Thus far, we have defined applied linguistics as 'the theoretical and empirical investigation fo real-world problems in which language is a central issue' (Brumfit 1995:27),andsurveyed the main problem areas that applied linguistics currently focuses on. Following on from these discussions,the aim of this fimal section is to consider in fairly general terms how applied linguists go abour investigating the problems.questione and issues that interest and concern them.
Let us begin by looking in a little more detail at what it means to'investigate'a problem in applied linguistics.As with most other academic subject areas;investigations in applied linguistics can take several forms.
Let us imagine for a moment that you want to investigate whether standards of English grammar are slipping among school lesvers and university graduates,as is currently being claimed in many sections of the Anglophone media throughout the worid.Is English really being'dumbed down'by its users? One way to investigate this question would be to conduct a literature review. This would involve using your university's library catalogue resources to search for previous academic research papers on this quastion,and to read these papers in order to see whether their conbined result present a clear case for agreeing or disagreeing with the'dnmbing down' view.Alternatively.or additionally.you might want to conduct your own empirical research into this issue. by analysing data thatyou will have collected yourself from lcarners. teachers and/or other interested parties. Such research may be qualitative (i.e. collected via observations. cse siudirs or interviews), quantitative(i.e.collected via controlled experiments. questionnaires or tests), orbased on the manual analysis of individual texts or the computer-assisted analysis of large electronicslly-stored collectione of texts, or corpora.
You minght also wish to employ a combiation of two or more of these methods.