (http://www.enl.auth.gr/gala/)
• Irish Association for Applied Linguistics (http://www.iraal.ie/)
• Polish Association of Applied Linguistics (https://web.archive.org/web/20080522180029/http://www.ocot.pl/st_ptls.php?id=8)

Oceania

• Applied Linguistics Association of New Zealand (https://web.archive.org/web/20081216015106/http://www.victoria.ac.nz/lals/about/alanz/alanz.html)
• Applied Linguistics of Association of Australia (https://web.archive.org/web/20090726084730/http://www.latrobe.edu.au/alaa/)

Asian

• Asian Association of TEFL (Asia TEFL) (http://www.asiatefl.org/)
• Applied Linguistics Association of Korea (https://web.archive.org/web/20080415021836/http://www.alak.or.kr/index.asp)
• China English Language Education Association (http://www.celea.org.cn/)
• Hong Kong Association for Applied Linguistics (http://www.haal.hk/)
• Japan Association of College English Teachers (https://web.archive.org/web/20090610054350/http://www.jacet.org/index.html)
• Linguistic Society of the Philippines (http://www.dlsu.edu.ph/inside/organizations/lsp/default.asp Archived on 27 December 2014 at Wayback Machine.)
• Singapore Association for Applied Linguistics (http://www.saal.org.sg/ Archived on 18 February 2015 at Wayback Machine.)

Others

• Estonian Association of Applied Linguistics (https://web.archive.org/web/200805020327/http://www.eki.ee/rakenduslingvistika/index_eng.php)
• Israel Association of Applied Linguistics (http://www.tau.ac.il/~ilash/ Archived on 5 April 2013 in Wayback Machine.)
• Southern African Applied Linguistics Association (http://www.saala.org.za/)