Article published In: Australian Review of Applied Linguistics: Online-First Articles
A confluence of interests
The origins of the Applied Linguistics Association of Australia
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.
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Open Access publication of this article was funded through a Transformative Agreement with The University of Adelaide.
Published online: 30 September 2025
https://doi.org/10.1075/aral.25025.wes
https://doi.org/10.1075/aral.25025.wes
Abstract
Building on the work of McNamara and Lo Bianco (McNamara, T. (2001). The roots of applied linguistics in Australia. Australian Review of Applied Linguistics, 24(1), 13–29. ; McNamara, T., & Lo Bianco, J. (2001). The distinctiveness of Applied Linguistics in Australia: A historical perspective. In R. L. Cooper, E. Shohamy & J. Walters (Eds) New perspectives and issues in educational language policy: In honour of Bernard Dov Spolsky (pp. 261–269). Philadelphia: John Benjamins. ), this article interrogates further the institutional and
intellectual factors that led to the establishment of the Applied Linguistics Association of Australia (ALAA), which was
officially constituted in 1976 at a conference organized at the University of Newcastle. It aims to show that, while both ALAA and
the tradition of applied linguistics it fostered in Australia had certain distinctive features, the creation of the association
was also reflective of a wider set of circumstances and imperatives. In order to illustrate this, the discussion looks firstly at
the broader international context before considering the factors that contributed at the more local level to the formation of
ALAA. In so doing, it seeks to provide an enhanced appreciation of the generic and specific influences at play in ALAA’s origin
story, and of their relative importance. More generally, the study presented here contributes to the growing body of work in
“Applied Linguistic Historiography,” the importance of which was advocated by Smith, R. (2016). Building ‘Applied Linguistic Historiography’. Applied Linguistics, 37(1), 71–87. Open Access: [URL].
Keywords: applied linguistics, history, Australia, international associations
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.The international context
- 3.The Australian context
- 4.Conclusion
- Notes
References
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