critical applied linguistics: concerns and domains

- critical applied linguistics: concerns and domains.
- Introduction Critical applied linguistics is not yet a term that has wide currency.
- What is Critical Applied Linguistics? Is it an approach, a theory or a discipline? Simply put, it is a critical approach to applied linguistics.
- Such an understanding, however, leads to several further questions: What is applied linguistics? What is meant by “critical”? Is critical applied linguistics merely the addition of a critical approach to applied linguistics? Or is it something more? These questions are still left open for different interpretations.
- With a view to providing tentative answers to these questions, this article is designed as a sketch of of what is meant by critical applied linguistics.
- A number of important concerns and questions that can bring us closer to an understanding of what is taken to be critical applied linguistics will be raised.
- The scope and coverage of applied linguistics - The notion of praxis as a way of going beyond a dichotomous relation between theory and practice - Different ways of understanding the notion “critical.
- The importance of relating micro - relations of applied linguistics to macro - relations of society - The need for a critical form of social inquiry - The role of critical theory - Critical applied linguistics as a constant questioning of assumptions - The importance of an element of self reflexivity in critical work - The role of ethically argued preferred futures - An understanding of critical applied linguistics as far more than the sum of its parts.
- Critical applied linguistics concerns Applied Linguistics To start with, to the extent that critical applied linguistics is seen as a critical approach to applied linguistics, it needs to operate with a broad view of applied linguistics.
- The Longman Dictionary of Applied Linguistics gives us two definitions: “the study of second and foreign language learning and teaching” and “the study of language and linguistics in relation to practical problems, such as lexicography, translation, speech pathology, etc.” From this point of view, then, we have two different domains, the first to do with second or foreign language teaching (but, not, significantly, first language education), the second to do with language - related problems in various areas in which language plays a major role.
- This first version of applied linguistics is by and large a result historically of its emergence from applying linguistic theory to contexts of second language pedagogy in the United States in the 1940s.
- The second version is a more recent broadening of the field, although it is certainly not accepted by applied linguists such as Widdowson (1999), who continue to argue that applied linguistics mediate between linguistic theory and language teaching.
- In addition, there is a further question as to whether we are dealing with the application of linguistics to applied domains - what Widdowson (1980) termed linguistics applied – or whether applied linguistics has a more autonomous status.
- The applied linguistics that critical applied linguistics deals with, by contrast, is a strong version marked by breadth of coverage, interdisciplinarity, and a degree of autonomy.
- From this point of view, applied linguistics is an area of work that deals with language use in professional setting, translation, speech pathology, literacy, and language education.
- Critical applied linguistics adds many new domains to this.
- Praxis A second concern of applied linguistics in general, and one that critical applied linguistics also needs to address, is the distinction between theory and practice.
- This is a common orientation in the linguistics-applied-to-language-teaching approach to applied linguistics.
- I want to resist both versions of applied linguistics in all its contexts as a constant reciprocal relation between theory and practice, or preferably, as “that continuous reflexive integration of thought, desire and action sometimes referred to as ‘praxis’ (Simon,1992 : 49).
- This is why it is possible to suggest that critical applied linguistics is a way of thinking and doing, a “continuous reflexive integration of thought, desire and action.” Being Critical If the scope and coverage of applied linguistics needs careful consideration, so too does the notion what it means to be critical or to do critical work.
- Similarly, while the sense of critical reading in literacy criticism usually adds an aesthetic dimension of textual appreciation, many versions of literacy criticism have attempted to create the same sort of “critical distance” by developing “objective” methods of textual analysis.
- Much work that is done in “critical thinking - a site in which one might expect students to learn ways of evaluating the “uses” of text and the implications of taking up one reading position over another - simply assumes an objectivist view of knowledge and instructs students to evaluate texts’ “credibility”, “purpose,” and “bias”, as if these were transcendent qualities.
- It is this sense of “critical” that has been given some space by many applied linguists (e.g Widdowson,1999) who argue that critical applied linguistics should operate with this form of critical distance and objectivist evaluation rather than a more politicized version of critical applied linguistics.
- The second argument is one that also insists on the notion of “critical” as always engaging with questions of power and inequality, but it differs from the first in terms of its rejection of any possibility of critical distance or objectivity.
- Micro and Macro Relations Whichever of these two positions we take, however, it is clear that rather than basing critical applied linguistics on a notion of teachable critical thinking skills, or critical distance from social and political relations, critical applied linguistics has tways of relating aspects of applied linguistics to broader social, cultural, and political domains.
- One of the shortcomings of work in applied linguistics generally has been a tendency to operate with what is elsewhere called decontextualised contexts.
- It is common to view applied linguistics as concerned with language in context, but the conceptualization of context is frequently one that is limited to an overlocalized and undertheorized view of social relations.
- One of the key challenges for critical applied linguistics, therefore, is to find ways of mapping micro and macro relations, ways of understanding a relation between concepts of society, ideology, global capitalism, colonialism, education, gender, racism, sexuality, class and classroom utterances, translations, conversions, genres, second language acquisition, media texts.
