Applied linguistics is an interdisciplinary field of study that identifies, investigates, and offers solutions to language-related real-life problems. Some of the academic fields related to applied linguistics are education, linguistics, psychology, computer science, anthropology, and sociology.

Domain

Major branches of applied linguistics include bilingualism and multilingualism, computer-mediated communication (CMC), conversation analysis, contrastive linguistics, deaf linguistics, language assessment, literacies, discourse analysis, language pedagogy, second language acquisition, lexicography, language planning and policies, stylistics, pragmatics, forensic linguistics, and translation.

Major journals of the field include Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, Applied Linguistics, International Review of Applied Linguistics, International Journal of Applied Linguistics, Issues in Applied Linguistics, and Language Learning.

History

Applied linguistics first concerned itself with principles and practices on the basis of linguistics. In the early days, applied linguistics was thought as “linguistics-applied” at least from the outside of the field. In the 1960s, however, applied linguistics was expanded to include language assessment, language policy, and second language acquisition. As early as the 1970s, applied linguistics became a problem-driven field rather than theoretical linguistics. Applied linguistics also included solution of language-related problems in the real world. By the 1990s, applied linguistics has broadened including critical studies and multilingualism. Research of applied linguistics was shifted to "the theoretical and empirical investigation of real world problems in which language is a central issue."

Organizations

In 1964 following two years of preparatory work financed by the Council of Europe, the Association Internationale de Linguistique Appliquée (the International Association of Applied Linguistics usually referred to by the French acronym AILA) was founded and its first international congress was held in Nancy, France. Papers for the congress were solicited in two distinct strands—foreign language teaching and automatic translation.

In addition to the international organization AILA, there are also major national associations of applied linguists such as the American Association for Applied Linguistics (AAAL) and the British Association for Applied Linguistics (BAAL). The work of applied linguists is frequently presented or described in publications such as the journal Applied Linguistics (Oxford University Press) and the Annual Review of Applied Linguistics (Cambridge University Press).

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