APPLIED LINGUISTICS:

NO BOOKISH THEORIC
Name : Alfian
Reg. Num.
: 157835467

INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION

2
OUT
LIN
E

CHANGE
CHANGE IN
IN APPLIED
APPLIED LINGUISTICS
LINGUISTICS
PRACTICE
PRACTICE

THE
THE NEW
NEW CRITIQUE
CRITIQUE OF
OF APPLIED
APPLIED
LINGUISTICS
LINGUISTICS

5
6

WHAT
WHAT IS
IS POSTMODERNISM?
POSTMODERNISM?

THEORISING
THEORISING PRACTICE
PRACTICE

CONCLUSION
CONCLUSION

1. INTRODUCTION
In this chapter, the author queries how far
current philosophical developments in the
humanities and social sciences have
affected applied linguistics and particular
how influential the various critical stances

2. WHAT IS POSTMODERNISM?
The term postmodernism refers to the
contemporary sense of skepticism felt by
scholars in the humanities and social sciences
with regard to progress, in the validity of
knowledge and science and generally in
universal explanations and the optimism of the
Enlightenment:
we begin to see a shift in emphasis away from
what we could call scientic knowledge towards
what should properly be considered as a form of
narrative knowledge (Docherty 1993: 25).

2. WHAT IS POSTMODERNISM?
Postmodernism speak of rejecting the grand
meta narratives of modernity, such as:
Liberalism, Marxism, Democracy and the
Industrial Revolution, and a championing of
the local, the relative and the contingent.

3. CHANGE IN APPLIED
LINGUISTICS PRACTICE
Changes have inevitably taken place since
the Corder book appeared (S. P. Corder,
Introducing Applied Linguistics, 1973) and
therefore the question we address is
whether those changes can in any sense be
regarded
as
post-structuralist
or
postmodernist.
Corder divides his book into three parts:
Language and Language Learning
Linguistics and Language Teaching
The Techniques of Applied Linguistics

3. CHANGE IN APPLIED
LINGUISTICS PRACTICE

For the applied linguist, such a claim raises the issue

of what it means to be a native speaker and how far
localized forms which are, presumably, not
standardized, can be owned by those who use them.
In other words, if Indian English, Kenyan English and
so on are not standardized (as are Australian English,
Canadian English etc.) then what distinguishes
them from a combination of British standard English
and some vocabulary differences?
The question for applied linguistics is what norms
World English speakers observe and, by implication,
how far language spread requires native speakers.

4. THE NEW CRITIQUE OF

APPLIED LINGUISTICS

Changes
Change in applied linguistics practice
there have been, but in our view these
can be accounted for by appealing to a
move from a more linguistic to a more
applied model.
This has meant bringing the social aspect
of language in use into a central position
and to an extent downgrading the
linguistic and the psycho linguistic.

Emergence of a Theory
An essentially modernist view, that applied
linguistics needed theory to explain the
practical (and of course the empirical).
A theory has indeed emerged since
Corders retirement in the early 1980s, a
theory deriving from post-structuralism
and postmodernism, the theory calling
itself variously theory, critical theory,
critical discourse analysis and critical
applied linguistics.

Rice of Relativism
Piem (1993), the implications of poststructuralist, sociolinguistic theory throw into
doubt all language practice of (the discipline)
English, including all those practice associated
with creativity, with self-expression, as well as
those that emphasize social aspect of language,
like correctness or appropriateness.
Block
(1996)
argue,
in
characteristics
postmodern way against grand theory, in this
case the single theory of second-language
acquisition research, advocated.

Rice of Relativism
Critiques of the colonial and the imperial
such as we nd in the post-colonial view
of Kahru (1985) and the post-imperial of
Phillipson (1992) can be identied as both
modernist and postmodernist, whom they
wish to empower: to that extent they
decry the hegemonising juggernauts of
the colonial and the imperial with relation
to their totalizing influence on English.

Rice of Relativism
The post-colonial effect on English, the
explanation for world English, itself a
development of the wider theory of
varieties.
The post-imperial, English is change with
the
crime
of
(English)
linguistic
imperialism, of devaluing and then
destroying local languages and so by
denition local cultures.

Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA)

Fairclough (1989) dened critical study thus:
Critical is used in the special sense of aiming to
show up connections which may be hidden from
people such as the connection between
language, power and ideology
Critical
language
study
analyses
social
interactions a way which focuses upon their
linguistic elements, and which sets out to show up
their generally hidden determinant in the system
of social relationships, as well as hidden effects
they may have upon that system.

Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA)

Stubbs (1997) is sharply critical of what he
regards as the excess of politics and the
lack of linguistics in approaches such as
Faircloughs: a repeated criticism (of CDA)
is that the textual interpretations of critical
linguist
are
politically
rather
than
linguistically motivated, and that analysis
nd what they expect to nd, whether
absences or presences.

