In:60 Years of Applied Linguistics: Toward more engaged research
Edited by Grégory Miras, Isabel Colón de Carvajal, Nathalie Blanc and Shona Whyte
[AILA Applied Linguistics Series 22] 2026
► pp. 181–188
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Chapter 11Diversity in Applied Linguistics
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.
For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at rights@benjamins.nl.
Published online: 9 March 2026
https://doi.org/10.1075/aals.22.11wid
https://doi.org/10.1075/aals.22.11wid
Abstract
The diversity of research carried out under the name of applied linguistics can be seen as
evidence of the vitality of the field, but the diversity seems primarily to relate to the range of disciplinary
enquiry that it makes reference to. I argue that this disciplinary focus has the effect of distracting attention from
what is claimed to be the defining purpose of applied linguistics, which is to engage with language problems that are
actually experienced by language users and learners in the real world. If this claim is to be validated, it is the
diversity of this experience that applied linguistic research needs to engage with, and so made relevant to the
immediate realities of the contemporary world.
Article outline
- Introduction
References
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