GaneÇ Swara Vol. 10 No.

2 September 2016

APPLIED LINGUISTICS AND LANGUAGE TEACHING

SUPARMAN

English Department of STKIP Paracendekia NW Sumbawa

e-mail : [email protected]

ABSTRACT
Fundamental sciences had been used by applied linguist to solve the problems of language teaching in
practice. This article gives the discussion linguist of applied linguistics helps to bridge the gap between
practicing teachers and academies and research scientist to solve the problems in language teaching.
Theoretical sciences gave the insights to the principles of L2 learning and applied in methodology for
teaching practice which had been reassessed in classroom techniques. The practice used the methods,
syllabus, and objectives in the techniques of teaching second and foreign language.

Keywords: Theoretical sciences, Applied linguistics, Problem in language teaching, Classroom techniques.

INTRODUCTION
Since the days of Pit Corder, the founding father of British applied in the 1950s, the discipline of AL
has been usually described as ‘the theoretical and empirical investigation of real-world problems in which
language is a central issue. Similarly the members of the American Association of Applied Linguistic (AAL)
‘promote principles approaches to language-related concerns’. Herewith, the International Association of
Applied Linguistics (AILA) (in Vivian and Li, 2009):
Applied linguistics is an interdisciplinary field of research and practice dealing with practical problems
of language and communication that can be identified, analyzed or solved by applying available theories,
methods or result of linguistics or by developing new theoretical and methodological frameworks in
Linguistics to work on these problem. Added by Fauziati (2002: 07), applied linguistics is concerned with
the identification and analysis of certain class problems, which include the setting and carrying out of
language programs.
The AILA definition is both broader in including more areas and narrower as specified by Fauziati in
relating applied linguistics (AL) to linguistics proper. If you have problem with language, send for an applied
linguist. The broad definition of AL as problem-solving was certainly true in its early days. Definitions of
AL now are more like lists of the areas that make it up. The Cambridge AILA 1969 Congress encompassed
L1 acquisition, computational linguistics, forensic linguistics, speech therapy, neurolinguistics, L2 research
acquisition and host more. Gradually many areas have declared unilateral independence from applied
linguistic; first language acquisition research soon disappeared from the fold to found its own organizations,
conferences and journals, as did much second language acquisition research slightly later. Applied linguistics
gatherings these days are far less inclusive, though there is a growth in the Research Networks such as
Multilingualism; acquisition and Use. The AILA Congress in 2008 had 9 papers on L1 acquisition compared
with 161 on second language acquisition and 138 on foreign language teaching; computational linguistics
and forensic linguistics were no longer on the program , though new areas like multilingualism have been
introduced. Professional organizations for AL are now more like umbrella organizations, on the lines of the
British Association in science, that meet occasionally to bring together people whose main academic life take
place within more specialist organization; most L2 acquisition researchers for instance tend to go
conferences of the European Second Language Association (EUROSLA), International Symposia on
Bilingualism, Generative approaches to second language Acquisition (GASLA), or in the International
Association for Multilingualism, not to conferences named AL. Professional AL is now fairly restricted area.
Most practitioners probably style themselves primarily as SLA researchers, discourse analysis and the like,
rather than seeing AL as their major avocation.
Virtually every AL university degree programme in the world stresses and at the very least includes
research and practice in language teaching of languages; usually second languages or foreign languages but
not infrequently, first languages. Teaching would embody the methods and practices of how one person
educates or trains another person, and is also the act of overseeing the process of learning.
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The problem related to language teaching

