The Cambridge Introduction to Applied Linguistics

Throughout this book, you’ve been introduced to a wide range of work in applied linguistics. Now that you’ve seen some of the diversity of the field, it may be useful to take a step back and consider what you read in Part B in a larger context. When reading individual chapters, it’s easy to get caught up in the details of the information presented, and you may begin to wonder how all these different studies can possibly belong to a single field. The following overview of the themes found in the book will highlight the key features that unify this broad range of work as well as some of the core issues that are important in applied linguistics today. To do this, we return to the definition of applied linguistics presented in the first chapter, considering how it connects to key characteristics and themes that have come up throughout the book. We’ll take a look back at concrete examples from various chapters that illustrate these ideas.