Language and language practices

 

All the aspects approached in the different fields of science and education depend mostly on the perception. It happens in various branches and, as usual, starts from the social practice. As a single person can be perceived since multiple perspectives as someone totally different, the same happens with particular concepts or items in the formal study of things. A clear example of this perception situation can be seen in language, one of the most changing and complex fields of study. Here, it appears a common question among the people who study the language: What is the difference between linguistics and applied linguistics? And here, again the answer is mostly related to perception. Linguistics, is more related to a descriptive process. Linguists look for detailed descriptions and answers for specific behavior of language in determined areas or contexts. It deals with numbers, specific words, punctual answers that can explain a specific situation. On the other hand, the applied linguistics goes for a more problem- based branch. It can be considered as a practical area in which situations related to the use of language and the issues or questions that it generates are studied. Applied linguistics mainly deal with a scenario that has been problematized for years in the language area: the education. How languages are learned, acquired or taught, what questions and problems can emerge from these processes and how they could be solved.

Now, understanding in general terms what the difference between linguistics and applied linguistics is, it is pertinent to talk about situations in which these areas have lot of work to do. One of these is the gender. To be precise about how these two areas approach the study of gender it is important to clarify that while linguistics is focused on gender in language, applied linguistics is focused on language in gender. The relation and the influence that each concept has in the other is studied in each one of the previously mentioned areas. This huge topic that is gender has a lot to do with the language and the study of it, there are several aspects that are interconnected. For example, some social groups have evidenced that male population are more used to use vernacular language than female population. Other clear example of the relation between gender and language is the belief that girls are better than boys at the time to learn and use a language because they are considered to be more “verbal”.

Among these differentiations that languages do between genders, have also been evident the sexism that has appeared and that has become more controversial for those who take the time to analyze it. The use of certain words which are only applicable for men and the differentiation of terms only in certain and specific cases make evident that some aspects of language were tough in times when males were considered superior, or at least with a higher power. However, as many issues that have become popular in the recent days, it is very important to understand that these features are the result of a specific moment of history and that as in many other cases the change will not be easy but it will happen.

To continue with the main issue of the current text which is focused on how to differentiate linguistics from applied linguistics, in relation with the topic of gender, it can be clarified that while linguistics would be worried for analyzing and describing the situations presented, the applied linguistics would rather propose possible remedies or solutions for the problems related to the topic. This is, due to the fact that linguistics work in a deductive way while applied linguistics operate inductively.

Another important field in which linguistics and applied linguistics have a lot to do and where their roles are analyzed and differentiated is the field of clinical linguistics, in which the different impairments related to language are analyzed. In a general view, it is possible to see that, while linguists are more interested in understanding and deeply comprehending this phenomena, applied linguists deal more with the intervention, which the problems are and how they could be treated and possibly improved.

In spite of the previous differentiation it is very relevant to highlight that even, when sometimes some kind of tension appears between linguistics and applied linguistics, they feed and help each other, applied linguists need all the information and analysis done by linguists and linguists need the data that applied linguists get in order to make their research and understanding much more holistic. In this way, there is no reason to separate these two branches and to create some kind of rivalry. It is absolutely necessary to understand that they work better by using and understanding the other, and that in this way science and knowledge will grow in a great way.