Language teaching theoreticians have long been grappling is the question where to locate second
language teaching and learning within social sciences. Is it a science on its own or a sub-branch of
linguistics or applied linguistics? Some thirty years ago the answer to this question would be that language
teaching is a sub-branch of applied linguistics (AL). Today, even though applied linguistics is not viewed
as the sole parent science for language teaching in that applied linguistics, it has a lot to offer to cover
many of the topics that are inherent in the acquisition of second or foreign languages.
Applied linguistics does not seem to offer much in the name of pedagogy in as much as applied
linguistics is mainly concerned with accounting language rather than providing solutions to the problems of
what happens in language classes. As a central construct in language teaching, applied linguistics itself
suffered from discussions regarding its status. At the heart of these debates lay the question of whether
applied linguistics is a science on its own or whether it must be thought to exist under the auspices of FL
departments of universities. Such questions boil down, within the framework of the present paper and in
regard to SLA, to the question of whether SLA and teaching and learning of second or foreign language are
branches of applied linguistics or independent areas of study. Developments and on going discussions in
linguistics, psychology, and SLA research indicate that applied linguistics research contributed a lot to
language teaching and learning and still continues to do so. And the connection between language teaching
and AL is a tight one.
A perpetual controversy has surrounded the relationship of linguistics to applied linguistics. Despite
AILA’s fond belief that linguistics is the core, many feel linguistics is only one of the contributing
disciplines. AL has explored psychological models such as declarative/procedural memory and
emergentism, mathematical models such as dynamic system theory, early Soviet theories of child
development such as Vigotsky, French thinkers such as Foucaul and Bourdieu – nothing seems excluded.
Contemporary applied linguists feel free to draw on almost any field of human knowledge. The authors the
present book for instance use ideas from philosophy, education, sociology, feminism, Marxism,
Conversation Analysis and media studies, to take a sample. David Block in cook & wei (2009:2) called
applied linguistics ‘an amalgam of research interest.’ The question is whether applied linguists have the
polymathic ability to carry out such an amalgamation of diverse disciplines, or indeed diverse approaches
within these discipline, when the disciplines themselves are incapable of making this synthesis. It seems
inherently unsafe or indeed arrogant when the applied linguist redefines the human mind, human language
or language learning to suite the needs of an applied linguistics problem.
Linguistics nowadays plays a minimal role in applied linguistics whether in terms of current linguistics
theories or descriptive tools. Linguistics theories of the past twenty years barely mentioned by applied
linguistics. With the experience of Chomsky and to some extend Jackendoff, the theories come from
postmodernism, psychology or sociology rather than linguistics. Indeed some practitioners radiate hostility
towards linguistics, preferring to draw an almost any other area. One cause may be that the enthusiastic
selling of the 1980s generative model by its supporters let to the new that linguistics has nothing practical
to contribute and to a lack of interest in the many other approaches to linguistics practice today, say the
recent developments in phonetic and phonology.
So what problems does AL solve? If you are worried about your child’s speech, you are more likely to
go to speech therapist than to an applied linguist. If your country is torn by civil war between people who
use two scripts you are ask for United Nation Peacekeeping Force. If you drafting a new law, you go to a
constitutional layer or a civil war.
Meanwhile, the problem solving success of AL have included devising orthographies for languages
that have no written form and inventing simplified languages for mariners; AL successes have played a part
in EU projects on translation on linguistic diversity. Most success has, however, had to do with language
teaching. The syllabuses and methods that swept the world from the 1970s onwards, particularly associated
with the council of Europe.
At general level we can draw three implications from this. Needles to say, these personal
interpretations are not necessarily shared by all the contributions:
1) The applied linguist is a Jack of all trades. Real-world language problems can seldom be resolved by
looking at single aspect of language. Since applied linguistics is interdisciplinary, the applied linguist is
expected to know a little about many areas, not only of language, but also philosophy, sociology,
computer programming, experimental design and many more. In a sense, AL is not only Jack of all trades
but also master of none as they do not require the in-depth knowledge of the specialist so much as the
ability to filter out the ideas relevant to their concerns. An applied linguist who only does syntax or
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discourse analysis is an applied syntactician or an applied discourse analyst, not a member of

