[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
question would be: where does that leave other markers, other ideologies such as
religion?
But surely, such cavilling is unfair. It denies the possibility of all outsiders engaging
in ethnographic-type research (Geerz 1997) and it ignores the nice balance the
author achieves between academic detachment and family piety.
02 pages 001-202:Layout 1 31/5/07 09:31 Page 132
132 An Introduction to Applied Linguistics
4.5.6 Assessing English as a lingua franca
CAL would be very critical of this project, on its own terms, pointing out that it
clearly does not conform to the BAAL requirements, that assessment methods
should be developed to take account of students differing background and academic
needs (BAAL 1994: 3.4). ELF speakers, the argument would continue, do indeed
have different needs and to pretend they don t make a homogeneous group is to fail
to take ethical responsibility. But a counter is possible. Once again, is the CAL
position not to defend individual requirements? And, to repeat what I wrote in 4.5.2
above, this puts a question mark against its (CAL s) role within applied linguistics .
Thus far, all assessment has to be group based in order to reveal just how different
individuals are: no group, no individual.
5 CONCLUSION
In this chapter I have examined the institutionalising of applied linguistics as a
distinct profession. We move, in Chapter 7, to a consideration of the postmodern
and critical influences on applied linguistics.
02 pages 001-202:Layout 1 31/5/07 09:31 Page 133
Chapter 7
Applied linguistics: no bookish theoric
& the bookish theoric,
& mere prattle, without practice,
Is all his soldiership.
(William Shakespeare, Othello: I, i, 24 7)
1 INTRODUCTION
In Chapter 7 I query how far current philosophical developments in the humanities
and social sciences have affected applied linguistics and in particular how influential
the various critical stances (for example, critical applied linguistics and critical
discourse analysis) are.
2 WHAT IS POSTMODERNISM?
The term postmodernism refers to the contemporary sense of scepticism felt by
scholars in the humanities and social sciences with regard to progress, in the validity
of knowledge and science and generally in universal explanations and the optimism
of the Enlightenment: we begin to see a shift in emphasis away from what we could
call scientific knowledge towards what should properly be considered as a form of
narrative knowledge (Docherty 1993: 25).
Those professing ideas associated with postmodernism speak of rejecting the
grand meta narratives of modernity, such as liberalism, Marxism, democracy and
the Industrial Revolution, and a championing of the local, the relative and the
contingent. It rejects the totalising idea of reason on the grounds that there is no
unique reason, only reasons (Lyotard 1984). This emphasis on cultural relativity has
established itself in the soft rather than in the hard sciences, above all in literary and
cultural studies, which in some academic settings have merged into an over-arching
study of contemporary cultural manifestations, especially film and media. In conti-
nental Europe (largely France, Germany and Italy) the influence has also reached
into philosophy, in part because the intellectual there has always enjoyed greater
stature than in the UK (Matthews 1996: 206). Furthermore, the concentration
02 pages 001-202:Layout 1 31/5/07 09:31 Page 134
134 An Introduction to Applied Linguistics
in the UK on linguistic philosophy in the mid-twentieth century was unique to
English-speaking countries, leaving continental philosophy to pursue its post-
Hegelian interests in the larger questions of knowledge and purpose.
This reflexive concern with the meaning and methodology of the study that one
is engaged in, a kind of decentring or reflective awareness (Donaldson 1978), the so-
called critical turn in the social sciences and the humanities, has inevitably affected
applied linguistics. The increasing influence there of critical applied linguistics, itself
a manifestation of the postmodern surge in the 1970s and 1980s may now be on the
wane, but its origins and its meaning demand our close attention.
Postmodernism encompasses post-structuralism, itself a reaction against the para-
digm shift of structuralism which brought the Enlightenment up to date for the mid-
twentieth century. Structuralism rejected the emphasis on the subjective of modern
grand theories such as existentialism and psychoanalysis in favour of the objective
patterning in social life that derives from the work of Saussure and Levi-Strauss. This
patterning was found in fields such as: anthropology, linguistics and philosophy,
[which] needed to focus on the super-individual structures of language, ritual and
kinship which make the individual what he or she is. Simply put, it is not the self
that creates culture, but culture that creates the self (Cahoone 1996: 5).
Linguistics, both general and applied was influenced by this scientific claim of
structuralism, as seen in Bloomfield s appeal to linguists to wait on science and in
institutional titles such as Reading University s Department of Linguistic Sciences;
and the landmark volume of Halliday et al. (1964).
