1.

Write a short essay about

prescription vs. Describtion 2. Write a
short essay about children's language
at home and school. It's better to write
in your own language

Anmar Ahmed / Chapter 2

Applied linguistics Between The Theory And The Reality

At the heart of the aspiration to relate theory to practice is a constant tension between
language as viewed by the expert' and language as everyone's lived experience-
including the applied linguist's own . This Tension due to :

1 - The two are by no means easily reconciled and, as in other areas of academic
enquiry affecting everyday life, are likely to be aggravated by any attempt to impose
insensitively an ' expert' view which runs contrary to deeply held belief.

2 - The scope of applied linguistics extends to many problematic and dynamic issues
that the theoretical project may not aware of it . Nowhere is this more apparent than in
our attitudes to the language education of children, and the beliefs which they reflect
about the' best' language use.

The Need For Applied Linguistics At The Stage Of School

The role of applied linguistics is emerged in school stage . This appear is necessary
due to many reasons . It relates to how children will learn to read and write and how
they should learn a language . There is a need to deal with the dialect . Dialect as a
result from society , family and peer group , so how should the school and the
educational systems takes these issues into account . There is another unsolved
problem about the value of the standard language because it can be viewed in two
quite contradictory ways. On the one hand it can be seen as conferring an unfair
advantage upon those children who already speak a variety close to it, while
simultaneously denying the worth of other dialects and damaging the heritage of those
children who speak them. On the other hand, given that the standard exists, has
prestige and power, and provides a gateway to written knowledge, it can be argued
that teaching it helps to give an equal opportunity to all . Educational theory indeed in
this case cannot leave behind applied linguistics , because from the 1960s onwards,
this ongoing debate has been further aggravated and complicated by the claim, made
by the educational sociologist Basil Bernstein, that some social-class variations
indicate not only differences but deficits. In Bernstein's view, the language used in
some sections of society is a restricted code which lacks the full resources of the more
elaborated code of the standard. Not surprisingly, this view has been hotly contested
by others who argue that all varieties are equally complex, functional, and expressive.

Linguistics And Applied Linguistics ( Prescription vs. Descriptions)

The linguists of linguistics do not solve the problem of using the standard language
and dialect and the scope of each of them in school learning . They are concerned
with describing language . They argue, the task is not to evaluate but to describe and
explain . To justify their views they point to such facts as the following :

1 - If there was never any deviation from the norm then language would never change.
We would all still be saying 'Wherefore art thou?' instead of 'Why are you?'

2 - If a single standard was absolute and unassailable then regional standards would
never gain independence.

3 - every bit as complex and expressive as those of standard forms.

4 - The standard form of a language is often very similar to the usage of the most
economically and politically powerful class or region, for example southern England
in Britain and Castile in Spain. It can be regarded as a dominant dialect which, for
political rather than linguistic reasons, has been elevated and codified. Consequently,
when the balance of power changes, so does the notion of the standard. The
emergence of American English as an alternative standard to British English is a
textbook example.

5 - The grammar of written language differs considerably from that of speech, even
among speakers whose variety is closest to the standard, and writing carries more
prestige and authority.
6 – The grammar imposed by grammarians through analogy with another language.

Applied linguists have a responsibility to investigate the reasons behind the

impasse between descriptivist's and prescriptivists itself a problem involving
language), to engage with the practical consequences holding one view or another,
and to mediate between academic and public concerns. They must relate to, and
negotiate between, the descriptivist view, often used to support the claim that the
standard form is merely a political convenience perpetuating the privilege of a
minority, and the prescriptivists view ironically often held by speakers whose dialect
differs most-sharply from it--that there is something intrinsically superior and better
about the standard. We might observe that, as is so often the case in such disputes, it
is certainly not that academic experts are necessarily right and day opinion just
wrong-headed. Academics do not have a monopoly either on knowledge or on
rational argument. The ' same this true in many analogous domains--for example,
medicine, nutrition, or childcare--where everyday activity, vital to people's well-
being, is also the subject of academic research. Thus, while there is force in
descriptivist arguments, there are also valid reservations to be made about them:

1 - To talk about a language at all, there must be some pre- existing notion of what
does and does not count as an example. Descriptivists may accept, as instances, some
examples of dialectal forms which hard-line prescriptivists would exclude, but there
are always others from another language for example--which they reject. Thus, they
are drawing the boundary around a language in a different place, not abandoning the
notion of boundaries altogether.

2 - linguists often base their decisions upon native speaker use or judgment. This,
however, simply shifts the criterion away from what is said to the person who says it.

3 - Despite descriptivist insistence on the equality of all varieties, it is nevertheless the

standard which is most often used in their analyses while other varieties are described
as departures from it.

4-If linguists are concerned with describing and explaining facts about language, then
the widespread belief in prescriptivism, and the effect of this belief on language use,
is itself a fact about language which needs describing and explaining.

5- Paradoxically, to advocate description and outlaw prescription is itself prescriptive.