Albert Weidemann

Five Generations of Applied Linguistics: Some Framework Issues

Series B: Applied & Interdisciplinary Papers

ISSN 1435-6481
Essen: LAUD 1998 (2nd ed. with divergent page numbering 2007)
Paper No. 282

Universität Duisburg-Essen
Albert Weidemann

University of Western Cape (South Africa)

Five Generations of Applied Linguistics: Some Framework Issues

Copyright by the author Reproduced by LAUD

1998 (2nd ed. with divergent page numbering 2007) Linguistic Agency
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Albert Weidemann

Five Generations of Applied Linguistics: Some Framework Issues1

A number of discussions in recent years have kept alive the debate on the definition of
applied linguistics. The range of the debate covers both ends of the spectrum of applied
linguistic work: the philosophical and the practical. This paper attempts to put a response to
such (re-)considerations into an interpretative framework, and considers the conception of
the discipline as it has evolved over five generations of applied linguistics. The argument of
the paper is that different historical understandings of applied linguistic work point to the
relativity of the discipline, and prevent its practitioners from entertaining the belief that,
because they are doing 'applied science', their designed solution to a language problem will
be sufficient.

Vyf geslagte van toegepaste taalkunde: 'n paar grondslagkwessies

'n Aantal onlangse besprekings hou die debat oor die definisie van die toegepaste taalkunde
aan die gang. Die diskussie strek oor beide kante van die spektrum van toegepaste
taalkundige werk: die filosofiese en die praktiese. Hierdie artikel poog om die diskussie te
plaas in 'n raamwerk waarin dit vertolk kan word, en skets die geskiedenis van die dissipline
deur die ontwikkeling daarvan deur vyf vorms (of opeenvolgende geslagte) te volg. Die
argument is dat die verskeidenheid gestaltes wat die toegepaste taalkunde aangeneem het 'n
aanduiding is van die relatiwiteit van die dissipline. Hierdie relatiwiteit behoort al klaar
beoefenaars te verhoed om te glo dat, net omdat hulle 'toegepaste wetenskap' beoefen, hulle
ontwerpe altyd genoegsame oplossings vir taalprobleme sal bied.

0. First Questions
A handful of discussions (James 1993; Sridhar 1993; Masny 1996; Lightbown and Spada
1993; and Stevick 1990) have re-opened the debate on the definition of applied linguistics.
The first three discussions are of a foundational character, the last two relate to language
teaching and learning, thus emphasizing that our definition and redefinition of applied
linguistics can come from both ends of the spectrum of applied linguistic work: the
philosophical, and the practical or pedagogical. This paper attempts to put our response to
such (re-)considerations into an interpretative framework.
Framework issues are themselves foundational issues. Normally, enquiries involving
the framework for our actions and endeavours attempt to answer a number of such 'first
questions':

1 This is a substantially reworked and expanded version of a set of arguments presented at the SAALA
1994 conference.

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 ■ What is our vision, what are the perspectives that support our work?
■ What underlying views and assumptions colour and determine our actions?
■ How is the world organized, and how do our own endeavours fit into that
structure?
The idea that we have of the world and its structure determines the way that we respond to
that world, to the contexts we live in, and to our own actions (cf. Masny 1996: 21, who
refers to our "ways of understanding and ways of being in the world"). This responsiveness,
or responsibility, is the very essence of our lives, also of our professional lives as language
teachers, teacher trainers and applied linguists.
Our responsiveness, in the above sense, is also without doubt always situated
historically. We therefore respond in and to a particular historical context.
All of this applies equally to our visions and practices as applied linguists. 2

