Part 2: Some key issues in applied linguistics
Summary and conclusion
Our main task has been to provide an introductory outline of relevant key concepts in realist social theory and applied linguistics, suggesting that the theme which unites them is that they are both concerned with ways of knowing the social world. Applied linguistics is concerned partly, but unavoidably, with the study of social relations; social theory is partly, and equally unavoidably, concerned with the study of language. Further, we have noted that language itself is the medium of theoretical exploration in both disciplines. For these reasons we have argued strongly that applied linguistics and social theory have a great deal to gain from an explicit collaboration.
We have tried to identify those concepts which can facilitate this collaboration, and we aim to exemplify it further. In presenting our introduction, we posed some dichotomies, most notably that between structure and agency. We suggested that structure and agency constitute distinct entities in the social world, each with their own sui generis properties and powers. One characteristic power of agency is human beings' capacity to use language as a means of self-expression. Social structures have the power to facilitate or frustrate human projects and purposes, within which language features as a resource. Brumfit (2001: 55-6) has captured this dual aspect of language well:
Language has simultaneously a public and a private face. On the one hand, it is the most subtle means for our classification of the world, our clarification of our own ideas, our establishment of self-identity. On the other, it is the major means of communication with other people that we possess, and thus has to fit in with the conventions that other people have collectively accepted. It pulls in one direction to the private and individual, and in the other to the public and ritualized.
Whilst we remain in broad agreement with this description, we will seek to refine the distinction between private and public. Importantly, we will argue for a view of language as a cultural (not a material) emergent property, not detachable from human beings but emergent from their biological attributes and their practical engagement with the world. Access to linguistic resources is conditioned by material relations but language, as emergent, has a degree of autonomy both from individual speakers and from material relations. Thus the working-class child can learn to speak with an upper-class accent; girls can talk 'macho'. Conversely, an upper-class accent may not protect you from bankruptcy; native-like fluency in a language is not an absolute prerequisite for business success in your adopted country.
A benefit of the realist perspective on language- which sees it as a property emergent from the interplay between structure and agency is that it allows us to pose questions that are of concern to both applied linguistics and social theory. These are questions about, for example, the role of language in national and cultural identity; the performative functions of language in social relations; the role that language plays in the constitution and reproduction of social life; the relationship between languages and forms of political oppression and indoctrination; and the central place of symbolic communication in social interaction.
