Applied linguistics: no ‘bookish theoric’
THE NEW CRITIQUE OF APPLIED LINGUISTICS
Rampton’s ‘open field’
Finally in this discussion of the critical and the postmodern, I turn to Rampton (1997). Rampton points to the still-present fault line between the linguistics and the applied linguistics views of applied linguistics and argues that the attempt to develop an applied linguistics model (citing both Widdowson and Brumfit) has failed because it simply has not accounted adequately for the work in second-language acquisition research and English-language teaching that has been done under its aegis. If applied linguistics is not to slip back into a comfortable accommodation with the linguistics model (here he mentions Corder) then it needs to be repositioned. Citing the work of Hymes and Bernstein, Rampton argues for a model so different that it would seem to abandon completely any coherence to which applied linguistics might lay claim:
If in the past in applied linguistics there has been a tendency to attribute special privileges to the generalist, casting him or her as either the central character, sage or master of ceremonies, this now seems less relevant. Understood as an open field of interest in language, in which those inhabiting or passing through simply show a common commitment to the potential value of dialogue with people who are different, there is no knowing where, between whom or on what the most productive discussions will emerge. (1997: 14)
It is hard not to see such a scenario as dismissive totally of the attempt since the 1950s to develop a coherent applied linguistics. The fact that the coherence is shaky and that the definitions are uncertain does not mean that the attempt should be abandoned. Rampton is in essence denying the value of a profession which seeks to address institutional problems of language in use. They are, he seems to be saying, open to all. Well indeed, of course they are; but the right of others to address them does not mean that we have to give up on the coherence of applied linguistics.
Brumfit is more resolute. Writing in the Rampton-edited issue of The International Journal of Applied Linguistics, which we have already quoted from, he argues:
[A] discipline that is solely the place of meeting of people who could equally well be psychologists, linguistics, cultural theorists – or indeed teachers, therapists or translators – will fragment into separate groupings for each of these practical activities and each of those disciplines, and will fail to address the complexity of language. What holds applied linguistics together is the concern to theorize and analyze social roles and institutions which address language problems, and thus the problems which non-researchers, sometimes unwittingly, confront … A working definition of applied linguistics will then be: the theoretical and empirical investigation of real-world problems in which language is a central issue. (1997b: 91–3)
Rampton’s recipe for applied linguistics takes us to the extreme of post-modernism, even if unintentionally, since what he proposes suggests that there is no vocation of applied linguist, just individuals working in some loose sense of collaboration. This would seem to fly in the face of all the efforts we have described towards the professionalizing of applied linguistics and also, as Brumfit points out, to counter the normal condition of any science which is to exist in a permanent state of tension with overlapping disciplines. It is not clear that Rampton does himself take up a postmodern stance, but his advice to applied linguistics could certainly be construed in that way, in the sense that it denies the existence of applied linguists. All is practice: there is no theory except in the Lyotard sense of theories or, as he maintained, no unique reason, just reasons.
If Rampton take us to the edge of postmodernism in his proposals, then what Brumfit (1997b) does is to return us to a very Enlightenment view of applied linguistics. This view insists that there is a coherence to applied linguistics – its blurrings at the edges are no different from those of any other discipline. And while properly dismissing the chaos to which Peim (1993) invites us, he also avoids the attractive relativism to which Block (1996) beckons.
