A Contrastive Analysis Of The Development Of Applied Linguistics In UK And China

Applied Linguistics exists with a long history. However, it is relatively short as an independent discipline. The terminology "Applied Linguistics" was firstly mentioned by J. Baudouin de Courtenay in1870. Until the1940s, applied linguistics as an independent discipline was formed in America. Within approximately seventy years, applied linguistics as a discipline grows rapidly. In1958, the University of Edinburgh founded the first college of applied linguistics. In1964, the first applied linguistics textbook-The Linguistics Science and Language Teaching written by Halliday, etc. was published. Moreover, the British Association of Applied Linguistics (BAAL) was established in1967. Although the field of applied linguistics started from Europe and the United States, the field rapidly flourished in the international context. The research of applied linguistics in China began in the late1970s.Based on the background information, this research mainly focuses on the development of applied linguistics in UK and China. Through the discussion with the supervisor, the researcher decides to use the words "hardware" and "software" for describing the development by using metaphor under the Chinese comprehension. Thus, the aspect of "hardware" includes conferences, journals, monographs and experts in applied linguistics;"software" refers to the research priority of applied linguistics. Therefore, the research is divided into two parts-development of "hardware" and "software" for both UK and China. The aim of the thesis is to find out the differences and diversity of development of applied linguistics between these two countries.In the literature review chapter, it mainly focuses on the relationship between linguistics and applied linguistics which covers some arguments with this question. Moreover, it also gives the brief introduction on the history of applied linguistics development in this chapter. From the beginning, applied linguistics is just a branch of linguistics. With the rapid development of this discipline, it inclines towards solving practical problems, such as language teaching and learning. Nevertheless, it still depends on the linguistic theories applied in practice. Then, applied linguistics as an independent discipline separated from linguistics gradually. Moreover, there is another key point-the development of AILA (International Association of Applied Linguistics) which is a landmark symbolizes applied linguistics as an independent discipline. The researcher has collected all the AILA news and reviews, and gives brief introduction on them for further exploration of new development tendencies.According to the analysis of research background and purpose, the present study is designed to discuss the following three research questions:1.What is the development of applied linguistics in both UK and China?2. What are the differences between these countries in the aspects of "hardware" and "software"?3. Is there any new tendency for both two countries for future development? Considering these three questions, the researcher makes the survey on this topic to collect useful information by using secondary data, including journal articles, monographs and conference reports in the aspect of the development of applied linguistics in UK and China. Then the researcher goes to UK to collect information from the library in three universities-University of Wolverhampton, University of Stirling and University of Royal Holloway. The main focus is the statistic data of journals and conferences. It is also important to analyze the research priority with the aim of finding out the differences in research areas. Based on these data, it is more evident and easier for the researcher to analyze the tendency for the development of this discipline.Through a series of analysis and research, such are the findings of the research:1.According to the contrastive analysis of two countries, there are many differences and diversity from the aspects of "hardware" and "software". It is evident that the development of UK is higher and faster than that of China in terms of quantities of conferences, journals, monographs and experts.2. With the development of seventy years, it forms its own theory, such as communication theory, medium theory, etc. However, it is a fact that there is no relevant theory in China. All these theories are founded by foreign scholars. What the development of China does is to import and digest the theories to make researches and further explorations. Although Chinese scholars combine the theories with Chinese practical problems, it is still a kind of imitations.3. The scope of research priority in UK is larger than that of China. Research priority in China still mainly focuses on language teaching. Moreover, with the branch development of applied linguistics, it emerges some new directions in the discipline, such as flourishing development of sign language, computational linguistics, language using in microblog, etc.4. Through the analysis of AILA news and reviews, especially the summary and analysis of the sites of AILA congresses, the tendency of applied linguistics inclines towards the orient, i.e. the most rapid development of discipline countries are almost Asian countries, such as Mainland China, China Hong Kong, Singapore, India, Japan, etc.