- Whether it is critical applied linguistics as a critique of mainstream applied linguistics, or as a form of critical text analysis, or as an approach to understanding the politics of translation, or as an attempt to understand implications of the global spread of English, a central issue always concerns how the classroom, text, or conversation is related to broader social cultural and political relations.
- That is to say, critical applied linguistics is concerned not merely with relating language contexts to social contexts but rather does so from a point of view that views social relations as problematic.
- A central element of critical applied linguistics, therefore, is a way of exploring language in social contexts that goes beyond mere correlations between language and society and instead raises more critical questions to do with access, power, disparity, desire, difference, and resistance.
- At the very least, this body of work reminds us that critical applied linguistics needs at some level to engage with the long legacy of Marxism, Neo-Marxism, and its many counterarguments.
- Looking more broadly at the implications of this line of thinking, we might say that “critical” here means taking social inequality and social transformation as central to one’s work.
- Taking up Poster’s (1989) terms, critical applied linguistics is an approach to language-related questions that spring from an assumption that we live amid a world of pain and that applied linguistics may have an important role in either the production or the alleviation of some of that pain.
- Problematizing Givens While the sense of critical thinking as discussed earlier - a set of thinking skills - attempts almost by definition to remain isolated from political questions, from issues of power, disparity, difference, or desire, the sense of “critical” that is to be made central to critical applied linguistics is one that takes these as the sine qua non of our work.
- Critical applied linguistics is not about developing a set of skills that will make the doing of applied linguistics more politically accountable.
- A great deal of the work currently being done in critical domains related to critical applied linguistics often falls into this category of emancipatory modernism, developing a critique of social and political formations but offering only a version of an alternative truth in its place.
- From this point of view, critical applied linguistics is not only about relating micro - relations of applied linguistics to macro - relations of social and political power.
- Rather, it is also concerned with questioning what is meant by and what is maintained by many of the everyday categories of applied linguistics: language learning, communication, difference, context, text, culture, meaning, translation, writing, literacy, assessment, and so on.
- Self-reflexivity Such a problematizing stance leads to another significant element that needs to be made part of any critical applied linguistics.
- If critical applied linguistics needs to retain a constant skepticism, a constant questioning of the givens of applied linguistics, this problematizing stance must also be turned on itself.
- The notion of “critical” also needs to imply an awareness “of the limits of knowing”.
- This self-reflexive position also suggests that critical applied linguistics is not concerned with producing itself as a new orthodoxy, with prescribing new models and procedures for doing applied linguistics.
- Preferred Futures Critical applied linguistics also needs to operate with some sort of vision of what is preferable.
- For this reason, ethics has to become a key building block for critical applied linguistics, although, as with my later discussion of politics, this is not a normative or moralistic code of practice but a recognition that these are ethical concerns with which we need to deal.
- Critical Applied Linguistics as Heterosis Using Street’s (1984) distinction between autonomous and ideological approaches to literacy, Rampton (1995b) argues that applied linguistics in Britain has started to shift from its “autonomous ” view of research with connections to pedagogy, linguistics, and psychology to a more “ideological” model with connections to media studies and a more grounded understanding of social processes.
- Critical applied linguistics opens the door for such change even wider by drawing on yet another range of “outside” work (critical theory, feminism, postcolonialism, poststructuralism, antiracist pedagogy)” that both challenges and greatly enriches the possibilities for doing applied linguistics.
- This means not only that critical applied linguistics implies a hybrid model of research and praxis but also that it generates something that is far more dynamic.
- Put more simply, my point here is that critical applied linguistics is far more than the addition of a critical dimension to applied linguistics.
- rather, it opens up a whole new array of questions and concerns, issues such as identity, sexuality, or the reproduction of Otherness that have hitherto not been considered as concerns related to applied linguistics.
- It might be objected that what is being sketched out here is a problematically normative approach: by defining what is mean by critical and critical applied linguistics, An approach that already has a predefined political stance and mode of analysis is being set up.
- There is a certain tension here: an overdefined version of critical applied linguistics that demands adherence to a particular form of politics is a project that is already limited.
- but we also cannot envision a version of critical applied linguistics that can accept any political viewpoint.
- The way forward here is this: On the one hand, we are arguing that critical applied linguistics must necessarily take up certain positions and stances.
- The notion of heterosis, however, opens up the possibility that critical applied linguistics is indeed not about the mapping of a fixed politics onto a static body of knowledge but rather is about creating something new.
- These critical applied linguistics concerns are summarized in Table 2..
- Table 2 Critical Applied Linguistics Concerns.
- Critical applied linguistics.
- Applied linguistics interdisciplinarity, and.
- applied linguistics to texts, and so on as.
- Acceptance of the.
- problematization of the.
