Applied Linguistics, Muhammad Farkhan

APPLIED LINGUISTICS

Muhammad Farkhan

A lecturer at English Letters Department,

Letters and Humanities Faculty
UIN Syarif Hidayatullah Jakarta
(muhammadfarkhan@gmail.com)

ABSTRACT

As a branch of linguistics, applied linguistics differs from other

braches in its focus. Mainly, it deals with the application of
linguistic theories, methods, and findings to elucidation of
language problems from other areas of experience or
knowledge. Therefore, it is also multidisciplinary study as it
involves various knowledge and disciplines, such as neurology,
psychology, language teaching, translation, and so on.

Key Words: method audiolingual communicative

Error contrastive analysis

Applied linguistics is a branch of methodology; contrastive analysis, and

linguistics whose the primary concern is
the application of linguistic theories,
methods, and findings to elucidation of
language problems from other areas of
experience or knowledge. This definition
includes among other things, work with
computers, the programming of texts,
speech and hearing therapy, and
mathematical linguistics (Elgin, 1973:
97). In this paper the discussion only
covers the application of the principles
and the theory of linguistics to language
teaching, especially language teaching
errors analysis.
The Grammar-Translation Method
The grammar-translation approach
to language teaching was congruent with
the view of faculty psychologists that
mental discipline was essential for
strengthening the powers of the mind.
Originally used to teach Latin and Greek,
this method was applied to the teaching
of modern languages in the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Its primary purpose was to enable
students to “explore the depths of great
literature,” while helping them

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understand their native language better
through text analysis of the grammar of
the target language and translation.
The grammar-translation method,
in its purest form, had the following
characteristics:
1. Students first learned the rules of
grammar and bilingual lists of
vocabulary pertaining to the reading
or readings of the lesson. Grammar
was learned deductively by means of
long and elaborate explanations. All
rules were learned with their
exceptions and irregularities
explained in grammatical terms.
2. Once rules and vocabulary were
learned, prescriptions for translating
the exercises that followed the
grammar explanations given.
3. Comprehension of the rules and
readings was tested via translation
(target language to native language
and vice versa). Students had
learned the language if they could
translate the passages well.
4. The native and target languages
were constantly compared. The goal
of instruction was to convert L1 into
L2 and vice versa, using a dictionary
if necessary.
5. There were very few opportunities for
listening and speaking practice (with
the exception of reading passages
and sentences aloud) since the
method concentrated on reading and
translation exercises. Much of the
class time was devoted to talking
about the language virtually no time
was spent talking in the language.
The Audiolingual Method
The theory underlying the
audiolingual method was rooted in two
parallel schools of thought in psychology
and linguistics. In psychology, the
behaviorist and neobehaviorist schools
was extremely influential in the 1940s
and 1950s. At the same time, the
structural, or descriptive, school of
linguistics dominated thinking in that
field. Language teaching based on this
school of thought operated on the
following premises:
1. Language is primarily an oral
phenomenon. Written language is a
secondary representation of speech.
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2. Linguistics involves the study of the
recurring patterns of the language.
3. The major focus of study is
phonology and morphology.
4. Language is acquired through the
over learning of its patterns.
5. All native languages are learned
orally before reading ever occurs.
Therefore, second languages should
be learned in the “natural order”:
listening, speaking, reading, and
writing.
6. In learning languages, a student
should begin with the patterns of the
language rather than with deductive
learning of grammatical rules
(Chastain, 1976:110).
The audiolingual method, also
known as the Aural-Oral, Functional
Skills, New Key, or American Method of
language teaching, was considered a
“scientific” approach to language
teaching. Lado proposed the following
“empirical laws of learning” as the basis
for audiolingual methodology:
1. The fundamental law of contiguity
states that when two experiences
have occurred together, the return of
one will recall or reinstate the other.
2. The law of exercise maintains that
the more frequently a response is
practiced, the better it is learned and
the longer it is remembered.
3. The law of intensity states that the
more intensely a response is
practiced, the better it is learned and
the longer it will be remembered.
4. The law of assimilation states that
each new stimulating condition tends
to elicit the same response that has
been connected with similar
stimulating conditions in the past.
5. The law of effect maintains that when
a response is accompanied or
followed by a satisfying state of
affairs, that response is reinforced.
When a response is accompanied by
an annoying state of affairs, it is
avoided (Lado, 1964: 37).
Communicative Language Teaching
Richards and Rodgers (1986)
describe Communicative Language
Teaching (CLT) as an approach rather
than a method, since it is defined in
rather broad terms and represents a