multidisciplinary AL profession. In other words multidisciplinarity applies not just to the discipline as a
whole but also to the individual practitioner.
2) The applied linguist is ago-between, not an enforcer, a servant, not a master. The problem that AL can
deal with is complex and multi-faceted. As consultants to other people, applied linguist can contribute
their own interpretation and advice. The client has to weigh in the balance all the other factors and decide
on the solution. Rather than saying ‘You should follow this way of language teaching’, the applied
linguist’s advice is ‘You could tray this way of language teaching and see whether it works for you’.
Alternatively the applied linguist should be responding to problems put forward by language teachers, not
predetermining what the problems are. The applied linguist is there to serve teacher’s needs, a garage
mechanic interpreting the customer’s vague idea of what is wrong with their car and putting it right,
rather than a car design.
3) Sheer description of any area of language is not applied linguistics as such but descriptive linguistics.
Some areas concerned with the description of language are regarded as applied linguistics, others are not.
Make a corpus analysis of an area or carry out a conversation analysis and you are doing applied
linguistics; make a description of grammar and you are doing syntax. Overall making a description is not
in itself solving a problem, even if it may contribute to the solution.
Outside language teaching, applied linguists have taken important roles behind the scenes as advisors
to diverse governmental and EU bodies, for example Hugo Baetens Beardsmore’s work with bilingualism.
But they have had little impact on public debate or decision-making for more language problems, the
honorable exceptions being the work of David Cristal and Debbie Cameron, whom many might not
consider primarily as applied linguist. Problems are not solved by talking about them at applied linguistics
conferences. The solution has to be taken out into the world to the language users. Take the political
correctness issue of avoiding certain terms for reasons of sexism, racism, and so on. This is based on one
interpretation of the relationship between language and thinking: not having a word means you can’t have
the concept, as George Orwell suggested with Newspeak. Yet applied linguists have been reluctant to
contribute their expertise to this debate, despite the extensive research into linguistics relativity of the past
decade. Public discussion of language issue is all ill-informed about language as it was fifty years ago at
the down of applied linguistics. As this reminds us, language is at the core of human activity. AL needs to
take itself seriously as a central discipline in the language sciences dealing with real problems. AL has the
potential to make a difference.

The applied linguistics of language teaching

This volume attempts to reassert the important of the AL of language teaching. It assumes that the
unique selling point of AL that distinguishes it from the many domains and sub-domains of psychology,
education and language teaching is language. At its core it needs a coherent theory of language, whether
this comes from linguistics or from some others discipline, a set rigorous descriptive tools to handle
language, and a body of research relevant to language teaching.
This is not to say that the language element has to dominate or that linguistics itself has to feature at
all but that it does not count as applied linguistics of language teaching:
1) If there is no language element. This does not mean it could not justifiable be studied as language
teaching methodology, applied psychology and so on. But why call it AL if there is no language content?
2) If the language elements are handled without any theory of language does not need to come from
linguistics but might be philosophy or were not traditions of language study whatsoever. Nor can the
methods of language description be based solely on folk ideas from the school tradition, which would be
rather like basing physics on alchemy or folk beliefs. Double some aspects of these may be interpreted in
a more up-to-date and scientific fashion, but this applies equally to alchemy.
3) If the research base is neither directly concerned with language teaching nor related to it in a
demonstrable way. That is to say, a theory from outside language teaching cannot be applied without a
clear chain of logic showing how and why it is relevant. An idea from mathematical theory, computer
simulation or first language acquisition needs to show its credentials by proving its link to second
language teaching through L2 evidence and argument, not imposing itself by fiat, by analogy, or by sheer
computer modeling. If one were, say, to adopt knitting theory as a foundation for the AL of language
teaching, one would need to demonstrate how warp and weft account for the basic phenomena of
language acquisition and use by showing empirical evidence of their applicability to second language
acquisition.

