This essay explores the relationship between democratic political theory and the reality of linguistic diversity in contemporary political communities. After suggesting a distinction between "liberal" and "participatory" democratic theories, and asserting that there have been fruitful explorations of linguistic diversity in…

This article uses a research project into the online conversations of sex offenders and the children they abuse to further the arguments for the acceptability of experimental work as a research tool for linguists. The research reported here contributes to the growing body of work within linguistics that has found experimental methods to be useful…

As applied linguists know very well, how we use language both constructs and reflects our understanding. It is therefore important that we use terms that do justice to our concerns. In this presentation, I suggest that a more apt designation than "multilingual" or "second language acquisition" (SLA) is "multilingual"…

Taking 1925, the founding year of "Language", the journal of the Linguistics Society of America, as a benchmark for "the past", and 2015 as benchmark for "the present", the author considers what was known then and what is known now about second language acquisition in applied linguistics. The field has grown more…

This paper conducts a theoretical examination of an evidence-based approach (EBA) to research on language policy and language-in-education policy (LPLEP), as well as a methodological examination of the feasibility of evidence-based LPLEP research based on actual studies. Theoretical scrutiny, based on EBA's core concepts--evidence hierarchy,…

Applied linguists have been exploring approaches to second language acquisition and competence that move beyond a prioritization of cognition and grammar that was derived from the foundational structuralist legacy in linguistics. Recently, for example, they have collaborated in putting together an integrated alternative model (Douglas Fir Group,…

The present paper attempts to provide a critical evaluation of the most prominent pedagogical models that have dealt with the language of the second language (L2) learner starting from the second half of the 20th century. The three most influential approaches in the domain are investigated in this study: contrastive analysis (CA), error analysis…

This article of reflection considers socio-political issues such as linguistic perialism, native speakerism, English as an International language, and appropriate teaching methodologies, which are currently contentious issues in the ELT community. Framed within a critical approach of applied linguistics, these issues are addressed in three…

English Medium Instruction (EMI) in universities continues to grow as an educational phenomenon and increasingly is attracting the attention of researchers, particularly researchers who are applied linguists. Starting with a definition of EMI and with the challenges that any working definition poses in the many contexts in which EMI is said to be…

Political theorists, generally non-experts in the language sciences, whose principal aim is often to advance normative theories on desirable states of affairs within liberal democratic states, tend to deal with language as a stable nominal category, as something that one "has" or "doesn't have", that can be labeled as one…

Via an account of the genesis, development, and enactment of a seminar in translingual writing, this paper represents an attempt to indicate the extensive amount and interdisciplinary nature of the knowledge that one needs to be familiar with in order to develop a rich and nuanced understanding of the phenomenon as well as to provide a resource…

This article argues for understanding Kenneth Burke's linguistic pedagogy as a teaching practice rooted in the appreciation of disability. It explores connections between the Cold War cultural context and the present day, describing how a nuanced approach to disability pedagogy can resist impulses toward competition and conflict in the classroom…

In "Voices of Modernity," Richard Bauman and Charles Briggs write their grand overview of the birth and maturation of modernity. Bauman and Briggs understand modernity as a discursive construction that opposes traditional and modern developments, ways of being, and modes of understanding. Central in this narrative project of modernity…

Children's status as research participants in applied linguistics has been largely overlooked even though unique methodological and ethical concerns arise in projects where children, rather than adults, are involved. This article examines the role of children as research participants in applied linguistics and discusses the limitations of…

This selective review of the second language acquisition and applied linguistics research literature on grammar learning and teaching falls into three categories: where research has had little impact (the non-interface position), modest impact (form-focused instruction), and where it potentially can have a large impact (reconceiving grammar).…