1. The Rise of Applied Linguistics

In order to begin to respond to framework questions such as those posed above, we need to
gain a historical understanding of applied linguistics.
Applied linguistics is a fairly modern phenomenon. It arose in the 1940's, in the latter
part of the Second World War. The war effort required American soldiers to be able to
speak the languages of the Pacific, or of other places where Americans were dispatched to
do battle. Some theoretical linguists, who had an intimate knowledge of the structure of
especially the indigenous, American Indian languages, took up this concern. At the
inception of applied linguistics as a discipline the first concern was thus with the application
of linguistic analyses to language teaching. In audio-lingualism, which marks the beginning
of modern applied linguistics, we have an attempted solution to the problem of language
teaching that its authors believed could be justified, in addition to linguistic analysis, by
behaviourist psychology. Those of us who came through language laboratories in the 60's
will remember the Skinnerean approach that supported the learning theory behind audio-
lingualism: the more one repeats things, the more likely you are to learn them.
Implicit in the approach was also a theory that, in the same way that the linguist
dissects language, one needs to break language up into little units. Questions were not asked
about whether units of analysis and units of learning could be the same thing. Furthermore,
although the manner in which these bits would actually come together in the mind of the
learner remained a mystery to behaviourists, still they believed firmly that it would
somehow happen. In some fashion all these fragments would be synthesized. Where the
theory had left a vacuum, common sense at least seemed to imply that smaller, digestible
units were more easily learnable. The approach was imbued with the notion that learning
takes place incrementally, in small portions.
2 Because, historically, applied linguistics has made its influence felt most emphatically in the field of
language teaching, this discussion will refer freely to the influence of applied linguistics in that field.

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 Most importantly, to its proponents, audio-lingualism prescribed a method that was
indebted to linguistic theory in its 'scientifically chosen and arranged' language teaching
materials: Fries (1945) insists that this approach depends on materials that are arranged
according to linguistic principles, that the contribution of the techniques of scientific
analysis to language teaching is to 'provide a thorough and consistent check of the language
material,' if the language teaching method that derives from this is to be effective in
ensuring the maximum progress in the language being learned by the student. 3
There have, of course, been debates about whether the debt that audio-lingualism owes
to linguistics is not much more indirect than is often claimed, or, indeed, whether the aural-
oral procedure of audio-lingual teaching has anything to do with learning theory (cf. Carroll
1971: 110), but that is another debate. What matters is that the proponents of audio-
lingualism thought and believed that they were applying linguistic analysis, and that, in
doing so, their efforts were scientific and had for that reason become authoritative. James
sums it up (1993: 23):
This approach says that since linguistics is about language and it is language that
we teach, linguistics must also be about L2 teaching.
Applied linguistics, at its inception, therefore responded in the dual sense described above:
a) to the way its originators saw the world
b) to the urgent demands of its historical context
Of these, response (a) was to return to haunt the fledgling discipline. The belief that
scientific analysis will lead not only to truth but to the desired behaviour in the client has
been widespread in applied linguistics. As such, it has been held as an article of faith,
which, as Stevick (1990: 17) points out, is 'pervasive, unrecognized, and therefore very
powerful.' As Stevick, referring to Maley's pronouncements, also explains, those
assumptions that remain untested "are comparable to the assumptions that lead to
acceptance or rejection of what are called religions" (1990:4). My thesis is therefore that the
view that the originators of the discipline had of the world, viz. that scientific analysis
would be an authoritative guide to a desired outcome, was much stronger even than their
responsiveness to an urgent historical demand. In fact, their (b) response was crucially
determined by (a).
In an earlier analysis of the vacuity of Lado's claim that his seventeen 'principles' of a
'scientific approach' to language teaching were indeed derivable from linguistic theory
(Lado 1964: 49ff.), I concluded:

3 I leave out of the discussion here the peculiarly British approach, discussed by Brown (1993: 133), in
which "advanced students of English (or of Applied Linguistics) learnt to pronounce the consonants and
vowels of English slowly and clearly in isolation, before combining them with other segments into
words, carefully identifying the stressed syllable and, eventually, into sentences."

