Applied Linguistics, ESP [PDF]

Zitiervorschau

BY AYSHA MOHD SHARIF What are the matters of concern/issues in Applied Linguistics? How are these related in the teaching of English for Specific purposes? Crystal (2001: 23) defines applied linguistics as “a branch of linguistics where the primary concern is the application of linguistic theories, methods and findings to the elucidation of language problems which have arisen in other areas of experience. The well-developed branch of applied linguistics is the teaching and learning of foreign languages.” As Crystal highlights that the primary concern is to the elucidation of language problems , it shows that the interpretation of applied linguistics has been done in several ways by different researchers who interpret different understanding of the field. Researchers like Brumfit, Widdowson, and Crystal have different interpretations of applied linguistics. Due to different interpretations, the pedagogical preoccupation of applied linguistics gradually gave way to a more extensive focus by including more aspects of the academic study of language. Due to this, different researcher focused on different academic study which included vocabulary, grammar, forensic studies, and discourse studies and so on. Therefore, Tudor (2005) highlighted that the identification of applied linguistics with language teaching methodology is very loose. The main difference seems to be in the degree of involvement of applied linguistics in the subject matter of language teaching. With different subject matter of language teaching, spoken and written discourses are mainly utilized in the study of applied linguistics. The written or spoken discourses can be related to any issue which may be related to language policies, gender issues, and sociolinguistic aspects. Some applied linguists are concerned with helping planners and policy-makers develop and implement a language policy, or develop programmes for immigrants coming to the United States or other countries. Therefore one the main issue in applied linguistics is that it tends to be concerned only with some aspects of language teaching and learning, namely those which are related to language itself. Strictly

speaking, foreign or second language methodology covers a much more extended area than that of linguistics application. As highlighted by Tudor (2005), applied linguistics has also been utilized in the study of special learning needs of specific populations. The special learning needs of specific populations can be seen as the idea of English for specific purposes where applied linguistics is also applied in teaching. Applied linguistics is defined as an interdisciplinary field of linguistics that identifies, investigates, and offers solutions to language-related real-life problems. Some of the academic fields related to applied linguistics are education, psychology, computer science, communication research, anthropology, and sociology. As generally perceived that applied linguistics is an interdisciplinary field of research for the study of all aspects of language use. Being a non-language-specific field, it primarily deals with mother, foreign and second language acquisition but also examines the relationship between language and such areas as the media, law, or communication which also highlights the element of ESP where there is a relationship between language and other areas. Another main issue is that when teaching applied linguistics, mostly there is a confusion whether the branches of applied linguistics are been taught on their own like discourse analysis or the practical language learning and teaching problems are included in them while teaching as applied linguistics is more related to the real world problems than the theoretical explorations. But interestingly the emergence of this issue of being related to applied linguistics relates it well with ESP teaching which also to an extent deals with the problems of the learners with the needs of the real world. ESP, a field of English language teaching targets in fulfilling the needs of the learners to meet the real world needs. The language used in ESP is a loaded weapon giving speakers power to effect changes in their immediate environment but, at the same time, this weapon can backfire if mishandled. It is vital that ESP students realize this power dimension and be trained to be careful and calculating in its handling. The connections in ESP between the real world and the language are context-governed.

As Applied linguistics is a vast field of different techniques which incorporates language elements like grammar, vocabulary, pragmatics in language learning and teaching, it has a dual functional characteristic where on one side it is dealing with the primary issues of fields like second and foreign language acquisition and pedagogy, sociolinguistics, discourse analysis where it majorly focuses on the theories of language acquisition, processes involved in acquisition, practical issues of language pedagogy whereas on the other hand it is more of interdisciplinary and academic biased in nature where it focuses on second language acquisition, language for specific purposes, language teaching, curriculum and focus on the research methods of applied linguistics which shows both the characteristics of being interdisciplinary and academic which is again related to ESP which is also interdisciplinary and academic in nature where different disciplines meet with language and are taught academically in different the contexts and the needs of the real world. The second functional characteristic of applied linguistics influences ESP teaching as ESP teaching is not about restricted language theories and rules but focus more on communicative aspects of language use. Different disciplines are connected with language which makes ESP significant as the language used in a particular discipline is taught in an ESP class. ESP teaching is very different from other fields of language teaching as it also does not focus on primary ideas and theories of language acquisition as applied linguistics primary function but focuses on the acquisition of language for communicating in a particular situation. It is taught academically and non-academically also to learners of different disciplines where the learners may be second language acquirers or a foreign language acquirers. But while teaching the application of teaching vocabulary, grammar for that particular situation is done with the principles of applied linguistics.

Therefore according to (Kramsch, 2000) mainly concern is with the level of performance and refers to the systematic application of validated principles to practical contexts. Although it

draws on theory, it is generally reserved for practitioners in language classrooms. This level of performance also predetermines the issues of its focus, such as language resources and skills, classroom tasks and activities, management of learning, ways of motivating students, lesson planning, curriculum and syllabus design, error correction, textbook/materials design, selection and evaluation (Tudor, 2005).