A History of Applied Linguistics: From 1980 to the present

by Kees De Bot

This book provides one perspective on how Applied Linguistics has been defined and how the field of Applied Linguistics has developed over the last 30 years. The author addresses themes like why formal linguistic theories lost so much ground and how the interest in more socially oriented approaches grew? He also addresses the impact of Applied Linguistics on language teaching. Adopting a theme-based approach, the structure of this book is largely defined by the topics covered in interviews with 40 leading international figures selected by the author including Rod Ellis, Diane Larsen-Freeman, Susan Gass, Henry Widdowson, Suresh Canagarajah and Claire Kramsch. These data are supplemented by questionnaires from a further fifty applied linguists, also selected by the author. This will be of interest to anyone studying or researching Applied Linguistics and will also be relevant to those in the related area of English Language Teaching.

Genres: Linguistics

168 pages, Paperback

First published February 22, 2015

Reviews

[Jarda Kubalik · Rating 3 out of 5]

Three years ago I would have praised the book but now it is just a symbolic goodbye to the AL theory, TEFL research and other bubble groups and to the Ph.D. I was trying to study in the field. I finally understood that you will not become a better teacher, or second language user with reading all these articles and theories and it was funny to read that most of the people answering the questions had serious doubts about the contribution to the field! So why are they doing it? To prove that children like to play, speaking a foreign language make us anxious, and motivation is important? Well...
I do not know why I did not see it first but now the futility of the efforts came pretty clear to me. Of course ,many of the people mentioned in the article made some good contribution to the discussions and some of them did lots of good work as educators, but teaching and learning languages can flourish equally well with more practical advice, or advice from many other discpilines - arts, philosophy, sociolinguistics, cognitive psychology, sport methodology, works of fiction, zoology.. well, anything that inspires you.