3
 Such statements on the 'application' of linguistics in language teaching would, no
doubt, have been seen to be bordering on the absurd if it had not been for the
aura of scientific truth in which they are dressed up. What is ludicrous upon
subjecting them to closer scrutiny, however, becomes tragic when one is
reminded that these principles provided the 'scientific' justification for one of the
most influential approaches to the teaching of foreign languages, viz. the audio-
lingual method (Weidemann, 1987: 42).
It is a point that applied linguists would do well to remember, and the rest of this discussion
will attempt to articulate a way of becoming critically aware - responsible - in doing applied
linguistics. In this sense I would agree with James (1993: 17) that applied linguistics 'is still
under-defined.'

2. The Further Historical Development of Applied Linguistics

Applied linguistics responded in successive waves to a complex set of historical influences,
and can be discerned to have undergone various adjustments to bring it into line with the ideas
of new users and its context of use. For the sake of coming to an understanding of these
developments, I shall categorize them as five successive generations of the discipline, with the
linguistic / behaviourist forefather discussed in section 1 above constituting the first of these.
The generation that filled the shoes of this parent can be characterized as continuing
the linguistic tradition in applied linguistics. The initial kinds of analyses that were
considered important before, namely phonological, morphological and syntactic analyses,
for a while remained prominent in applied linguistic work. But the scope of linguistic
analysis itself soon broadened to include semantic studies, text linguistics, discourse
analysis and all kinds of language studies that placed language in a social context and
claimed, therefore, that language was a social phenomenon, an instrument of
communication. Those studies began to influence applied linguistics as well, as is evident in
the development of some varieties of communicative teaching at the end of the 1970's and
the beginning of the 80's. This generation would fall into what Sridhar (1993: 5) categorizes
as the 'extended paradigm model' of applied linguistics. What all these developments
yielded in the end, however, remained a linguistic conception of applied linguistics. It
said, in essence, that if you wanted to teach languages then you had to make an analysis of
language first.
This conception did not endure. There was obviously something missing. For example,
what was missing - at least initially - in the communicative approach, was a theory of
language learning. The audio-lingualists at least could claim such a theory for their designs,
but what sort of learning theory, people were asking in the early 80's, was there behind
communicative language teaching? While many could readily agree that not the forms of
language but also its functions were important considerations in designing language courses,
how students would actually learn better was not clear at the inception of communicative
teaching. Initially this was the Achilles heel of the communicative approach.

4
 As a result, the predominance of linguistic concerns in applied linguistics came under
scrutiny, and those working in the field began to borrow from a multitude of other
disciplines: from pedagogy, from psychology and especially from that branch of the latter
that dealt with learning theory. The stimulus provided in what some still considered the
source discipline, linguistics, by the rise of transformational generative grammar and the
latter's own reliance on (and contribution to) cognitive psychology, was another cross-
current that aided this development. In a word, by linking up with insights from various
disciplines other than linguistics, third generation applied linguistics became a multi-
disciplinary enterprise.
It is difficult to summarize in a few sentences what was in effect a decade of criticism
of and change in applied linguistics. One important criticism stands out, a concern that
remained in spite of the fact that applied linguistics became a multi-disciplinary undertaking
in the early to mid-80's. This criticism was remarkable in that it was evidence of a practical
classroom concern that helped to change applied linguistics - a practitioner's concern, one
might call it.
The criticism concerned the confusion of analytical units with units of learning. Once
one has analyzed a language into forms and sentences - all highly abstract, analytical objects,
theoretical entities, not real ones - the question remained: are these units necessarily the best
units for learning a language that is not one's own? As Corder (1986: 186-187) puts it:
The syllabus that a teacher uses is essentially a linear one, a list of linguistic forms in
a certain order. From all the evidence we have about the way linguistic knowledge
develops spontaneously in the learner, that is not the way things happen.
The question remained unanswered in third generation applied linguistics, even among those
who entertained social views of language and were using other units of language such as
notions and functions as the building blocks with which language courses could be designed.
Again, the influence of Chomskyan ideas on applied linguistics should not be
underestimated. Chomsky's view of language was taken less as good linguistics to be
applied in language teaching than as good psychology, a psychology that could potentially
provide an explanation for how languages are learned, and how second languages are
acquired. Second language acquisition research was the characteristic feature, therefore,
of what I would call fourth generation applied linguistics. As Diane Larsen-Freeman
(1993) pointed out in a keynote address to AILA, language teaching methods today, unlike
those of the 60's, have grown out of and have been influenced by second language
acquisition research.
Second language acquisition research gave applied linguistics the hope of finding out
enough about how one learns another language in order to know how language teachers can
arrange things in a classroom - which normally is not a very friendly environment in which
to learn a language - to facilitate language learning. Since it appeared that learning another
language is easier and more successful outside of the classroom than inside it, the