- Domains of critical applied linguistics Critical applied linguistics, then, is more than just a critical dimension added onto applied linguistics: It involves a constant skepticism, a constant questioning of the normative assumptions of applied linguistics.
- It demands a restive problematization of the givens of applied linguistics and presents a way of doing applied linguistics that seeks to connect it to questions of gender, class, sexuality, race, ethnicity, culture, identity, politics, ideology, and discourse.
- In this second part a rough overview is given of domains seen as comprising critical applied linguistics.
- But taken in conjunction with the issues raised earlier, it presents us with two principal ways of conceiving of critical applied linguistics - various underlying principal ways and various domains of coverage.
- Critical Discourse Analysis and Critical Literacy It might be tempting to consider critical applied linguistics as an amalgam of other critical domains.
- From this view point, critical applied linguistics would either be made up of or constitute the intersection of, areas such as critical linguistics, critical discourse analysis (CDA), critical language awareness, critical pedagogy, critical sociolinguistics, and critical literacy.
- First, the coverage of such domains is rather different from that of critical applied linguistics.
- Third, it seems more constructive to view critical applied linguistics not merely as an amalgam of different parts or a metacategory or critical work but rather in more dynamic and productive terms.
- And finally, crucially, part of developing critical applied linguistics is developing a critical stance toward other areas of work, including other critical domains.
- Critical applied linguistics may borrow and use work from these other areas, but it should certainly only do so critically.
- Nevertheless, there are clearly major affinities and overlaps between critical applied linguistics and other named critical areas such as critical literacy and critical discourse analysis.
- Critical literacy has less often been considered in applied linguistics, largely because of its greater orientation towards first language literacy, which has often not fallen within the perceived scope of applied linguistics.
- It is possible, however, to see critical literacy in terms of the pedagogical application of critical discourse analysis and therefore a quite central concern for critical applied linguistics.
- Clearly, CDA will be an important tool for critical applied linguistics.
- Critical Approaches to Translation Other domains of textual analysis to critical applied linguistics include critical approaches to translation.
- Such as stance clearly matches closely the forms of critical applied linguistics that has been outlined so far: it is based on an ethics of difference, and tries in its practice to move toward change.
- Work on translation and colonial and postcolonial studies is also of interests for critical applied linguistics.
- Once again, such work clearly has an important role to play in the development of critical applied linguistics.
- Language Teaching Language teaching has been a domain that has often been considered the principal concern of applied linguistics.
- There is critical analysis of curriculum design and needs analysis, including a proposal for doing “critical needs analysis” that assumes that institutions are hierarchical and that those at the bottom are often entitled to more power than they have.
- Language Testing As a fairly closely defined and practically autonomous domain of applied linguistics and one that has generally adhered to positivist approaches to research and knowledge, language testing has long been fairly resistant to critical challenges.
- There is a demand to establish what a preferred vision of society is and a call to make one’s applied linguistics practice accountable to such a vision.
- All these are clearly aspects of CLT that bring it comfortably within the ambit of critical applied linguistics.
- Language Planning and Language Rights One domain of applied linguistics that might be assumed to fall easily into the scope of critical applied linguistics is work such as language policy and planning since it would appear from the outset to operate with a political view of language.
- Critical applied linguistics would need to incorporate views of language, society, and power that are capable of dealing with questions of access, power, disparity, and difference and that see language as playing a crucial role in the construction of difference.
- Critical applied linguistics, then, would include work in the areas of sociolinguistics and language planning and policy that takes up an overt political agenda to establish or to argue for policy along lines that focus centrally on issues of social justice.
- Language, Literacy, and Workplace Settings Another domain of work in applied linguistics that has been taken up with a critical focus has been the work on uses of language and literacy in various workplace and professional settings.
- Moving beyond work that attempts only to describe the patterns of communication or genres of interaction between people in medical, legal, or other workplace settings, critical applied linguistics approaches to these contexts of communication focus far more on questions of access, power, disparity, and difference.
- The interrelation between the concerns (discussed earlier) and the domains (discussed here) of critical applied linguistics are outlined in the following figure:.
- CALx domains A strong view of applied linguistics A view of praxis Ways of being critical Micro and macro relations Critical social inquiry.
- Concerns and domains of critical applied linguistics.
- Conclusion (i) The two main strands of this article – different concerns and domains of critical applied linguistics - have helped bring about a broad overview of critical applied linguistics.
- In the version of applied linguistics being presented here, the notion of “critical” may lead to the understanding that critical applied linguistics deals with some of the central issues in language use to the extent that it may also signal a point at which applied linguistics may finally move into a new state of being.
- These senses of critical also need to be included in an understanding of critical applied linguistics.
- Given the significance of the even broader domain we are interested in here-language, literacy, communication, translation, bilingualism, and pedagogy - and the particular concerns to do with the global role of languages, multilingualism, power, and possibilities for the creation of difference-it would not seem too far-fetched to suggest that critical applied linguistics may at least give us ways of dealing with some of the most crucial educational, cultural, and political issues of our time..
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