Applied

linguistics (unit 1). EMC

María Pérez Delgado

Task 1

Questions on Reading 1:1
“An overview of applied linguistics” (Schmitt & Celce-Murcia 2000: 1-
16)

1. What are the ‘traditional’ areas that applied linguistics covers?

The traditional areas covered by applied linguistics are second language acquisition,
second language pedagogy and the interface between these two.




2. What is the current interest of applied linguistics? Choose three “non-traditional”
areas that Carter & Nunan (2001: 2) include as sub-disciplines of applied linguistics and
find out what they study by checking encyclopaedias or using the Internet. Be ready to
explain it in class with some examples.

1. Speech pathology: it assesses, diagnoses, treats, and helps to prevent
communication and swallowing disorders in patients.
- Dyslexia
- Language delay
- Stuttering or cluttering
2. Lexicography: is concerned with what words are, what they mean, how the
vocabulary of a language is structured, how speakers of the language use and
understand the words, how the words evolved, and what relationships exist
between words.
- Defining words
- Organising vocabulary
- Specifying pronunciation.
3. Deaf Education: seek to provide a deaf student with an education which can
be received from the standard educational system.
- Adapt educational needs to the students in an individual way
- Ensure the ASL usage by students and family
- Broadens the literacy range to over hearing disability.

3. In the section entitled “Applied linguistics during the Twentieth Century” there are a
number of movements that need special attention due to their influence on language
learning and teaching. Look for the following teaching methods and explain them
briefly: Grammar-translation method, Direct method, Reading method.


a) Grammar-translation focuses the lesson in learning L2 by translating it into L1
using certain grammar rules and vocabulary lists given.

1 Based on a previous worksheet created by Drs. Dafouz and Núñez Perucha

(Department of Filología Inglesa I, UCM)

 Applied linguistics (unit 1). EMC
María Pérez Delgado

b) Direct method consists in a huge exposure to listening and speaking, and later
reading and writing removing the theoretic ways of grammar and vocabulary.
c) The Reading method approaches the language by promoting the reading skills
through texts that incorporates more complexity of vocabulary along with the
advances in learning of the student.


4. Behaviourism and Chomsky’s Cognitivism are two opposite views of the process of
language acquisition. Can you explain briefly how they oppose each other?
Behaviourism proposes the language acquisition by imposing study, while Chomsky
asserts that language is not governed by habit but by cognitive factors that follow some
innate rules. While Behaviourism imposes the language acquisition, Chomsky defends
the innate character of such acquisition.

5. In what way does Halliday’s Systemic Functional Grammar differ from Chomsky’s
approach? And what are the three types of functions that Halliday identifies in
language?
Halliday’s types of functions identified in language are the ideational (facts or
experiences), interpersonal (maintaining relationships), and the textual (expressing
connections and organisation within a text.
The systemic functional grammar of Haliday differs from Chomsky’s approach in that
language is not only composed of that internal ability of the brain to develop it, but also
it is modified by functioning within a society.

6. In the 1980’s a new learning method appeared, known as Communicative Language
Teaching (CLT). What were its main objectives?
The main objectives of CLT were to direct language teaching to meaningful
communication and improve message fluency rather grammatical correctness. Another
farther objective was to introduce the learning of another subject in that L2, for the
student to acquire both at the same time.

7. Explain the meaning of the acronym CALL.
CALL stands for Computer Assistance Language Learning and it leads to the computer
programs developed in order for the student to acquire a second language at lessons as
well as by their own.
8. What main changes took place in the 1970’s regarding the following areas?

- the study of language use / language communication: The study of language was taken
into a more communicative and oral approach in order to improve fluency and
meaningful communication (Hymes, CLT)
-The view of cognition: Socio-cultural theory emphasises individual and social
integration by focusing on the necessary and dialectic relationship between the
personal interface between a person and their environment (socio-cultural
endowment) and the intrapersonal mechanisms and processes belonging to that person
(biological endowment).

- language learning: focus-on-form movement made an attempt to take explicit
instruction into language lessons, thus keeping the positive features of the CLT but
introducing at the same time the possibility of grammar accuracy.