5
expectation was that second language acquisition research could tell us how to replicate in a
classroom those conditions that exist outside of it, and which appear to make language
learning easier. Hence, as Lightbown and Spada (1993: 72) remark:
The design of communicative language teaching programs has sought to replace
some of the characteristics of traditional instruction with those more typical of
natural acquisition contexts.
The influence of Krashen on third generation applied linguistics perhaps stands out more
than any other, and the language teaching methodologies that are a prime example of this
influence come together in the Natural Approach (Terrell 1985; Krashen & Terrell 1983).
These ideas struck a powerful chord in the minds of teachers who had already abandoned
traditional grammar translation methods and audio-lingualism for communicative teaching.
More recently, in the late eighties, applied linguistics, at least in the way that it is
practised in South Africa, has come to rely more heavily on social theory. This fifth
generation type of applied linguistics is characterised more than anything else by
constructivism. In a way, this resulted in a revival of the older ideas on experiential learning:
that somehow, when we learn, we construct knowledge in our interactions with others, be
they teachers or peers. Knowledge is systematically constructed in interactions with others:
In order to learn, students need an environment that provides both stimuli to learn
and resources for learning. This rather stale observation takes on new meaning as
we agree that students must construct their own knowledge... New knowledge
comes only from the engagement of the student's own interest in something
beyond her present understanding (Moulton 1994: 33).
In constructivism, incidentally, one found a belated psychological justification for
communicative teaching (cf. Greyling 1993). All of the basic techniques of the
communicative approach, viz. information gap exercises, role play tasks and group
information gathering techniques, were ideal techniques for allowing the learner to build a
language in interaction with others.
This generation of applied linguistic work is well represented by research that has been
called 'interpretive', since
such research proposes that all knowledge is culturally embedded in specific
social contexts, and that it therefore needs to be understood ... from the particular
points of view of the people acting in these contexts and how they collaborate to
construct their realities socially (Gumming 1994: 685).
As Spada (1994: 686) points out, the value of such analysis is that it allows one to examine
interactions (for example between teacher and learner, or between learner and learner) that
may be more or less effective for language learning to take place, thus allowing the
inexperienced teacher to become sensitive to good (or ineffective) practice, and the
experienced teacher to reflect on and find a systematic, rational justification for effective
classroom performance.

6
 The five generations of applied linguistic work discussed above can be summarised in
the following diagram:

Description Characterised by
1 Linguistic / behaviourist 'scientific' approach
2 Linguistic 'extended paradigm language is a social
model' phenomenon
3 Multi-disciplinary model attention also to learning
theory and pedagogy

4 Second language acquisition experimental research

research into how languages are
learned
5 Constructivism knowledge of a new
language is interactively
constructed

