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But, yes, exactly. Applied linguistics in practice has raided supposedly purely intellectual theories and brought them into the classroom in a dubious way. The application of theory in teaching has been a mess, and the "left-wing" or "progressive" bias, for want of better terms, has been the most c...

Persuing pure linguistics - researching the truth about language - will cause practical applications to pop up all over the place though, just as any science will. In fact though, the reason the subject of "applied linguistics" exists on top of that (most sciences don't have an important "applied" ...

What are the fundamentals of applied linguistics? Sociolinguistics? Psycholinguistics? Intercultural communications? Discourse analysis? Material development? Teacher education? Ethnographic research? etc, etc. Applied linguistics refers to branches of linguistics that deals with the practical appl...

Language professionals should have an awareness of at least the basics of Applied Linguistics.

As for pure Linguistics, that's a specific discipline and if studied in isolation can be a hinderance rather than a help in language education.

Not sure this is the right forum but I'm not signed up for anything more relevant at the moment and need a quick answer! I just started an ESOL class Level 1, my students are all classic EFL students though and so the ESOL material is largely irrelevant to them. Which Headway book is most appropriat...

All people, literate or not, can speak perfectly coherently using sentences that would be gobbledegook out of context and written down, it's just the way that spoken language works. I'm not disagreeing here. Remember I agreed that language often bears little resemblance to written structure. I only...

language often bears much resemblance to written structure, especially in literate societies. 44 million adult Americans are at Level 1 literacy according to the North American Literacy Society meaning they have difficullty with reading and writing. Would you class the U.S. as an illiterate society...

Everyone makes errors in language usage whether through laziness, abbreviation, vernacular, coloquialism, slang, whatever. You could argue that if it's being spoken by a native or non-native speaker and becomes a regular part of use then it's not a mistake anyway just a variation. Spoken language of...

Taking your argument (that global languages today were historically established by forced colonization), Spanish should be the global language....But I'm sure the prominence of English is a result of many things, so we may both be right. But I would hesitate to shrug off economic considerations as ...

Hmmm, a lot of assumptions that guys making with not much to back it up IMO. Seeing you haven't read it carefully enough to notice it's a gal and not a guy, perhaps your opinion isn't worth much anyway. The name on the blog's 'Lynneguist', excuse me for not noticing and having an opinion on the art...

According to Jennifer Jenkins, in her book World English, the lack of acceptance of non-standard native forms of English seems to have connections with race, in the US, and with class, in the UK. Would you also say that it seems that way? I think that's a rather simplistic view and I suspect that J...

Stephen Jones wrote:An excellent site written by an American linguist in the UK.
http://separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com/

Hmmm, a lot of assumptions that guys making with not much to back it up IMO.

t.d. wrote:Hey everyone. I need a list of comparisons between British and American English. i.e. lift / elevator, gasoline / petrol, etc. etc. Anyone offer me some help here? Thank you.

You say t-may-toe, I say t-mar-toe.

You say potato, and so do I.

Let's call the whole thing off.

Hi wombly! Japan may have had and still have its policies, but one has to ask whether they are successful or not... Yeah they're certianly not effective in transforming japan into an ESL country. Not surprising as there's not really any demand or need for it in my opinion. Who will they use it with...

You could make something of a start by crossing off those countries in which English is most certainly still a foreign language. Here's one right away: Japan. 8) Actually, what is her (and/or your) definition of an ESL country? Is it one in which e.g. more than half the population know, or speak/us...