Cover not available
Article published In:
Transdisciplinarity in Applied Linguistics
Edited by Daniel Perrin and Claire Kramsch
[AILA Review 31] 2018
► pp. 113–134

Applied linguistics as epistemic assemblage

| University of Technology Sydney

Any discussion of transdisciplinary applied linguistics needs to engage with three central questions. First, while interdisciplinarity may allow for disciplines to stay in place and engage with each other, transdisciplinarity implies a space beyond or above disciplines. As a result, we have to consider whether applied linguistics is seen as a discipline (in which case it is not transdisciplinary) or whether it is seen as a transdisciplinary field of study (in which case it is not a discipline). Second, while applied linguists may engage with work from other fields – sociology, geography, philosophy, cognitive science are common examples – this does not necessarily mean that we engage with those fields as disciplines. Rather, the engagement with such work is often on the basis that relevant thinkers are engaging themselves with broader epistemic shifts. Such work may therefore be seen as having to do with epistemes rather than disciplines. Third, a focus on transdisciplinarity obscures broader concerns about unequal relations of knowledge production, particularly between North and South. If applied linguistics is to become a responsible field of work, it needs to engage with southern epistemologies. In order to do so, applied linguistic practices can be more usefully understood as temporary assemblages of thought and action that come together at particular moments when language-related concerns need to be addressed. This flexible account helps us see how applied linguistic practices are assemblages of different language-oriented projects, epistemes and matters of concern.

Keywords: assemblage, episteme, southern theory, posthumanism, the commons
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Applied linguistics as an unlikely discipline
  • 3.Turns, disciplines and epistemes
  • 4.North-South knowledge hierarchies
  • 5.Conclusion: Refreshing epistemological repertoires
  • References
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at rights@benjamins.nl.

Published online: 12 March 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/aila.00015.pen
References
Aboelezz, M.
(2016) The geosemiotics of Tahrir Square: A study of the relationship between discourse and place. In L. Martín Rojo (Ed.), Occupy: The spatial dynamics of discourse in global protest movements (pp. 23–46). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Albury, N. J.
(2016) Defining Māori language revitalisation: A project in folk linguistics. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 201, 287–311. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2017) How folk linguistic methods can support critical sociolinguistics. Lingua, 1991, 36–49. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Amin, A. & Howell, P.
(2016) Thinking the commons. In A. Amin & P. Howell (Eds.), Releasing the commons: rethinking the futures of the commons (pp. 1–17). London: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Armaline, W.
(2009) Thoughts on anarchist pedagogy and epistemology. In R. Amster, A. DeLeon, L. Fernandez, A. Nocella II, & D. Shannon (Eds.), Contemporary anarchist studies: An introductory anthology of anarchy in the academy (pp. 136–146). New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Becher, T.
(1989) Academic Tribes and Territories: Intellectual enquiry and the culture of disciplines. Buckingham: Open University Press.Google Scholar
Bennett, J.
(2010) Vibrant matter: A political ecology of things. Durham: Duke University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bernstein, B.
(2000) Pedagogy, Symbolic Control and Identity, 2nd Edition. Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.Google Scholar
Bogost, I.
(2012) Alien phenomenology, or what it’s like to be a thing. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Braidotti, R.
(2013) The posthuman. Cambridge: Polity.Google Scholar
Broughton, B.
(2017) Popular education and mass literacy campaigns. Beyond ‘New Literacy Studies’. In K. Yasukawa & S. Black (Eds.), Beyond economic interests: Critical perspectives on adult literacy and numeracy in a globalised world (pp. 149–164). Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.Google Scholar
Canagarajah, A. S.
(2018) Translingual practice as spatial repertoires: Expanding the paradigm beyond structuralist orientations. Applied Linguistics, 39(1), 31–54. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chun, C.
(2016) Mobilities of a linguistic landscape at Los Angeles City Hall Park. In L. Martín Rojo (Ed.), Occupy: The spatial dynamics of discourse in global protest movements (pp. 77–98). Amsterdam: John BenjaminsGoogle Scholar
Coupland, N.
(Ed.) (2016) Sociolinguistics: Theoretical debates. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Couzens, V. & Eira, C.
(2014) Meeting point: Parameters for the study of revival languages. In P. Austin & J. Sallabank (Eds.), Endangered languages: Beliefs and ideologies in language documentation and revitalisation (pp. 313–333). Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dasgupta, P.
