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expediency: the old is regarded by the young as lacking utility against the challenge
of modernism, not having the prestige associated with consumerism and technology,
having outmoded cultural values and so on. Of course there are always counter-
positions whereby a strong challenge can be made to such a movement for change
from traditional religion and culture (for example in Islam), But the opposition
needs to be very strong indeed to have a more than marginal influence and it is
difficult to think of any compelling force other than a fundamentalist religion which
is strong enough to do so.
The reasons for social loss may not be informative about the reasons for individual
impairment, although the attempt to look more carefully at the cover-all explanation
of expediency and subject it to analysis does relate to the wider scope now attributed
to clinical linguistics which  may be said to encompass the functional effects of im-
pairment on communicative adequacy and social interaction, and includes the study
of emotional factors and normal interaction (Kerr 1993: 105).
But it is in the areas of just what is lost socially and individually through im-
pairment that we do find common ground.
What is lost as language shifts is that the L1 becomes increasingly influenced
by the L2. Thus there is the acculturation of proper names, whereby, for example,
Chinese Christian children may be given Christian (that is Western) proper names;
there is the loss of productive word formation so that borrowings (and even more
new formations) are based not on the morphology of the L1 but on that of the L2;
there is lexical loss leading to a lexical creep of L2 words into the L1; there is
phonological loss such that new formations are given L2 phonological shape (Dorian
1981, Craig 2007, May 2005).
To what extent does this mirror loss in impairment? In loss brought on by old age
in the L2, there is some similarity, in particular in the well-known area of naming, if
only because there is somewhere else (the L1) to go, although of course it is in the
reverse direction from language shift. However, both with the monolingual elderly
and with those suffering from acquired language problems such as aphasia, there is
typically nowhere else to resort to (even if the aphasic patient is bilingual since the
impairment is not language specific) and so the damage is as much psychological as
linguistic and treatment must adjust accordingly.
5 CONCLUSION
I have argued in this chapter that there appears to be a permanent tension in all
linguistic studies of language between a focus on stability and a focus on change. To
that end I have looked at three areas of common interest to both linguists and applied
linguists: language in situation, language and gender, and clinical linguistics. Linguists
and applied linguists work in all three areas and while their work can overlap (e.g.
developing assessment instruments for speech therapists, encouraging more inclusive
language to combat sexism in the area of language and gender) their orientation
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62 An Introduction to Applied Linguistics
is janus-like, looking in opposite directions, with language change as the linguistic
agenda driving the linguist in search of evidence regarding linguistic theory, and
language stability, the providing of more efficient means of communication in the
society we live in now, motivating the applied linguist.
In Chapter 4 I focus on the major role of applied linguistics in language teaching,
especially the teaching of second languages and therefore with language-teacher
education. This role is seen by some as being the proper concern of applied
linguistics.
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Chapter 4
Applied linguistics and language
learning/teaching
Homines dum docent, discunt.
(Even when they teach, men learn.)
(Seneca, Epistula Morales, 7/8)
1 INTRODUCTION
In the last chapter I considered three areas of common interest to both linguists
and applied linguists and attempted to distinguish the purposes and procedures of
the two professions. I proposed that linguists and applied linguists typically look
in opposite directions, with language change as the linguistic agenda driving the
linguist in search of evidence regarding linguistic theory, while the applied linguist is
motivated by the providing of more efficient means of communication in the society
we live in. I turn next to the field of language teaching and learning: this is dominant
in applied linguistics, in the sense that more applied linguists specialise in this field
than in any other. There is a view, held by some linguists and applied linguists, that
language teaching and language-teacher education are the only proper concerns of
applied linguistics.
The chapter begins with a presentation of the arguments for and against confining
applied linguistics to a concern with second-language teaching and learning. Then
I take the examples of two  problems in the field, first the optimum age problem
(which we have already raised in Chapter 2) and second an investigation into the
validity of a large-scale English language proficiency test, the English Language
Testing Service (ELTS) test, the predecessor of IELTS (see below), and in particular [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]