3. The Effects of the Historical Development of Applied Linguistics

The development of especially fourth generation (second language acquisition research) and
fifth generation (constructivist) applied linguistics has spawned a research industry that has
gained its own momentum. While this industry demands discussion in its own right, it
deserves to be noted here that all of the divisions inherent in the various traditions of applied
linguistic work outlined above are also present in this research. Cumming's (1994) survey,
for example, outlines not only the descriptive approach that characterises the initial concerns
of second language acquisition research (such as the order of acquisition of morphemes, the
role of comprehensible input in language acquisition, and so on), but also current studies
based on previous generations of applied linguistics such as text analysis (see Connor 1994).
The latter kind of investigation belongs squarely in what has been described here as second
generation applied linguistics, yet the studies referred to stretch well into the 90's. I shall
return below to the co-existence of successive generations of applied linguistics and the
meaning of this for our interpretation of the discipline. In addition, Cumming's (1994)
survey highlights the emergence of approaches that run counter to the empiricist and
positivist traditions in the earlier research: ethnographic studies, for example, and, even
more important, what the survey calls 'ideological' orientations. The latter, as Pennycook's
(1994) contribution makes clear, are concerned with the political dimensions of language
teaching, and with the uneven distribution of power among participants (learners and
teachers) in the language classroom. These orientations seek, for example, to expose
unequal relations among those who prescribe how language teaching must be done (i.e.
curriculum designers and planners) and those who have to carry it out. Critical and

7
participatory approaches present an alternative to dominant, mainstream approaches. Their
underlying philosophy is critical of positivist research strategies and pursuits; their
interpretation of the changes in language teaching is that we have not seen scientifically
inspired progress, but rather a series of transformations that "are due principally to shifts in
the social, cultural, political, and philosophical climate" (Pennycook 1989: 608).
Moreover, these new approaches have enlivened the debate on the merits of
quantitative over qualitative research. In her survey of qualitative research, Lazaraton
(1995) takes the view that the emergence of a qualitative research tradition points to a
'second coming of age of the research in applied linguistics,' the first coming of age being
the quantitative research tradition, represented best by second language acquisition
research, or what this discussion has called third generation applied linguistics (for the
use of the term 'coming of age of the discipline', see Henning 1986: 704). The merits and
demerits of quantitative and qualitative research can never be argued on purely rational
grounds. The differences are foundational, philosophical ones, relating to the way we see
the world. As Nunan (1992: 10) points out,
One reason for the persistence of the distinction between quantitative and
qualitative research is that the two approaches represent different ways of
thinking about and understanding the world around us. Underlying the
development of different research traditions and methods is a debate on the
nature of knowledge and the status of assertions about the world, and the debate
itself is ultimately a philosophical one.
Moreover, he continues (1992: 20):
Underpinning quantitative research is the positivistic notion that the basic
function of research is to uncover facts and truths which are independent of the
researcher. Qualitative researchers question the notion of an objective reality.
What, however, is the net effect of the increasing variety in the research traditions within
applied linguistics? This variety is itself an indication, one might argue, of an emerging
sixth generation of applied linguistics, a post-modern one that is accommodating of a
number of perspectives and, as Masny (1996: 3) states, posits the view that "second
language education is political."
The main effect of the development of applied linguistics as a discipline is perhaps a
professional and practical one. There is no doubt that the five successive generations of
applied linguistics described here have led, over the relatively short space of 50 years, to a
professionalization of applied linguistics. The power of applied linguistics (and of applied
linguists) should therefore not be underestimated. When one submits a language course to a
publisher today, for example, that publisher will send the draft to several referees, at least
one of whom will write a note on whether the programme in question conforms to current
ideas on second language acquisition. In more progressive contexts, the person designing or
reviewing a new language course for publication may now be much more sensitive to the

8
political dimensions of the course design, asking whether the material will empower or
disempower the teacher. The latter concerns belong to an emerging new tradition in applied
linguistics. But whatever the tradition or perspective, the important point to note is that
applied linguistics itself has gained institutional influence by its recognition as a profession.
Where the power of a human institution is under scrutiny, the inevitable further
consideration is that of the limitations to that power. In the next section we shall briefly
consider this.