Widdowsons Critique
Basically,
the
criticism
made
by
Widdowson in his critique of critical
applied linguistics, more specically
critical discourse analysis.
In his critique Widdowson comment on
three key texts in 1990s, these are CaldasCoulthard
and
Coulthard
(1996),
Fairclough (1995) and Hodge and Kress
(1993). Actually, these texts all speak to
need to develop a socially responsible
theory of language, committed to social

Widdowsons Critique
Widdowsons attack adds force to our own
conclusion that what critical discourse
analysis (and indeed critical applied
linguistics) represent is offshoot of postmodernism, masquerading as modernity.

Critical Applied Linguistics (CAL)

Pennycook (2010) sees critical applied
linguistics as a constantly shifting and
dynamic approach to questions of language in
multiple contexts, rather than a method, a set
of techniques, or a xed body of knowledge.
Critical applied linguistics is not about
developing a set of skills that will make the
doing of applied linguistics more rigorous,
more objective, but about making applied
linguistics more politically accountable

Critical Applied Linguistics (CAL)

CAL is concerned not merely with relating
language contexts to social contexts, but rather
does so from a point of view that views social
relations as problematic.
(Pennycook, 2010) A central element of critical
applied linguistics, therefore, is a way of exploring
language in social contexts that goes beyond
mere correlations between language and society,
and instead raises more critical questions to do
with access, power, disparity, desire, difference,
and resistance.

Ramptons openfield
Ramton points to the still-present fault line
between the linguistics and the applied
linguistics views of applied linguistics and
argue that the attempt to develop an
applied linguistics model (citing both
Widdowson and Brumt) has failed
because it simply has not accounted
adequately for the work in secondlanguage acquisition research and Englishlanguage teaching that has been done
under its aegis.

Ramptons openfield
Ramptons recipe for applied linguistics takes
us to the extreme of post-modernism, even if
unintentionally, since what he proposes
suggests that there is no vocation of applied
linguist, just individuals working in some
loose sense of collaboration.
He takes us to the edge of postmodernism in
his proposals, then what Brumt (1997) does
to return us to a very Enlightenment view of
applied linguistics.

A Theorizing Approach
Modernist approach (such CDA) and postmodernist
critiques (such CAL) of applied linguistics provide a
useful debate on the nature of discipline.
In critical discourse analysis, Widdowson makes
the following comment: it would appear that what
the theory presented here really amounts to is the
reaffirmation of the familiar Whoran notion of
linguistic determinism, but applied not only to
cognition in respect of the language code, but in
respect to its use in communication as well.
(widdowson, 1998)

A Theorizing Approach
The notion of linguistic determinism (or
linguistic relativity), asserts that thinking and
language are so closely connected that our view
of the world is determined by the structure of
our rst language or mother tongue.
Applied linguistics does not need a unitary
theory; what it requires is an openness to
influences and theories from elsewhere, so that
professional applied linguists can adopt a
theorizing approach to language problems.

5. THEORIZING PRACTICE
There
are
three
possible
directions
for
fragmentation applies linguistics:
The powerful theory in current second language
acquisition (SLA) research, attracted at present by
the explanatory power of Universal Grammar
The ideology one or other political variety, the
CDA practiced by Fairclough, or more radical, if
also more nebulous CAL promoted by Pennycook.
The Practice emphasis which would shift applied
linguistics to future largely within teacher
education.

6. CONCLUSION

In this chapter the author have queried

how far current developments in the
humanities and the social sciences have
affected applied linguistics, with particular
reference to the various critical stances.
Author suggested that what Critical Discourse
Analysis (and Critical Applied Linguistics)
represent is an offshoot of postmodernism,
masquerading
as
modernity.
Such
approaches,
The author concluded
are
marginal to the applied linguistics enterprise.

REFERENCES
Block, David (1996), Not so fast: some thoughts on theory culling,
relativism, accepted ndings and the heart and soul of SLA, Applied
Linguistics, 17(1): 6383.
Corder, S. Pit (1973), Introducing Applied Linguistics, Harmondsworth:
Penguin.
Davies, A. (2007). An introduction to applied linguistics: From practice to
theory. Edinburgh University Press.
Fairclough, Norman (1989), Language and Power, London: Longman.
Peim, Nicholas (1993), Critical Theory and the English Teacher, London:
Routledge.
Pennycook, Alastair (2004), Critical applied linguistics, in Alan Davies and
Cathie Elder (eds), The Handbook of Applied Linguistics, Oxford:
Blackwell, pp. 784807.
Rampton, Ben (1997), Retuning in applied linguistics, International
Journal of Applied Linguistics, 7(1): 325.
Widdowson, Henry G. (1995), Discourse analysis: a critical view,
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