WTF is applied linguistics, anyway?

“You’re a linguist? How many languages do you speak?”

“You want to study linguistics? I’m embarrassed to write a letter of recommendation for your application; my grammar is horrible.”

When I shared with my friends and co-workers that I wanted to get my Master’s Degree in Applied Linguistics, those are some of the comments I heard. They illustrate a couple of the misconceptions about this field. Linguists study language; they are not necessarily polyglots. Some learn several languages just for the love of it, but it is not at all a requirement. And along the same vein, linguists study language; they don’t prescribe it. We study how a language functions and how people use language, but very few linguists try to tell people how they should use language. Take the title of this post, for example. There are linguists who study how textspeak (things like “WTF” and “LOL”) has become a part of our spoken language. “WTF” in particular cracks me up (makes me LOL, if you will) because if you say it aloud – double you tee eff – it is two syllables longer than the actual phrase that it’s an “abbreviation” for. Oh, and look! I just ended a sentence with a preposition. It turns out that’s not the end of the world, after all. "WTF" also makes me cringe. With my proper Southern Baptist upbringing, we weren't even allowed to say B-U-T-T, so that "F" in "WTF" is something I would never say. And guess what: that's part of linguistics, too! A person's cultural background greatly affects how she views and uses language.

Before getting into my applied linguistics program, I had my own misconceptions about linguistics. I must admit, I had given very little thought to the difference between theoretical and applied linguistics. I only took one linguistics class in undergrad, and while I loved everything I learned in that class about language families and sounds and dialects (and on and on), it only scratched the surface of what linguistics is. I chose this particular graduate program (UMass Boston) for 3 reasons:

1.     It could be done entirely online and spread out over the 5 years I still had until my children graduate high school.

2.     It’s difficult to do graduate studies in German entirely online; you kinda need to talk to other people to effectively study a particular language. So linguistics was a good second choice – something that could back up my German major and expand it.

3.     This program is designed for educators. Participants can choose an ESL track or a foreign language pedagogy track.

Since my whole goal is to freshen up my education so that I feel comfortable going back to teaching in a few years, this program met my personal requirements for why I was doing this.

Beyond knowing that I would be studying language and that my studies would prepare me to go back to the classroom, I really didn’t know what to expect. Each class I’ve taken so far has opened my eyes to new ideas and pushed at the borders of what I thought defined the field of linguistics. It’s so much bigger and deeper and richer than I realized. And although this field was originally my second choice, I am so glad it's where I ended up. It is bigger and deeper and richer and probably more applicable to teaching than a Master's in only German would have been. And did you notice the relationship between the word applicable  and the title of my degree (Applied Linguistics)? What I'm only now beginning to truly understand is that my program is teaching me how to take the study of language (and the study of technology, and the study of cross-cultural perspectives, and, and and...) and apply those things to make me a better teacher.

I love being in my 40s and still able to learn new things. I started this blog as a place to collect my notes from my courses. I will catch up on and continue that, and I also will try to use this blog to write a little bit about what I’m learning and what ideas come to me, as I continue to discover what the broad field of applied linguistics really is. I invite you to join me in the comments. Help me to better formulate my ideas about all things language and all things pedagogy. Let's become better teachers together. It's our best hope for changing the world.