David Graddol

Evaluating Language (BAAL 8) David Graddol

The nine papers included in this volume are selected from those presented at the 25th Annual Meeting of the British Association for Applied Linguistics, held at the University of Essex, September 1992. Each of these papers takes a different approach to the conference theme of "evaluation". The first two papers, from invited key-note speakers, take the opportunity that an anniversary offers for reviewing the present state of Applied Linguistics and the relationship between theory and practice which is fundamental to the discipline. But both also address the theme in relation to specific issues: linguists' responses to evaluative and prescriptive interests in language expressed by many non-linguists, and methods of evaluating the competence of children with specific language impairment. Other papers continue the theme: they consider the evaluation of aspects of the language curriculum, attitudes to language varieties, speaker evaluations as displayed in narratives, inexperienced writers' evaluations of their own texts, language assessment and the language of advertisements. Taken together the collection illustrates something of the breadth and diversity of research which Applied Linguistics in Britain now embraces, and suggests that BAAL can look forward to a further 25 years of rewarding and varied work.