Critical applied linguistics in the 2020s

Critical applied linguistics remains deeply relevant today, arguably more than ever, but it needs constant renewal. This paper returns to these concerns to assess where this project has got to and where it may be headed. I review first both long-term and short-term political trends, from the rise of...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inCritical inquiry in language studies Vol. 19; no. 1; pp. 1 - 21
Main Author Pennycook, Alastair
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Mahwah Routledge 2022
Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc
Subjects
Applied Linguistics
Civil Rights
Climate
Code Switching (Language)
COVID-19
Criticism
Deception
Decolonization
Epistemology
Foreign Policy
Gender Differences
Language Minorities
Language Research
Language Usage
LGBTQ People
Linguistics
Multilingualism
Neoliberalism
News Reporting
Pandemics
Pessimism
Political Attitudes
Political factors
Political Influences
Psychological Patterns
Race
Racism
Self Concept
Social Change
Social Differences
Sociolinguistics
Trend Analysis
Whites
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Summary:Critical applied linguistics remains deeply relevant today, arguably more than ever, but it needs constant renewal. This paper returns to these concerns to assess where this project has got to and where it may be headed. I review first both long-term and short-term political trends, from the rise of neoliberalism to the COVID pandemic. Next, I discuss responses to these conditions - questions of pessimism or hope - and their relevance for applied linguistics. This is followed by a discussion of epistemological changes (or turns) in applied linguistics, and an argument that we need to be both responsive to and skeptical of such shifts. Above all, we need to be adept at looking at them in relation to each other - material and discursive, translingual and raciolinguistic, queer and practice, multilingual and decolonial, for example, - to disrupt their apparent novelty and ensure there is always a critical dimension. Finally I conclude by looking again at a critical applied linguistic agenda for the future, suggesting ten key principles we need to keep in mind.
Bibliography:NFR/223265
ISSN:1542-7587
1542-7595
DOI:10.1080/15427587.2022.2030232