Language and Education: Papers from the Annual Meeting of the British Association for Applied Linguistics Held at the University of Southampton, September ... (British Studies in Applied Linguistics, 11)

254 Pages·1996·0.89 MB·English

by  George M. Blue

Language and Education : Papers From the
Annual Meeting of the British Association
title: for Applied Linguistics Held At the
University of Southampton, September
1995
author: Blue, George M.
publisher: Multilingual Matters
isbn10 | asin: 1853593702
print isbn13: 9781853593703
ebook isbn13: 9780585126050
language: English
subject Language and education--Congresses.
publication date: 1996
lcc: P40.8.B75 1995eb
ddc: 418
subject: Language and education--Congresses.
Page i
Language and Education
Papers from the
Annual Meeting of the British Association for Applied Linguistics
held at the University of Southampton, September 1995
Edited by
George M. Blue and Rosamond Mitchell
British Association For Applied Linguistics
in association with
MULTILINGUAL MATTERS LTD
Clevedon · Philadelphia · Adelaide
Page ii
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
British Association for Applied Linguistics. Meeting (25th: 1995:
University of Southampton)
Language and Education: Papers from the Annual Meeting of the
British Association for Applied Linguistics held at the University of
Southampton, September 1995/Edited by George M. Blue and
Rosamond Mitchell. Includes bibliographical references.
1. Language and education-Congresses. I. Blue, George M. II.
Mitchell, Rosamond. III. Title.
P40.8.B75 1995
418-dc20 96-31897
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British
Library.
ISBN 1-85359-370-2 (pbk)
Multilingual Matters Ltd
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Africa.
Copyright © 1996 British Association for Applied Linguistics.
All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced in any
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Typeset by Wayside Books, Clevedon.
Printed and bound in Great Britain by the Longdunn Press.
Page iii
Contents
Language and Education: Editors' preface iv
George M. Blue And Rosamond Mitchell
1 1
Educational Linguistics, Applied Linguistics and the
Study of Language Practices
Christopher Brumfit
2 16
Second Language Acquisition Theory Building?
James P. Lantolf
3 28
Language and the Guided Construction of Knowledge
Neil Mercer
4 41
Language Policy and Language Practice in Education
Jenny Cheshire
5 52
Multilingualism and Education: The case of Ethiopia
Thomas Bloor And Wondwosen Tamrat
6 60
Outing the Tester: Theoretical models and practical
endeavours in language testing
Alan Davies
7 70
Discourses of Rationality: Argumentation in EAP and
teacher education across cultures
Simon Gieve
8 80
Phraseological Competence and Written Proficiency
A. P Cowie And Peter Howarth
9 94
The Occurrence of 'Occurance' (and 'Alot' of Other Things
'Aswell'): Patterns of errors in undergraduate English
Alison Wray
10 107
Knowing and Using the Perfect Tense in French
Gee Macrory And Valerie Stone
Notes on Contributors 119
Page iv
Language and Education: Editors' preface
George M. Blue and Rosamond Mitchell
University of Southampton
The 28th Annual Meeting of BAAL was held at the Centre for
Language in Education, University of Southampton in September
1995. The theme of the meeting was 'Language and Education', and
over 100 papers were given. This collection therefore represents only
a small sample of the wide range of applied linguistic work presented
at the Meeting, connected to this theme.
In the early days of BAAL it was probably the case that nearly all the
work that members were involved in would have fitted quite
comfortably under the 'Language and Education' umbrella. The
themes of recent Annual Meetings (e.g. 'Language and Nation',
'Language and Culture', 'Language and Change') indicate that this is
no longer the case. Similarly, in the early days of BAAL it could have
safely been assumed that the kind of education that members were
involved in was for the most part foreign language teaching. Although
this remains an important strand within the association, the present
collection shows that applied linguists now share many different
concerns within the educational field as well as outside it.
In planning the 1995 Annual Meeting we divided the major theme
area into three sub-themes: 'Mother Tongue Classrooms',
'Second/Foreign Language Classrooms' and 'Language Policy and
Education'. Although all of the papers selected for publication could
be related to one or more of these headings, when we came to the
publication this no longer seemed to be the most logical way of
dividing up this particular set of papers. Three of the four plenary
papers address 'Educational/Applied Linguistics Discourses', and we
have grouped them together under this heading. Two papers
(including the fourth plenary) deal with 'Language Policy and
Education'; so we have kept this sub-theme. A further two papers
could be seen as dealing with aspects of 'Professional Culture' and the
Page v
final batch of three with 'Learner Language in Educational Settings'.
Although we do not wish to suggest any watertight or rigid
compartmentalisation, we shall present the papers in this order, under
these four headings.
Educational/Applied Linguistics Discourses
Christopher Brumfit's plenary paper (the Pit Corder lecture) is a wide-
ranging review of Applied Linguistics, how it has developed as a
field, how it is conceived of today, and its relationship with
Educational Linguistics. It ends with a discussion of the positivist-
relativist tension, a theme which is thoroughly developed by Jim
Lantolf in the next paper. Lantolf suggests that in a field so full of
controversy as second language acquisition, the post-modernist
position may be an appropriate response to a bewildering variety of
conflicting theories. Finally in this section Neil Mercer looks at the
role of language within the learning/teaching process, in particular 'the
ways language is used as a social mode of thinking, and for guiding
the construction of knowledge'.
Language Policy and Education
Jenny Cheshire's plenary contrasts issues of language policy and
practice in education in largely monolingual England with
multilingual Switzerland, arguing that applied linguists need to
engage with these issues in order to influence policy decisions. Tom
Bloor and Wondwosen Tamrat offer a case study of issues of
language policy (mainly though not exclusively in education) in
multilingual Ethiopia, and evaluate the impact of present policy
changes for the respective roles of English and Amharic.
Professional Culture in Language Education
Alan Davies is interested in the role of theory in language testing, and
he investigates the extent to which language testing practice is really
influenced by current theoretical frameworks of communicative
language ability. In a quite different area of professional culture,
Simon Gieve investigates and questions the theoretical and
philosophical assumptions that lie behind attempts to inculturate
international students (in this case, Malaysian teachers) into British
academic culture.
Learner Language in Educational Settings
Tony Cowie and Peter Howarth's paper deals with both international
and British students and compares their ability to use so-called
'restricted collocations' in