One of the most exciting and useful intellectual developments in the twentieth century was the establishment of the study of language as a science. To distinguish it from the abundance of earlier ideas about language, the modern study was called Linguistics. This consisted, first of all, of a scientific description of the language system – mostly, English. A number of models were developed – Chomsky’s Transformational-Generative Grammar, Pike’s Tagmemics and the one which I found most useful for descriptive purposes, Halliday’s Systemics.
The practical application of the new linguistics was eagerly taken up by teachers of English as a Foreign Language under the title of Applied Linguistics. Of course, there are many other practical applications of linguistics – for instance, the analysis of literary texts (Stylistics and Poetics) and the authentication (or falsification) of evidence for the police (Forensic Linguistics). However, the TEFL teachers were the first to exploit the new insights of Linguistics and abrogated to themselves the title of Applied Linguists.
By the sixties there was a huge market for their services. English was by then theundisputed world language for science, diplomacy, tourism etc., and all over the world people were clamouring to learn English. My early experience of TEFL was in Bulgaria 1959-64 and there was almost nothing in the way of theory or teaching materials for me to turn to. Ten years later the avalanche of academic papers and materials for every clientele was unstoppable – and it continues.
Amateurs like me in the early sixties, doing their best, were replaced by professionals with a minimum of an M.A. in Applied Linguistics. At the top end of the market Applied Linguists would devise courses specially designed to meet the needs of their clients, who were often highly paid and qualified professionals, businessmen, politicians, scientists, all needing to learn English as quickly and efficiently as possible. Clearly the English needed by an engineer selling his products internationally is not the same as an au pair earning a few bob looking after other people’s children.
After getting an M.A. in Applied Linguistics in the seventies, I was employed as an Applied Linguist to be part of a team writing materials for refugees from South African-ruled Namibia to learn English, which they intended to be the language of an independent Namibia. This meant working with Namibians to produce specific teaching materials based on their own lives as rebels and refugees.
The task of the Applied Linguist is to describe the particular kinds of English the client needs to know (written and/or spoken, formal and/or informal, technical and/or everyday). This is known as the Target Language. Then they analyse what the client already knows. If they were lucky this could be nothing, but usually the learners know some bits of often inaccurate English from schooldays.
The Applied Linguist then devises a course to take the student from where they are to where they want to be. Usually there is time (money) pressure, so the course is directed to the major aims of the client, leaving aside less essential features. For instance, pronunciation is less important for someone intending to make a living translating technical texts from their native language into English than someone training to welcome English tourists to their country.
Applied Linguistics is the theoretical basis of Breakthrough to Learning. Details in my next blog.