Accent on the positive

Abstract

In recent decades large components of the language sciences have been subjected to relentless critique. Criticism has not been exclusive to those branches directly concerned with application, such as applied linguistics, but it has been particularly robust when directed at language studies modified by the words ‘social’, as in socio-linguistics, sociology of language; or ‘education’, as in bilingual education, foreign language education; and ‘policy’ or ‘planning’, as in language policy. Most trenchant has been the criticism generated from neo-Marxist, post structuralist and post-modernist positions, claiming that the practice, concepts and methods of the applied language sciences are compli..