PROPOSAL FOR AN UNDERGRADUATE MINOR
IN APPLIED LANGUAGE STUDIES
Prof. Richard Kern (French) and Prof. Claire Kramsch (German)
We propose an interdepartmental undergraduate minor in Applied Language Studies for
students who have taken foreign language courses at Berkeley and who wish to add a
research component to their language learning experience. By deepening their
understanding of the processes of language acquisition and use, the Applied Language
Studies minor would provide students additional expertise on the job market, and would
open up possibilities for their continuing on to graduate studies in the interdisciplinary
field of Second Language Acquisition/Applied Linguistics. This field is growing in
visibility and importance through various M.A. and PhD programs at an increasing
number of universities around the country (e.g., UCLA, Indiana, Columbia, Hawaii,
Wisconsin, Arizona State, Georgetown, Illinois at Urbana-Champaign). It prepares
mostly foreign language and bilingual/ESL educators and researchers and language
program directors, but also educational consultants for bilingual education and the
education of minorities, and discourse analysts in the medical or legal professions.
What is Applied Language Studies?
Sometimes called Second Language Acquisition/Applied Linguistics, the field of Applied
Language Studies is devoted to the study of real-world problems in which language plays
a major role, such as language learning and teaching, bilingual education, translation and
interpretation, doctor-patient or lawyer-client relations etc. The proposed minor would
help students use the languages they have studied by developing their critical awareness
of linguistic and cultural diversity, the complexities of communication both within and
across cultures, language learning and teaching, plurilingualism, language and power,
language and gender, translation and interpretation. It would address such issues as:
- how languages are learned
- how languages are used to achieve a wide range of social, cultural, aesthetic
purposes
- how language relates to culture, power and identity
- how language and other symbolic systems construct both actual and virtual
‘reality’
- what it means to be bi- or multilingual
Course requirements:
Five upper division courses from a cross-disciplinary list, including the core course,
Introduction to Applied Language Studies, which will be offered once every year.
Several of these courses already exist and have been offered every one or two years. Most
of them include a research component or at least a familiarization with existing research
in Applied Language Studies. They are upper division courses or graduate seminars that
undergraduates have taken successfully in the past.
The following have been or will be given every year:
- (New UGIS course) Introduction to Applied Language Studies (Kramsch)
- Anthropology 166 Language, culture and society (Yurchak, Hanks or Hirschkind)
- English 179 Literature and linguistics: the linguistics of the language arts
(Banfield or Hanson)
- French 146 Introduction to French linguistics (Kern or McLaughlin, taught in
French)
- German 109/L&S180T: Language and Power (Kramsch)
The following relevant courses have been given every other year:
- Educ 250C: Discourse Analysis (Kramsch)
- Educ 250B: Second Language Acquisition (Kramsch)
- Educ 250D: Language and Identity (Kramsch)
- French 138 French for teaching and related careers (Kern taught in French)
- French 131A: Translation and debate (McLaughlin)
- French 208: Cognitive aspects of foreign language reading and writing
- Development (Kern)
- French 206: Special Topics in French Linguistics: Notions of Competence (Kern)
- French 206: Special Topics in French Linguistics: Writing and Technology (Kern)
- French 173 Linguistics and Literature (McLaughlin)
- German 106/Educ145: Literacy through Literature (Introduction to Discourse
- Stylistics) (Kramsch)
- Japanese 161 Introduction to Japanese Linguistics: Usage (Hasegawa)
- Japanese 163 Translation: Theory and Practice- Linguistics C105 The mind and language (G.Lakoff)
- Linguistics 124 Discourse (R.Lakoff)
- Linguistics 127 Cross-cultural verbal art
- Linguistics 150 Sociolinguistics
- Psychology 124 Psycholinguistics (Hudson Kam)
- Psychology 143: Language Acquisition (Hudson Kam)
- Psychology 290 Language throughout the Lifespan (Hudson Kam)
- Spanish/German 179: Issues in Bilingualism (Kramsch)
- Spanish 163 Issues of Multilingualism (Ameal Guerra, taught in Spanish)
- Spanish 166 Language and Style (Azevedo)
This minor would be particularly useful to those who have experienced learning or
speaking a language other than English, but will be open to all undergraduates.
Core faculty: The faculty will include, beside the two program directors Professors Rick
Kern (French) and Claire Kramsch (German), also:
- Senate faculty in related fields
- Non-senate faculty language teaching methodologists or applied linguists who
teach pedagogy courses for GSIs in their respective departments
Administration and budget: This interdepartmental minor will be administered through
the UGIS program. It will not require any release time nor any financial compensation
from any of the teaching faculty. It will require 1-3 hours of staff time to advise students
and keep the necessary records.
Website: As soon as this minor is approved, we will build a website to inform the
students of this new minor.