Working with Linguistics - Teaching Applied Linguistics vs Applying Linguistics to Teaching

The title of this volume clearly suggests numerous paths of analysis and suggests many lines of discussion. Because of space restrictions, however, my analysis is necessarily going to focus on some aspects among the many which could have been selected as the object of this book, dedicating particular attention to Discourse Analysis. The aim of the volume is thus twofold. On the one hand, it was devised as a tool to help readers develop useful strategies with which they can approach the analysis of discourse in various contexts. The various sections therefore aim at demonstrating how the notions elaborated within different linguistic disciplines work as subtexts in many products with which readers are confronted in their everyday life and can therefore help them interpret the surrounding reality. As a consequence, the volume addresses any reader who wants to understand the way language works, the mechanisms at its basis and the way these mechanisms can (and are) exploited in the molding of reality. On the other, the present book, which stems from my experience as a professor of English Linguistics and Translation, was conceived as a tool for teachers of English Linguistics. Indeed, since it approaches this discipline in some of the forms it takes, suggesting strategies that might become useful in an attempt to render its basic notions less abstract, it identifies possible texts (and implicitly suggests possible activities) which might become useful when introducing the various disciplines of Linguistics to students. In addition, because the book aims at demonstrating the fundamental role which many of the notions introduced within the various branches of English Linguistics play in the most diverse communicative events, it can become a useful tool specifically for teachers of English, who want to raise their students’ awareness in relation to the different uses which different cultures might make of language. Because of the importance that the study of spoken language has acquired in the last decades, although many of the analyses proposed here focus on written texts, the volume lays great emphasis on the fruitful exploitation of audio and/or audio-visual materials too. These products can in fact be easily retrieved and made available to students by exploiting the new technologies and can provide materials for various listening activities, which might in fact become extremely useful resources, both in Linguistics courses and classes of English as a foreign language.