4. The Limitations of Applied Linguistics

How do those affected by the historically developed power of applied linguistics, as
described in the previous section, respond to it? Particularly language teachers and teacher
trainers, whose daily working lives are affected most directly, would be wise to consider
their deliberate response to applied linguistics, for they are the ones most likely to fall
victim to the latest, and most fashionable, or oldest, but most persuasive, approach.
However remote applied linguistics may therefore seem to be to these professionals, their
knowledge of the field may determine whether they will be victim or beneficiary.
We should note, right at the outset, that while applied linguistics is a powerful modern
institution, its power is not absolute. For example, between the intentions inherent in the designs
of applied linguists and their actual implementation in the language classroom there could be
substantial room for error and interpretation. Moreover, as Stevick points out (1990: 14):
... we must also recognize that practical action is often based on more than
knowledge of intellectual theories and their rational evaluation. Any action that is
of any consequence is derived from a mixture of sources, some - but only some -
of which are intellectual.
However great the fascination with our theoretically justified designs for language teaching,
therefore, Stevick warns against entertaining "the belief that they are sufficient for dealing
with all important problems" (1990: 14). In the terminology I have adopted in this
discussion, this is a framework or structural limitation to the historically developed power of
applied linguistics.
This limitation is not the only one that is inherent in applied linguistics. In order to
understand this further limitation we should note two things. Having considered the history
of applied linguistics, we should consider, first, that in the development of applied
linguistics, in fact at its very inception, a faith commitment was made. The content of this
commitment was that applied linguistics was a scientific endeavour, and that, by virtue of
being scientific, it was - in the Western mindset - automatically sound, trustworthy and
reliable. It therefore had all those attributes that one would normally expect to ascribe to the
objects of religious devotion: to a god, or to some divine power in our lives. In the works of
the founding fathers of applied linguistics, certitudinal terminology abounds, and this faith
commitment almost inevitably called up its antithesis. Jakobovits and Gordon probably gave

9
the best formulation of this opposition a good twenty years ago, when they remarked: "The
'expert' and his research have been elevated to totally unrealistic levels of respect and
adoration.... This deference to an all-powerful research divinity is entirely misplaced"
(1974: 85,86), and proceeded to elaborate a position that emphasized beyond all else 'the
new consciousness of the youth generation, of freedom, of the self, the 'freedom-giving leap
into the unknown.' As I have pointed out elsewhere (Weideman 1987: 82):
It is ironic that Western thought, having severed every relation between faith and
science, should merely find a new commitment - in science itself - to replace the
former set of beliefs. The distinction between commitment and analysis is therefore
not one that is easily understood by those who confess both that science is the
soundest knowledge we have and that actions that flow from scientific intervention
and justification are, by virtue of this, better, more accurate and efficient.
The influence of this kind of thinking was not limited to when linguistic analyses were
applied to language teaching problems, but extended to other fields as well. French (1990:
547) complains about the claims in adult literacy work "to educational usefulness that are
made by the makers of programmes and materials that are supposedly based on linguistic
principles," and about "the fetishism of 'scientifically designed' materials and methods." In
fact, Masny's post-modern critique of applied linguistics identifies unequivocally the
positivist thread that has run through successive waves of applied linguistic work, right up
to what has been described here as fourth generation applied linguistics:
Philosophically, they are based in a modern rationalist, positivist perspective. I
want to propose the postmodern view that allows for other forms of knowledge to
be validated... The postmodernists would argue that second language education is
political (Masny 1996: 3; cf. also p. 11).
Essentially the same point is made by Pennycook (1989: 589), who sets out to demonstrate that
prescriptive designs for language teaching reinforce 'a positivist, progressivist and patriarchal
understanding of teaching', and play "an important role in maintaining iniquities between, on
the one hand, predominantly male academics and, on the other, female teachers and language
classrooms on the international power periphery." I shall return below to the task that applied
linguistics has to counter the victimising effects of such imbalances of power.
The second point that one should note is that the historical development of applied
linguistics should itself have alerted those who willingly put their faith in it to its relativity.
As we saw in the preceding discussion, applied linguistics underwent five (generational)
changes: one orthodoxy (e.g. audio-lingualism) yielding to another (communicative
teaching) in several successive phases. Something that one puts one's faith in is not
normally expected to change so quickly and dramatically.
In present day language teaching, furthermore, one can distinguish at least three
directions, all of which claim some scientific justification within applied linguistics as a
discipline. These three can be identified as an authoritarian direction (embodied in all
forms of traditional and grammar translation teaching, as well as in the implementation of