(1997) Foreword. In L. Khubchandani Revisioning Boundaries: A plurilingual ethos (pp. 11–29). New Delhi: Sage.Google Scholar
Davies, A.
(1999) An introduction to applied linguistics: From theory to practice. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
(2005) A glossary of applied linguistics. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dawney, L., S. Kirwan, Brigstocke, S. & J.
(2016) Introduction: The promise of the commons. In J. Brigstocke, L. Dawney, & S. Kirwan (Eds.), Space, Power and the Commons: The Struggle for Alternative Futures (pp. 12–31). London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Day, R.
(2005) Gramsci Is Dead: Anarchist currents in the newest social movements, London: Pluto Press.Google Scholar
De Bot, K.
(2015) A history of applied linguistics: From 1980 to the present. New York: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
De Korne, H., & Leonard, W.
(2017) Reclaiming languages: Contesting and decolonising ‘language endangerment’ from the ground up. In W. Y. Leonard & H. D. Korne (Eds.), Language Documentation and Description (Vol. 141, pp. 5–14). London: EL Publishing.Google Scholar
De Souza, L. M.
(2017) Epistemic diversity, lazy reason, and ethical translation in postcolonial contexts. The case of Indigenous educational policy in Brazil. In C. Kerfoot & K. Hyltenstam (Eds.), Entangled discourses: South-north orders of visibility (pp. 189–208). New York: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Di Carlo, P.
(2018) Towards an understanding of African endogenous multilingualism: Ethnography, language ideologies, and the supernatural. International Journal of Sociology of Language, 2541, pp. 139–163. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Foucault, M.
(1966) Les mots et les choses: Une archéologie des sciences humaines. Paris: Éditions Gallimard.Google Scholar
García, O. & Li Wei
(2014) Translanguaging: Language, Bilingualism and Education. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Godfrey-Smith, P.
(2017) Other minds: The octopus and the evolution of intelligent life. London: William Collins.Google Scholar
Halliday, M. A. K.
(2001) New ways of meaning. The challenge to applied linguistics. In Fill, A. & Mühlhäusler, P. (Eds.), The Ecolinguistics Reader. Language, ecology and environment (pp. 175–202). London: Continuum.Google Scholar
Harris, R.
(1990) On redefining linguistics. In H. Davis & T. Taylor (Eds.), Redefining linguistics (pp. 18–52). London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Kaplan, R.
(2002) Preface. In R. Kaplan (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of applied linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Kerfoot, C. & Hyltenstam, K.
(2017) Introduction: Entanglement and orders of visibility. In C. Kerfoot & K. Hyltenstam (Eds.). Entangled Discourses: South-North Orders of Visibility (pp. 1–15). New York: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Khubchandani, L.
(1997) Revisioning Boundaries: A plurilingual ethos. New Delhi: Sage.Google Scholar
Kramsch, C.
(2008) Ecological perspectives on foreign language education. Language Teaching, 411, 389–408. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2015) Applied linguistics: A theory of the practice. Applied Linguistics, 36(4), 454–465. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2018) Trans-spatial utopias. Applied Linguistics, 39(1), 108–115. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kuhn, G.
(2009) Anarchism, postmodernity, and poststructuralism. In R. Amster, A. DeLeon, L. Fernandez, A. Nocella II, & D. Shannon (Eds.), Contemporary anarchist studies: An introductory anthology of anarchy in the academy (pp. 18–25). New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Kuhn, T.
(1970) The structure of scientific revolutions. (2nd edition). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Larsen, S. & Johnson, J.
(2016) The agency of place: Toward a more-than-human geographical self. GeoHumanities, 2(1), 149–166. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Latour, B.
(2004) Why has critique run out of steam? From matters of fact to matters of concern. Critical Inquiry, 30(2), 225–248. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Levon, E.
(2017) Situating sociolinguistics: Coupland – Theoretical Debates. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 21(2), 272–288. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Li, Wei
(2018) Translanguaging as a practical theory of language. Applied Linguistics, 39(1), 9–30. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lyotard, J.-F.
(1984) The postmodern condition: A report on knowledge. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Makoni, S.
(2003) Review of A. Davies, An introduction to applied linguistics: From practice to theory and A. Pennycook, Critical applied linguistics: A critical introduction. Applied Linguistics, 24(1), 130–137.Google Scholar
Makoni, S. & Pennycook, A.
