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Pure and Applied Research in Linguistics: Is the Difference Merely One of Motivation?

It is perhaps natural that in the early years of emergence of a new field of study and research its practitioners should from time to time ask themselves what is the nature of the activity they are engaged in. The need to do so may stem from a number of different causes: philosophical, sociological and psychological. The practitioners may feel the need to establish a personal identity, that is, some accepted place for themselves in the social structure of the academic world, to achieve respect and recognition as workers in the field of scholarship, a role in the institution of higher studies. They may feel that the discipline they profess is not properly recognised within the scholarly domain, its place not clearly determined in the structure of science or scholarship, its value to society not appreciated; and that consequently it does not attract research funds in its own name, permit the establishment of courses and programmes which lead to academic degrees or qualifications bearing its name, or of learned societies devoted to discussing its problems and disseminating its notions. All of these factors I believe play a part in the motivations for the constantly renewed discussion of WHAT IS APPLIED LINGUISTICS? None of them is in any way reprehensible or unworthy. The intensity or frequency with which these discussions occur is a response to the prevailing orthodox views about the discipline itself and its relation to neighbouring disciplines found in the society where the discussions take place, and to the degree to which its practitioners (i.e. people who call themselves applied linguists) feel oppressed, unrecognised or undervalued by the members of the institution in which they work and with whom they interact. This is a whole field of investigation open to the sociologist of science to describe and explain.