Book Review: System 32 (2004) 121-131

Book review
Applied linguistics in language education

S. McDonough; Arnold, London, 2002, 178pp.
Applied linguistics is well known to be a slippery object, being seen by some as
linguistics applied, by others as the theorising of language learning, and, in its
widest and perhaps most accepted form currently, as the academic discipline con-
cerned with investigating, describing and explaining real world problems in which
language plays a central role. In this book, Steven McDonough takes second lan-
guage learning as his central concern and explores what applied linguistics in its
various guises might have to oer.
He begins by critically addressing the issue of how the discipline of linguistics can
provide theories and descriptions of language, at sentence and at text level. The next
section of the book considers language learning and covers the key areas of inter-
language, second language acquisition, individual dierences, strategy research, and
learner styles. The last section moves into the classroom and teacher education, with
an interesting discussion of the interface with education, and a chapter on assess-
ment. For each area, key concepts and empirical studies are outlined, evaluated and
placed in their historical context. The reader will thus nd an accessible account of
developments in the theory, research and practice of language education, both suc-
cesses and failures. Particularly strong are the sections dealing with the writers own
research area of strategies.
Inevitably in a relatively short book that deals with a lot of content, each area
receives only brief attention and the reader may be left with unanswered questions.
In addition, some areas that seem likely to emerge as important in coming years are
mentioned only scantily, if at allfor example, the impact of corpus linguistic work
on our views of language as driven by lexis as well as, or even instead of, grammar;
the role of formulaic language in language learning; the eects and side-eects of
globalisation on language education.
The writer takes a somewhat confrontational and sceptical approach to the more
academic aspects of applied linguistics, although it has to be said that there is often
reasonable justication for such a reaction. More positively, he does a good job of
reviewing those areas where academic research and theorising have intersected more
helpfully with language education. The case is made for more interaction with edu-
cational theory and research to supplement the inuence of linguistics, SLA and
sociology, and there is a strong steer towards classroom-based research methods.
The descriptions of the historical contexts of areas of language education are
rather variable. It will be useful for readers to know, for example, about the place of
System 32 (2004) 121131
www.elsevier.com/locate/system
contrastive analysis and error analysis in the history of applied linguistics and lan-
guage education. It might also have been helpful to make more of the dierences in
research traditions between the UK and the US, which have led to distinct approa-
ches to task-based learning and SLA. A further small point is the (over)use of the
term recent to describe publications, even papers published as long ago as 1995,
seven years before publication of this volume. Another recent development descri-
bed in the book is that of guidelines for a teacher education framework through the
now defunct organisations BIELT and BATQI. Books like this will date less quickly
if writers take care to avoid relative temporal references.
This will be a useful book for those beginning or continuing professional devel-
opment in language education. As well as being largely appropriate for the target
audience described on the back of the book (trainee teachers, undergraduate stu-
dents of TEFL, Certicate and Diploma candidates), it will also prove helpful for
students on Masters courses who are looking for an introductory overview to areas
of theory or research such as information processing approaches to language learn-
ing, strategy research, motivation, method, syllabus types and assessment. These
latter students will, however, need to seek out a much wider range of references than
those included in the book.
McDonough uses his nal chapter to review the scope and purpose of applied
linguistics, or at least of what he calls the applied linguistics of second language
learning. He re-emphasises the problem of collaboration between academics and
language teachers, nds a particular role for applied linguistics in evaluation rather
than innovation, points to the need for responsiveness across sub-areas of applied
linguistics and sets out future research goals in understanding more about the
teaching-learning process in language classrooms. Those of us involved in language
education would nd it hard to disagree.
Lynne Cameron
School of Education, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK
E-mail address: l.j.cameron@education.leeds.ac.uk
doi:10.1016/j.system.2003.11.002
Psycholinguistics: A Resource Book for Students
J. Field; Routledge, London, 2003, xviii+231 pages
Psycholinguistics is a really hard subject to teach. At one level, it consists of a set
of subject areas which most linguists take for granted: the dierences between ani-
mal communication and human languages; the localisation of language in the brain;
lexical storage and lexical access; speech perception; speech production; reading and
writing; and language disorders. Each of these areas is associated with one or two
classic studies, which have become part of the canon of psycholinguistics classes,
and which students are expected to be familiar with. Psycholinguistics textbooks
usually cover this canon well, if rather supercially, and it is possible for good stu-
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