تسجيل الدخول

تسجيل

Applied linguistics and social contexts Responding to social problems with applied linguistics

المؤلف:  Alison Sealey & Bob Carter

المصدر:  Applied Linguistics and Language Teacher Education

الجزء والصفحة:  P30-C1

2026-09-22

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Applied linguistics and social contexts

Responding to social problems with applied linguistics

The foregoing discussion has provided an indication of some of the areas of social life in which applied linguists are active. As we have noted, the realm of education sees a significant proportion of this activity, and this extends from research into how the individual learner- including learners who may have some clinical condition affecting language interpretation or production- processes spoken language or written text, through analyses of what goes on in language and literacy classrooms, and on to questions about the global influence of specific languages, notably English, as education systems all over the world are involved in decision-making about which languages are to be taught in their schools. We have also illustrated how the language of social interactions and institutions from a much wider range of contexts than education is not only analyzed but also subject to suggested alterations as a result of some of the projects in which applied linguists are involved. Commercial institutions, workplaces, media texts, family conversations, intercultural encounters, hospitals and emergency services: all of these sites have been investigated in the course of applied linguistic research. As a final illustration of the scope of the discipline, we outline how some of the work applied linguists do is incorporated into another powerful social institution- the legal system.