(2007) Disinventing and reconstituting languages, in S. Makoni & A. Pennycook (Eds.), Disinventing and reconstituting languages (pp. 1–41). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar
(2012) Disinventing multilingualism: from monological multilingualism to multilingua francas. In M. Martin-Jones, A. Blackledge & A. Creese (Eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Multilingualism (pp. 439–453). Routledge: New York.Google Scholar
Martín Rojo, L.
(2016) Occupy: The spatial dynamics of discourse in global protest movements. In L. Martín Rojo (Ed.), Occupy: The spatial dynamics of discourse in global protest movements (pp. 1–22). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
May, S.
(2014) Disciplinary divides, knowledge construction, and the multilingual turn. In S. May (Ed.), The multilingual turn: Implications for SLA, TESOL and bilingual education (pp. 7–31). London: Routledge.Google Scholar
McCarthy, M.
(2001) Issues in applied linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
McNamara, T.
(2015) Applied linguistics: The challenge of theory. Applied Linguistics. 36(4): 466–477. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mignolo, W.
(2011) The Darker Side of Western Modernity: Global Futures, Decolonial Options. Durham: Duke University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mufwene, S.
(2016) A cost-and-benefit approach to language loss. In L. Filipović & M. Pütz (Eds.), Endangered Languages and Languages in Danger: Issues of documentation, policy, and language rights (pp. 115–143). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ndhlovu, F.
(2017) Southern development discourse for Southern Africa: Linguistic and cultural imperatives. Journal of Multicultural Discourses 12(2): 89–109. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Oda, M. & Takada, T.
(2005) English Language Teaching in Japan. In G. Braine (Ed.), Teaching English to the World: History, Curriculum and Practice (pp. 93–101). New York: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Otsuji, E. & Pennycook, A.
(2018) The translingual advantage: Metrolingual student repertoires, in Choi, J. & Ollerhead, S. (Eds.), Plurilingualism in teaching and learning: Complexities across contexts (pp. 71–88). New York: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pennycook, A.
(2001) Critical applied linguistics: A critical introduction. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2006) Uma lingüîstica aplicada transgressiva. In L. P. Moita Lopes (Org.) Por uma lingüîstica aplicada indisciplinar (pp. 67–84). Sao Paulo: Parabola.Google Scholar
(2007) Global Englishes and transcultural flows. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
(2010) Language as a local practice. London: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2017) Translanguaging and semiotic assemblages. International Journal of Multilingualism, 14(3), 269–282. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2018) Posthumanist applied linguistics. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Pennycook, A., & Otsuji, E.
(2014) Metrolingual multitasking and spatial repertoires: ‘Pizza mo two minutes coming’. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 18(2), 161–184. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pennycook, A. & Otsuji, E.
(2015) Metrolingualism: Language in the city. London: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2017) Fish, phone cards and semiotic assemblages in two Bangladeshi shops in Sydney and Tokyo. Social Semiotics, 27(4), 434–450. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rampton, B.
(1997) Retuning in applied linguistics. International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 71, 3–25. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Santos, B. d. S.
(2012) Public sphere and epistemologies of the south. Africa Development, 37(1), 43–67.Google Scholar
(2018) The end of the cognitive empire: The coming of age of epistemologies of the south. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schatzki, T.
(2010) The timespace of human activity: On performance, society, and history as indeterminate teleological events. Lanham: Lexington Books.Google Scholar
Scollon, R. & Scollon, S. W.
(2007) Nexus analysis: Refocusing ethnography on action. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 11(5), 608–625. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Thorne, S., & Lantolf, J.
(2007) A linguistics of communicative activity. In S. Makoni & A. Pennycook (Eds.), Disinventing and reconstituting languages (pp. 170–195). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar
Thurlow, C.
(2016) Queering critical discourse studies or/and performing ‘post-class’ ideologies. Critical Discourse Studies, 13(5), 485–514. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Toohey, K., Dagenais, D., Fodor, A., Hof, L., Nuñez, O., & Singh, A.
(2015) ‘That sounds so cooool’: Entanglements of children, digital tools, and literacy practices. TESOL Quarterly, 49(3), 461–485. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Trowler, P.
(2014) Depicting and Researching Disciplines: Strong and moderate essentialist approaches. Studies in Higher Education, 39 (10), 1720–1731. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Trowler, P., Saunders, M. & Bamber, V.
(Eds.) (2012) Tribes and territories in the 21st-century. Rethinking the significance of disciplines in higher education. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Varis, P.
(2017) Superdiverse times and places: Media, mobility, conjunctures and structures of feeling. In K. Arnaut, M. Sif Karrebaek, M. Spotti, & J. Blommaert (Eds.). Engaging superdiversity: Recombining spaces, times and language practices (pp. 25–46). Bristol: Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar
van Leeuwen, T.