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Over the years the AL of language teaching has had its most important relationships with linguistics and
psychology. Applied linguist have design syllabuses and test used around the world: some have ventured into
course book writing. Most of this has been based on general ideas about language learning, going from the
early influence of the structuralism and behaviorism that led to the audio-lingual teaching method, the
influence of Chomsky an ideas about the independence of the learner’s language and social arguments by
Dell Hymes that jointly led to the communicative syllabus and communicative language teaching, and the
wave of cognitivism in psychology that contributed to task-based learning. By and large this has been
application at a general level, not based on detailed findings about second language acquisition. It is hard to
find teaching drawing on, say, and specific information about sequence of phonological acquisition or
studies of learners’ errors.
For many years it was assumed that the implementation of language teaching ideas was universally
beneficial. The applied linguist’s hired gun was on the side of the goodies. But it becomes clear that many
changes in language teaching methodology were not culturally, politically or morally neutral.
Communicative methodology for instance required a classroom where the teacher was an organizer rather
than an authority. In countries where teachers are treated as wise elders who know best, the image of the
teachers become proselytes for Western individualistic views, not seeing themselves as serving the students
within their own cultural situations for their own ends but as converting them to another role.
The choice of the native speaker as the target of language teaching has indeed become increasingly
problematic. On the one hand it was matter of which native speaker: why were dialect speakers I one country
excluded, say Geordies or Glaswegians? Why alternative standard languages were across the world
excluded, say Singapore English or Indian English? Clearly the choice of which native speaker to use was
based more on status and on power than on objective criteria; such as number of speakers or ease of learning.
On the other hand it was a matter of the value of monolingual native speakers. If your goal is to speak
English to other people who are not native speakers of English, what ahs the native speakers go to do with it?
While there is an argument for a form of English that ensures mutual comprehensibility, this does not
necessarily imply a status native speaker variety. The overwhelming importance of the native speaker in
language teaching has taken away the rights of people to speak like them and to express their own identities
as multilingualism; Geordies or Texans can show with every word they utter that they come from Newcastle
or Houston. Frenchmen must try to avoid any sign in English that they come from France. Hence, applied
linguistics has had to enter a harsher world where the value of language teaching cannot be taken for granted
as it may of establishing or reinforcing a subordinate status in the world.
The other main danger is that applied linguistics may be losing contact with actual teaching and so
giving up much of its impact. The interest in theories from different disciplines among applied linguist
means that they are saying gets further and further from answering the teacher’s question ‘What do I do with
my class of 14-year-olds learning French next Monday at 10 o’clock? One obvious retort is that it is not
know the specifics of any teacher’s classroom and should not over-ride the teacher’s feel for the complexity
of their situation and the needs of their students; at best applied linguist can provide general guidance on
which teachers can draw for their specific teaching situations.
But, as Michael Swan’s contribution to this volume illustrates, the applied linguist still tends to impose
theory-based solutions that ignore the reality that teachers face in the classroom and that are unsubstantiated
by an adequate body of pertinent research evidence. The implication is still that their recommendations
currently say task-based learning and negotiation form meaning, should apply to the whole of language
teaching rather than to the limited area and specific cultural context that is their proper concern. In the audio-
lingual teaching method of the 1960s, a crucial phase was exploitation; you teach the structure and
vocabulary through dialogues and drill and then you get the students to make them their own through role-
plays, games and likes: ‘some provisions will be made for the students to apply what they have learnt in a
structured communication situation’ (Rivers, 1964). The language teaching methods advocated by applied
linguists such as communicative language teaching and task-based learning have been a great help in
developing exploitation exercises. But, as Michael Swan points out, to exploit something it has to be there in
the first place; you can’t do the communicative activities or the tasks without having the basic vocabulary,
syntax and phonology to draw on: communicative language teaching and task-based learning presuppose a
prior knowledge of some language.
The crucial question for language teacher is how to prime the pump sufficiently for the communicative
and task-based activities to take place. Applied linguist have never solved the problem of bootstrapping
posed by Steven pinker many years ago. How does the child get the initial knowledge that is necessary for
acquiring the rest of the language? So AL has concerned itself with the analysis and frequency of vocabulary
but has seldom described the teaching techniques through which new vocabulary can be taught. If you want
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to find out about the techniques for teaching new elements of language, you have to turn to the teacher
training tradition such as Ur (1996) and Harmer (2007), not to book written by applied linguist. Just as
applied linguist used to lament that linguistics had become too rarefied for any application, so AL is
becoming too rarefied for language teaching.