In its turn structuralism was rejected by post-structuralism which castigated [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl aikidobyd.xlx.pl
question would be: where does that leave other markers, other ideologies such as
religion?
But surely, such cavilling is unfair. It denies the possibility of all outsiders engaging
in ethnographic-type research (Geerz 1997) and it ignores the nice balance the
author achieves between academic detachment and family piety.
02 pages 001-202:Layout 1 31/5/07 09:31 Page 132
132 An Introduction to Applied Linguistics
4.5.6 Assessing English as a lingua franca
CAL would be very critical of this project, on its own terms, pointing out that it
clearly does not conform to the BAAL requirements, that assessment methods
should be developed to take account of students differing background and academic
needs (BAAL 1994: 3.4). ELF speakers, the argument would continue, do indeed
have different needs and to pretend they don t make a homogeneous group is to fail
to take ethical responsibility. But a counter is possible. Once again, is the CAL
position not to defend individual requirements? And, to repeat what I wrote in 4.5.2
above, this puts a question mark against its (CAL s) role within applied linguistics .
Thus far, all assessment has to be group based in order to reveal just how different
individuals are: no group, no individual.
5 CONCLUSION
In this chapter I have examined the institutionalising of applied linguistics as a
distinct profession. We move, in Chapter 7, to a consideration of the postmodern
and critical influences on applied linguistics.
02 pages 001-202:Layout 1 31/5/07 09:31 Page 133
Chapter 7
Applied linguistics: no bookish theoric
& the bookish theoric,
& mere prattle, without practice,
Is all his soldiership.
(William Shakespeare, Othello: I, i, 24 7)
1 INTRODUCTION
In Chapter 7 I query how far current philosophical developments in the humanities
and social sciences have affected applied linguistics and in particular how influential
the various critical stances (for example, critical applied linguistics and critical
discourse analysis) are.
2 WHAT IS POSTMODERNISM?
The term postmodernism refers to the contemporary sense of scepticism felt by
scholars in the humanities and social sciences with regard to progress, in the validity
of knowledge and science and generally in universal explanations and the optimism
of the Enlightenment: we begin to see a shift in emphasis away from what we could
call scientific knowledge towards what should properly be considered as a form of
narrative knowledge (Docherty 1993: 25).
Those professing ideas associated with postmodernism speak of rejecting the
grand meta narratives of modernity, such as liberalism, Marxism, democracy and
the Industrial Revolution, and a championing of the local, the relative and the
contingent. It rejects the totalising idea of reason on the grounds that there is no
unique reason, only reasons (Lyotard 1984). This emphasis on cultural relativity has
established itself in the soft rather than in the hard sciences, above all in literary and
cultural studies, which in some academic settings have merged into an over-arching
study of contemporary cultural manifestations, especially film and media. In conti-
nental Europe (largely France, Germany and Italy) the influence has also reached
into philosophy, in part because the intellectual there has always enjoyed greater
stature than in the UK (Matthews 1996: 206). Furthermore, the concentration
02 pages 001-202:Layout 1 31/5/07 09:31 Page 134
134 An Introduction to Applied Linguistics
in the UK on linguistic philosophy in the mid-twentieth century was unique to
English-speaking countries, leaving continental philosophy to pursue its post-
Hegelian interests in the larger questions of knowledge and purpose.
This reflexive concern with the meaning and methodology of the study that one
is engaged in, a kind of decentring or reflective awareness (Donaldson 1978), the so-
called critical turn in the social sciences and the humanities, has inevitably affected
applied linguistics. The increasing influence there of critical applied linguistics, itself
a manifestation of the postmodern surge in the 1970s and 1980s may now be on the
wane, but its origins and its meaning demand our close attention.
Postmodernism encompasses post-structuralism, itself a reaction against the para-
digm shift of structuralism which brought the Enlightenment up to date for the mid-
twentieth century. Structuralism rejected the emphasis on the subjective of modern
grand theories such as existentialism and psychoanalysis in favour of the objective
patterning in social life that derives from the work of Saussure and Levi-Strauss. This
patterning was found in fields such as: anthropology, linguistics and philosophy,
[which] needed to focus on the super-individual structures of language, ritual and
kinship which make the individual what he or she is. Simply put, it is not the self
that creates culture, but culture that creates the self (Cahoone 1996: 5).
Linguistics, both general and applied was influenced by this scientific claim of
structuralism, as seen in Bloomfield s appeal to linguists to wait on science and in
institutional titles such as Reading University s Department of Linguistic Sciences;
and the landmark volume of Halliday et al. (1964).
In its turn structuralism was rejected by post-structuralism which castigated [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]