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Applied Linguistics:
Linguistics are concerned with finding and describing the general
characteristics of languages. They also study the different varieties of
a particular language. Applied linguistics take the result of those
findings and apply them to other areas. Linguistic research is
commonly applied to areas such as education, lexicography,
translation etc. applied linguistics work towards finding solutions for
real world linguistics problems and apply technical knowledge from
many sources, e.g. sociology, psychology, anthropology etc.
The need for Applied Linguistics:
Language is at the heart of human life. Without it many of our most
important activities are inconceivable, e.g. relating to our family, making
friends, learning religious faith, having political ideas, etc. Throughout
history and across the world, people have used language to gossip and
chat, play games, sing songs, tell stories, teach children, pass on
information, remember the past. Such activities seem to be intrinsic to
human life. People do them without conscious analysis. Language is thus
natural phenomenon without conscious control.
Scope of Applied Linguistics:
Since language is implicated in so much of our daily lives, there is clearly
a large and open-ended number of quite disparate activities to which
applied linguistics is relevant. To do this we need to refer to specific
instances of more general conceptual areas of study. These areas can be
identified under three areas as follows:
1. Language and education:
This area includes:
a. First language education- When a child learn or studies their
home language or languages.
b. Addition language education- This is often divided into second
language education, when someone studies their society’s
majority or official language which is not their home language
and foreign language education- when someone studies the
language of another country.
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c. Clinical linguistics- The study and treatment of speech and
communication impairment, whether hereditary, developmental
or acquired (through injury, stroke, illness or age).
d. Language testing- The assessment and evaluation of language
achievement and proficiency, both in first and additional
languages, and for both general and specific purposes.
2. Language work and law:
This area includes:
a. Workplace communication- The study of how is used in the
workplace and how it contributes to the nature and power
relations of different types of work.
b. Language planning- The making of decisions, often supported
by legislation about the official status of languages and their
institutional use, including their use in education.
c. Forensic linguistics- The deployment of linguistic evidence in
criminal and other legal investigation, for example to establish
the authorship of a document, or a profile of a speaker from a
tape- recording.
3. Language information and effect:
This area includes:
a. Literary stylistics- The study of the relationship between
linguistic choices and effects in literature.
b. Critical discourse analysis- The study of the relationship
between linguistic choices and effects in persuasive use of
language, for example in marketing and politics.
c. Translation and interpretation- The formulation of principles
underlying the perceived equivalence between a stretch of
language and its translation, and the practice of translating
written texts and interpreting spoken language.
d. Information design- The arrangement and presentation of
written language, including issues related to typography and
layout, choices of medium and effective combination of
language with other means of communication such as pictures
and diagrams.
e. Lexicography- The planning and compiling of both
monolingual and bilingual dictionaries and other language
reference works such as Thesaurus.
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Other areas of Applied Linguistics:
a. Sociolinguistics- The focus here is upon the relationship between
language and society. In sociolinguistics we find systematic
relationship between social groups and contexts and the variable
ways in which language is used.
b. Functional linguistics- Here the concern is with language as a
means of communication, the purpose it fulfills and how people
actually use their language.
c. Corpus linguistics- Vast data banks containing millions of words of
actual language in use can be searched within seconds to yield
extensive information about word frequencies and combinations.
d. Computational linguistics- Today computers are widely used in
many areas of applied linguistics. Application of computational
linguistics in machine translation, computer-assisted translation
and natural language processing are areas of applied linguistics
which have recently been developed.