philosophy of teaching that is based on
communicative language use. CLT has
developed from the writings of British
applied linguists such as Wilkins,
Widdowson, Brumfit, Candlin, and
others, as well as American educators
such as Savignon (1983), all of whom
emphasize notional-functional concepts
and communicative competence, rather
than grammatical structures, as central
to language teaching (Richard and
Rogers, 1986: 65). Some of these
principles are summarized below.
1. Meaning is of primary importance in
CLT, and contextualization is a basic
principle.
2. Attempts by learners to communicate
with the language are encouraged
from the beginning of instruction. The
new language system will be learned
best by struggling to communicate
one’s own meaning and by
negotiation of meaning through
interaction with others.
3. Sequencing of materials is
determined by the content, function,
and/or meaning that will maintain
students’ interest.
4. Judicious use of the native language
is acceptable where feasible, and
translation may be used when
students find it beneficial or
necessary.
5. Activities and strategies for learning
are varied according to learner
preferences and needs.
6. Communicative competence, with an
emphasis on fluency and acceptable
language use, is the goal of
instruction. “Accuracy is judged not in
the abstract, but in context”
(Finnocchiaro and Brumfit, 1983: 92).
Contrastive Analysis
In the middle part of the twentieth
century, one of the most popular pursuits
for applied linguists was the study of two
languages in contrast. Eventually the
stockpile of comparative and contrastive
data on a multitude of pairs of languages
yielded what commonly came to be
known as Contrastive Analysis (CA). CA
claims that the principal barrier to second
acquisition is the interference of the first
language system with the second
language system, and that a scientific,
Applied Linguistics, Muhammad Farkhan
structural analysis of the two languages
in question would yield taxonomy of
linguistic contrasts between them which
in turn would enable the linguist to
predict the difficulties a learner would
encounter. It was at that time considered
feasible that the tools of structural
linguistics, such as Fries’s (1952) slot-
filler grammar, would enable a linguist to
describe accurately the two languages in
question, and to match those two
descriptions against each other to
determine valid contrasts, or differences,
between them. Behaviorism contributed
to the notion that human behavior is the
sum of its smallest parts and
components, and therefore that language
learning could be described as the
acquisition of all of these discrete units.
Moreover, human learning theories
highlighted interfering elements of
learning, concluding that where no
interference could be predicted, no
difficulty would be experienced since one
could transfer positively all other items in
a language.
Some rather strong claims were
made of CA among language teaching
experts and linguists. One of the
strongest was made by Robert Lado in
the preface to Linguistics Across
Cultures: “The plan of the book rests on
the assumption that we can predict and
describe the patterns that will cause
difficulty in learning, and those that will
not cause difficulty, by comparing
systematically the language and the
culture to be learned with the native
language and culture of the student.”
Then, in the first chapter of the book,
Lado continues: “. . . in the comparison
between native and foreign language lies
the key to ease or difficulty in foreign
language learning. Those elements that
are similar to [the learner’s] native
language will be simple for him and
those elements that are different will be
difficult” (Brown, 1994: 194).
Error Analysis
Human learning is fundamentally a
process that involves the making of
mistakes. Mistakes, misjudgments,
miscalculations, and erroneous
assumptions form an important aspect of
learning virtually any skill or acquiring
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information. Learning to swim, to play
tennis, to type, or to read all involve a
process in which success comes by
profiting from mistakes, by using
mistakes to obtain feedback from the
environment and with that feedback to
make new attempts which successively
more closely approximate desired goals.
Language learning, in this sense,
is like any other human learning.
Children learning their first language
make countless “mistakes” from the point
of view of adult grammatical language.
Many of these mistakes are logical in the
limited linguistic system within which
children operate, but by carefully
processing feedback from others such
children slowly but surely learn to
produce what is acceptable speech in
their native language. Second language
