Ablocutionary Value: On the Application of Language Teaching to Linguistics1

Abstract

As far as English language teaching is concerned, applied linguistics may be seen to have grown out of a desire to liberate language teaching from an intellectual subservience to linguistics. Instead of involving itself in the co-operative creation of knowledge by linguists and language teachers, however, applied linguistics, in some of its manifestations, has set itself up as a barrier between the two, intent more on its own development as a discipline than on informed linguistic/pedagogic activity. The working relationship between language teaching and linguistics needs to be based on two-way communication and mutual respect, for valid conceptualization and theorizing is most likely to arise from informed activity and reflection. An example of a partial perspective on linguistic description arising from work in language teaching is offered for criticism.