10
audio-lingualism in the classroom), a technocratic direction (some interpretations of audio-
lingualism, as well as the 'British' school of the mainstream communicative approach) and a
revolutionary or humanistic one (as in Suggestopedia, Counseling Learning). All are very
much in evidence at this very time. Stevick's (1990) recent re-appraisal of the latter
direction, the fact that communicative language teaching is very much regarded as the
reigning orthodoxy (Larsen-Freeman 1993) - even though it may not amount to much more
than lip-service in practice (see Karavas-Doukas's 1996 investigation of this mismatch
between belief and practice) - and the adherence of many teachers to more conventional
teaching methods or to audio-lingualism, all testify to the simultaneous existence of a
variety of scientifically justified teaching practices. In addition to the historical relativity of
applied linguistics, we should therefore also note the synchronic relativity of applied
linguistic concept formation. Together, these two kinds of relativity point to one of the
crucial limitations of applied linguistic endeavour.
Yet another limitation, already alluded to above, concerns what I would call
framework or structural issues. Perhaps this is best summed up in the statement that to
analyse is not to design. Put differently: if we start doing applied linguistics from an
uncritical belief in the sufficiency of scientific analysis, we are proceeding from a vision
that oversteps the structural limitations of the endeavour. Analysing language, or even
analysing a practical language problem, does not automatically give us any kind of solution.
It may be the first step, with limited, historically biased analytical tools, towards gaining an
equally limited, historically determined understanding of the problem. But it does not yield
the solution required, a solution that normally finds embodiment in a design.
So if the historical evolution of our discipline is imbued with a firm belief in science as
all-powerful, we have no alternative but to define, and redefine, applied linguistics to bring
it into line with an understanding that acknowledges its limitations.

5. Applied Linguistics as a Discipline of Design

Many of those attempting to define applied linguistics have wrestled with the problems
outlined in the previous section, and the most frequently used solution to these has been to
try to conceive of applied linguistics as a multi-disciplinary enterprise (cf. James 1993;
Weideman 1987: 56-71) in the way that third generation applied linguistics set out to do.
This is also characteristic of more recent approaches (cf. Sridhar 1993: 13). But this does
not adequately confront or explain some of the different historical understandings of applied
linguistics. Furthermore, as Halliday (1992: 61) points out,
Our practice as language teachers depends more on our being able to adopt the
complementary perspectives of two conflicting themes, that of learning' and that
of 'meaning', than on putting together pieces from linguistics with pieces from
psychology and sociology.

11
As is the case with language planning, preparing a solution for a language teaching problem
'means introducing design processes and design features into a system' (Halliday 1992: 62)
that does not have them. This is the key responsibility of applied linguistic endeavour.
In my own understanding, applied linguistics is best understood to entail a process of
addressing language problems first to gain understanding of them, and subsequently to
subject the problems to analysis - 'adding value', as James (1993) describes it. But the third,
most crucial step in this process is to propose, on the basis of the first two steps, a designed
solution to the problem.
In the case of language teaching, such designs normally come in the shape of courses,
programmes, teaching aids and materials. The point about the process of designing solutions
for language problems, however, is that the understanding of the problem and the possible
solution are present at each step. The solution may change from its initial conception, and
be influenced by a further (analytical) understanding of the problem, and may even be
deliberately put in the background until a great variety of factors have been considered, but
it is present in some conceptual form from very early in the process. All design disciplines
probably function like this, but it is understandably difficult for the applied linguists who
want to claim scientific validity for their efforts to acknowledge this.
In any event, coming up with a designed solution does not mean imposing it (even if
one continues to subscribe to earlier, scientistic views of applied linguistics). The user (and
the user's problem) remain central, as James correctly points out. There is a reciprocity (see
Cameron, 1994 and Bygate & Letts 1994) in doing applied linguistics:
The system will atrophy if the user just sits waiting to be told what the designer
assumes will be of interest to the user: there must be interaction (James 1993: 29).