learning is a process that is clearly not
unlike first language learning in its trial-
and-error nature. Inevitably learners will
make mistakes in the process of
acquisition, and indeed will even impede
that process if they do not commit errors
and then benefit in turn from various
forms of feedback on those errors.
Researchers and teachers of second
languages soon came to realize that the
mistakes a person made in this process
of constructing a new system of
language needed to be analyzed
carefully, for they possibly held in them
some of the keys to the understanding of
the process of second language
acquisition. Corder says that a learner’s
errors are significant in [that] they
provide to the researcher evidence of
how language is learned or acquired,
what strategies or procedures the learner
is employing in the discovery of the
language (Corder, 19…).
In order to analyze learner
language in a proper perspective, it is
crucial to make a distinction between
mistakes and errors, technically two very
different phenomena. A mistake refers to
a performance error that is either a
random guess or a “slip,” in that it is a
failure to utilize a known system
correctly. All people make mistakes, in
both native and second language
situations. Native speakers are normally
capable of recognizing and correcting
such “lapses” or mistakes, which are not
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the result of a deficiency in competence
but the result of some sort of breakdown
or imperfection in the process of
producing speech. These hesitations,
slips of the tongue, random
ungrammaticalities, and other
performance lapses in native-speaker
production also occur in second
language speech.
Such mistakes must be carefully
distinguished from errors of a second
language learner, idiosyncrasies in the
interlanguage of the learner that are
direct manifestations of a system within
which a learner is operating at the time.
an error is a noticeable deviation from
the adult grammar of a native speaker,
reflecting the interlanguage competence
of the learner. If a learner of English
asks, “Does John can sing?” he is
probably reflecting a competence level in
which all verbs require a pre-posed do
auxiliary for question formation. He has
committed an error, most likely not a
mistake, and an error which reveals a
portion of his competence in the target
language.
The fact that learners do make errors
and that these errors can be observed,
analyzed, and classified to reveal
something of the system operating within
the learner, led to a surge of study of
learners’ errors, called error analysis.
Error analysis became distinguished
from contrastive analysis by its
examination of errors attributable to all
possible sources, not just those which
result from negative transfer of the native
language. Error analysis easily
superseded contrastive analysis, as we
discovered that only some of the errors a
learner makes are attributable to the
mother tongue, that learners do not
actually make all the errors that
contrastive analysis predicted they
should, and that learners from disparate
language backgrounds tend to make
similar errors in learning one target
language. Errors—overt manifestations
of learners’ system—arise from several
possible general sources: interlingual
errors of interference from the native
language, intralingual errors within the
target language, the sociolinguistic
context of communication,
psycholinguistic or cognitive strategies,

and no doubt countless affective
variables.
Conclusion
As a branch of linguistics, applied
linguistics differs from other braches in
its focus. Mainly, it deals with the
application of linguistic theories,
methods, and findings to elucidation of
language problems from other areas of
experience or knowledge. Therefore, it is
also multidisciplinary study as it involves
various knowledge and disciplines, such
as neurology, psychology, language
teaching, translation, and so on. In
language teaching, for examples,
theories of language inspire the
establishment of teaching methods and
curriculum development. Language as a
habit has already been used as a basis
of audio-lingual method that emphasizes
on accustoming the learners with the
target language through drills. While,
language as a means of communication
is used as a basis of communicative
language teaching which stresses on
meaning rather than forms. In translation
field, translation machine has made use
of grammar and word order of the source
language to reach the equivalences in
the target language. In addition, in the
filed of computer technology, how
language works has also played
significant role in developing application
programming.
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