The Research of AL on language teaching

Today, 'applied linguistics' is sometimes used to refer to 'second language acquisition', but these are
distinct fields, in that SLA involves more theoretical study of the system of language, whereas applied
linguistics concerns itself more with teaching and learning. In their approach to the study of learning, applied
linguists have increasingly devised their own theories and methodologies, such as the shift towards studying
the learner rather than the system of language itself, in contrast to the emphasis within SLA. Herewith, the
development of teaching language which was formulated by Fauziati (2002);

Diagram 1. Development of Language Teaching

The connection between development of language teaching and AL is tight. Applied linguist helps to
bridge the gap between practicing teachers and academies and research scientist. The research contributed a
lot to language teaching and learning, and provides solutions to the problems of what happens in language
classes. AL’s successes have played a part in EU projects on translation on linguistic diversity. Most success
has, however, had to do with language teaching.
The field of applied linguistics first concerned itself with second language acquisition, in particular
errors and contrastive analysis, in the 1950s and 1960s. In the 1970s, with the failure of contrastive analysis
as a theory to predict errors, second language researchers began to adopt Noam Chomsky's theory of
universal grammar to explain second language learning phenomena; its impact in applied linguistics and
language teaching was more limited. In the 1990s, more and more researchers began to employ research
methods from cognitive psychology. Researchers are mainly drawn from linguistics, anthropology,
psychology, and education.

Previous Research of Applied Linguistics

In two researches, Interlanguage Features and Interlanguage errors in English Textbooks for Junior High
School Students in Surakarta, is marked by significant number of error. The writers of the textbooks with
problems on vocabulary in finding adiquate equivalents for the key words. They have got difficulties in
translating Indonesioan cultural – bound words into English. They often did not notice several words, which
seemed to be adiquate equivalents. They have got in adiquate capability in translation skill that they often
use literal translation to express the intended meanings, which results in errors. Their language system
contains elements of both the L1 and TL. It is a fossilized interlanguage with the three major features
attached to it. They are systematicity, permeability, and fossilization. The present study has utulized one of
the theorithical approaches in second language aquisition research, namely Error Analysis.
In another research, EFL and Job Opportunities: Some Alternatives for EFL Teachers, had given the
result in English Department of FKIP-UMS the additional curriculum, ESP with specific emphasis on

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tourism and public relation has become a specific choice beside merely being an English teacher. With such
enriched curriculum the students/prepare for many alternatives job opportunities for their career.

CONCLUSION
Applied Linguistics has been used to solve most of the practical problems in language teaching to
study of learner. It collaborates with other disciplines such as linguistics, education, psychology and the like
in its research to find the solutions to language-related real-life problems. However, there are certain things
that applied linguist failed trying to give solutions to the users. Especially to the problems related to child’s
speech, civil war between people who use two scripts, and in drafting a new law which need their expert to
solve. Throughout try & error in research & practice, AL has been identified its direction and concentration
related to problem solving in language teaching.

REFERENCES

Cook, Guy & Seidlhofer, Barbara. 2009. Principle & Practice in Applied Linguistics. NY: Oxford Univ.
Press.

Cook, Vivian and Li wei. 2009. Contemporary Applied Linguistics (ed. Vol. 1). Great Britain: MPG
Books group.

Fauziati, Endang. 2002. Readings on Applied Linguistics. Surakarta: Muhammadiah Univ. press.

Research in language teaching. en.citizendium.org/wiki/Applied_linguistics. Retrieved 28/04/2013.

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