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Chapter 14 - Coggle Diagram
Chapter 14
The impact of new technologies
Given the central roles of information and communication in applied linguistics, it isn’t surprising that the revolution has had a massive impact on the content of the field, and not just the speed and ease with which we conduct our professional practice.
The tragedy in Haiti following the January 2010 earthquake provides dramatic evidence of how applied linguists can help people communicate across language borders using the technologies of corpus linguistics, machine translation and social networking through mobile phones.
When Haiti was devastated by an earthquake in January, aid teams poured in to the shattered island, speaking dozens of languages – but not Haitian Creole. How could a trapped survivor with a cellphone get usable information to rescuers? If he had to wait for a Chinese or Turkish or an English interpreter to turn up, he might be dead before being understood. Carnegie Mellon University instantly released its Haitian Creole spoken and text data, and a network of volunteer developers produced a rough and ready machine translation system for Haitian Creole in little more than a long weekend. It didn’t produce prose of great beauty. But it worked.
Duan Yan is aware of these advantages of technology for translators: she tells how corpus based translation software increases her productivity and the acceptability of the results to the client, and how online discussion boards give her a dedicated community to consult when she has a problem.
The dissolutions of borders
Crossing political borders
Practitioners from applied linguistics are dealing with the consequences of increased immigration, cross-border communication and economic integration, leading to a rethinking of society that is no longer automatically defined or confined by the nation state.
Melissa commented: Living on the border, I haven’t seen much change that can be attributed to immigration as far as student demographics or teaching methods are concerned. Students still have differing levels of English proficiency and different backgrounds that I keep in mind as I develop activities to foster learning. Work with Indigenous communities in Peru highlights the challenges that migration is presenting for applied linguistics work in regions not traditionally regarded as borderlands.
Crossing linguistic borders
It is disquiet about language and national identity that perhaps motivates questions about language use in the census exercises of some nations.
Although census information is vital to applied linguists in some of their endeavours, they are aware of the over-simplicity of data-collection procedures, and often complain about the precision and representativeness of survey data on home language use. Problems include:
Low response rates from immigrants and minority ethnic groups.
Under-reporting of Indigenous and other low prestige languages.
The absence of any means to measure the validity of self-reported data.
A lack of sensitivity to the code-switching and code-mixing practices that often constitute most “language use” in multilingual households.
Crossing disciplinary borders
It became clear that some areas of applied linguistics operate under the assumption of a ‘paradigm gap’ in which cognitive and social aspects of language are regarded as separate and unbridgeable areas.
It’s advisable for students and practitioners of applied linguistics to develop the broadest possible understanding of language learning and use. If this objective were to be fully embraced by applied linguists involved in education, it could lead the way to fundamental changes in the discipline.
This in turn would have knock-on effects in other areas of applied linguistics which use these skills and tools, such as diagnostic measures in language pathology and literacy assessment.
Crossing professional borders
Applied linguists should be able to move between the different sub-disciplines of the field too, from language teaching to translation, from forensic linguistics to literacy practices, from language planning to lexicography.
We desperately need to get the word out on the complex issues we deal with, but in a way that is maximally accessible to clients, opinion-formers and decision-makers.
The exercise of the profession
Standards of practice and quality assurance
As the scope of applied linguistics broadens to include a wider range of jobs in publicly funded institutions, exercised across national boundaries, professional standards can be used to ensure that clients receive equitable services independently of geographical locations, social connections, economic conditions and language backgrounds.
Language, freedom and social responsibility
Language is the primary human tool for expressing, interpreting and commenting on the meanings of things, including how they are now, how they came to be that way and how they might be different in the future.
Our work deals directly with people facing different language related problems in diverse communities, applied linguists are witnesses to how language shapes lives, including access to information and resources, and to basic services such as education, health care and legal protections.
Many teachers see language as a tool for fostering social justice, like Melissa, whose ultimate goals in educating El Paso youth are to help students stay in school, become critical thinkers and active community members, and prepare for a university education.
Prospects and perspectives
We focus on how an emerging generation of language
professionals is bridging applied linguistic theory and practice.