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likely to regard artificial languages with a jaundiced eye. In Chapter 4 (section 4) we
made the basic argument that for the applied linguist, language problems involve
more than language, listing the factors that must be taken into account.
Confronted by this list of factors that must be taken into account we can wonder
that artificial languages were ever considered viable. We have quoted Large on the
political aspect but an equally strong case against artificial languages can be made on
the other grounds, for example educational (providing the necessary resources for
teaching and learning), sociolinguistic (natural languages provide a major source of
identity for their speakers: it is difficult to see how this can transfer to an artificial
language, which has as one of its purposes the denial of local identity), psychological
(how motivated will people be to learn a language that, at least at present, has very
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114 An Introduction to Applied Linguistics
little to offer, not many speakers, no films, no pop songs, few books and so on),
cultural (natural languages are culture bearing but how can an artificial language
fulfil this function until it too becomes a natural language and then prone to all the
problems that artificial languages seek to avoid).
Crystal (1987) is not optimistic about take up for artificial languages, even on
semantic grounds where he points to the lack of semantic matching across languages:
Speakers of different languages may translate their mother-tongue words into an
artificial language, but this does not necessarily mean that they understand each
another any better. The figurative, idiomatic and connotative uses of words will
differ: for example, American and Soviet attitudes to a word like capitalism will not
alter simply because both sides agree to use the same artificial language label (Crystal
1987: 355).
As we shall see in Chapter 7, the applied linguist has been accused of being
seduced by power, of furthering the spread of dominant languages and not giving
sufficient support to the declining languages of minority groups. That may or may
not be the case: for many applied linguists it seems perfectly possible to support
language spread as a means of furthering wider communication as much among
the minorities as elsewhere and at the same time to offer support and expertise to the
speakers of declining languages in their attempts to survive. But above all the applied
linguist is likely to take a realistic view of the situation; and in the case of language
treatment, if the factors we have suggested he/she must take into account are
relevant, then it is likely that projects to develop artificial languages and modified
languages such as Basic English will be regarded as both flawed and irrelevant to the
solution of language problems.
8 CONCLUSION
In the last three chapters we have exemplified the work of applied linguistics, first (in
Chapter 3) as distinct from that of linguistics; second (in Chapter 4) in the fields of
language teaching and learning; and third (in Chapter 5) in other areas of language
use. We turn in Chapters 6 and 7 to more general considerations. In Chapter 6 we
discuss the professionalising of applied linguistics, while in Chapter 7 we query how
far current philosophical developments in the humanities and social sciences have
affected applied linguistics and in particular how influential socio-cultural theory
and the various critical stances (e.g. critical applied linguistics, critical discourse
analysis) are. Chapter 8, specially written for this Second Edition, takes stock of
applied linguistics in the first decade of the twentieth century and ends by ranging
back over the earlier chapters.
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Chapter 6
The professionalising of applied
linguists
Let me recite what history teaches, history teaches.
(Gertrude Stein, If I Told Him (A Completed Portrait of Picasso) )
1 INTRODUCTION
Now that we have exemplified the work and methods of applied linguistics, ranging
widely across the kinds of language problems addressed by the discipline, we turn
in the next chapters to two fundamental questions, that of the status of the profession
and that of the philosophical foundation of the subject. First, then, in this chapter
we discuss the extent to which applied linguistics can be regarded as a distinct
profession, its growth from early beginnings after the Second World War, its
institutional organisation, its provision of training and education for new members
and its concern with professional ethics.
2 THE GROWTH OF APPLIED LINGUISTICS
2.1 The flight to the professions
Applied linguistics has not escaped the so-called flight to the professions that has
been on the increase since the 1960s. In academia it has been seized on by those
disciplines for which there are direct vocational opportunities outside the academy.
Like other applied disciplines such as social work and business studies, applied
linguistics has been largely taken up by those who are already working in the field.
For that reason the entry has been at the postgraduate level and also for that reason
those seeking qualifications in applied linguistics are not typically seeking a career
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