(2018) Moral evaluation in critical discourse analysis. Critical Discourse Studies. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Van Lier, L.
(2000) From input to affordance: Social-interactive learning from an ecological perspective. In J. Lantolf (Ed.), Sociocultural Theory and Second Language Learning (pp. 155–177). Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Widdowson, H. G.
(2001) Coming to terms with reality: Applied linguistics in perspective. In D. Graddol (Ed.). Applied Linguistics for the 21st Century, AILA Review, 141, 2–17.Google Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 18 other publications

Chaka, Chaka
2020. Translanguaging, Decoloniality, and the Global South: An Integrative Review Study. Scrutiny2 25:1 ► pp. 6 ff. DOI logo
Everth, Thomas, Laura Gurney & Chris Eames
2022. Assemblage drawings as talking points: Deleuze, posthumans and climate-activist teachers. Australian Journal of Environmental Education ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Graf, Eva-Maria & Frédérick Dionne
2021. ‘Knowing that’, ‘knowing why’ and ‘knowing how’. AILA Review 34:1 ► pp. 57 ff. DOI logo
Hammine, Madoka & Nathanael Rudolph
2022. Perceiving and problematizing ‘invisibility’ in English language education and criticality: a duoethnographic dialogue. Asian Englishes ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Hodgetts, Darrin, Veronica Hopner, Stuart Carr, Daniel Bar-Tal, James H. Liu, Raymond Saner, Lichia Yiu, John Horgan, Rosalind H Searle, Gustavo Massola, Moh A. Hakim, Leo Marai, Pita King & Fathali Moghaddam
2022. Human Security Psychology: A Linking Construct for an Eclectic Discipline. Review of General Psychology ► pp. 108926802211091 ff. DOI logo
Ndlangamandla, Sibusiso Clifford & Chaka Chaka
2020. The Intersection between Multilingualism, Translanguaging, and Decoloniality in the Global South. Scrutiny2 25:1 ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Pennycook, Alastair
2022. Critical applied linguistics in the 2020s. Critical Inquiry in Language Studies 19:1 ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Pennycook, Alastair
2022. Critical educational linguistics. Educational Linguistics 1:2 ► pp. 219 ff. DOI logo
Razavipour, Kioumars & Behnaz Raji
2022. Reliability of measuring constructs in applied linguistics research: a comparative study of domestic and international graduate theses. Language Testing in Asia 12:1 DOI logo
Riner, Robin Conley & Rachel George
2023. Introduction. In A New Companion to Linguistic Anthropology, ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Rocha, Claudia Hilsdorf, Ivani Rodrigues Silva, Jéssica Vasconcelos Dorta & Valéria Campos Muniz
2023. Educação de surdos, letramentos e translinguagem na pós-modernidade: palavras e movimentos iniciais. DELTA: Documentação de Estudos em Lingüística Teórica e Aplicada 39:1 DOI logo
Rudolph, Nathanael
2022. Narratives and Negotiations of Identity in Japan and Criticality in (English) Language Education: (Dis)Connections and Implications. TESOL Quarterly DOI logo
Sondari, Parawati Siti
2023. Reflecting on the Intersection of Critical Pedagogy, Identities, and Spaces: An Indonesian Doctoral Student’s Autoethnography. RELC Journal 54:1 ► pp. 183 ff. DOI logo
Tripp, Alayo
2023. Abandoning inauthentic intersectionality. Applied Psycholinguistics ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Tripp, Alayo & Benjamin Munson
2023. Acknowledging language variation and its power: Keys to justice and equity in applied psycholinguistics. Applied Psycholinguistics ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Wajda, Edyta
2022. Language assessment from an interdisciplinary perspective: contributions and challenges. In Wissenschaften und ihr Dialog, ► pp. 151 ff. DOI logo
Whitehouse, Marlies, Henrik Rahm, Séverine Wozniak, Steven Breunig, Gianni De Nardi, Frédérick Dionne, Misa Fujio, Eva-Maria Graf, Igor Matic, Christopher J. McKenna, Felix Steiner & Silga Sviķe
2021. Developing shared languages. AILA Review 34:1 ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Yousefi, Moslem & Fatemeh Mardian
2021. Review of Friedrich (2019): Applied linguistics in the real world. Australian Review of Applied Linguistics 44:3 ► pp. 347 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 1 may 2023. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.