6. The Tasks of a Redefined Applied Linguistics

It should be clear from the preceding that my own answer to the framework questions asked
at the beginning point to a much more humble stance to be adopted by applied linguistics
and those doing it than is evident in the positivist tradition within the discipline. Assuming a
more humble role does not mean that applied linguistics is less important as a human design
action, though. Given the feasible tasks for applied linguistic work implicit in the
redefinition outlined above, I would claim that it has more than enough to do. Let me
conclude by listing some of the ones that to me are more important.
Applied linguistics can, and must (sometimes in opposition to its own historical power)
■ counter all efforts to make language teachers the victims of theory or of
imposed designs
The problem, as Ahellal (1993:42) defines it, is that
The majority of teachers relate to applied linguistics as subordinate recipients.
They take it for granted that it is the responsibility of the linguist, as a

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theoretician, and the applied linguist, as a mediator, to find solutions for
classroom problems.
This means, positively, that teachers must be beneficiaries, and that in order to become
beneficiaries, they should take an active hand in the designing and redesigning of what
they teach (Corder 1986: 189 echoes the same sentiment). It also means, of course,
that academic applied linguistics and teacher training courses should introduce some
form of critical understanding of the discipline.
■ introduce imaginative solutions to language problems
It is beyond question that some applied linguistic designs have yielded mindless,
boring solutions to language teaching problems. Our desire to have imaginative
solutions does not mean that we should grab at any novel, fashionable idea simply
because it relieves the hard effort of learning something new. It does mean, however,
that we should be trained to justify even our most creative and apparently innovative
designs against a larger framework.
■ emancipate teachers from toil and drudgery
Applied linguistics has a good record in designing commercially produced teaching and
especially testing materials. If it is to take seriously the task of emancipating teachers
from drudgery as well as from authoritarian prescriptivism, my only additional plea
would be for course designers to leave room for creativity and interpretation, and not to
attempt, for example, to prescribe everything in a teacher's manual.
■ evolve new ways for the disclosure of culture
Foreign language teaching in Europe, stimulated greatly by the move towards the creation
of the European Union and its predecessors, has not only given communicative language
teaching a context in which it could grow, but has opened up further dimensions. There is
a new awareness of the cultural component of language teaching that, as far as I can see,
goes beyond the traditional imperialist and colonialist attitudes behind language teaching
to move to a critical, reflective language teaching practice (Kramsch 1993).
■ liberate language teachers to works of service, care and mercy
The context of language teaching in our own country, given the levels of illiteracy
among the majority of our population, should be evidence enough of the need for
thoughtful, caring applied linguistic designs for the solution of such problems. The
discussion of these designs in fact constitute the bulk of the contributions made at
formally structured debates such as the annual SAALA conferences, and it is right that
this is so (for two earlier foundational treatments of the subject matter of these
conferences, see Vorster 1980, and Young 1990). What needs to be added is to
participate in such endeavour responsibly and in humility, and this paper set out to
stimulate an awareness of a possible framework fordoing so.

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It should be clear from these conclusions that I take a view of applied linguistics that makes
it embody an emancipatory, liberating and healing enterprise. The tasks outlined above for a
redefined applied linguistics should also make it clear that in this idea of the discipline we
are liberated not only from trends and dogmas, but to positive action. In an earlier appraisal,
I concluded that
Applied linguists everywhere should be able to say to the world: here is
assembled a group of dedicated experts, people informed both about the nature of
language and about the acute problems accompanying the accessibility,
acquisition, development, use and loss of language in our daily lives. We are a
group dedicated not to give final answers to many of these problems, but
determined rather to employ what skills we have mastered to the benefit of those
who need us most: the underprivileged, the destitute, the handicapped. We are
determined to lead our discipline into avenues that are beneficial to mankind,
something that advocates of 'applied' science have sometimes miserably failed in
doing (Weideman 1987: 174).
I would not wish to conclude differently today, and it is my hope that all associations of
language practitioners in Africa will continue their work in this spirit.

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