OBJECT LANGUAGE AND THE LANGUAGE SUBJECT: ON THE MEDIATING ROLE OF APPLIED LINGUISTICS

Abstract

As linguistics has extended its scope over the past thirty years from an exclusive concern with knowledge of the abstract code, what Chomsky referred to as Internalized (I) language, to a consideration of the way this knowledge is actualized in Externalized (E) language (Chomsky 1988), so it has inevitably gained in face validity as an area of inquiry relevant to practical life. A linguistics that deals with real, as distinct from ideal, speaker-listeners has a more obvious applicability to the problems real people actually have with language. Nevertheless, one cannot just assume a direct correspondence between the E externalized language the linguist describes and the E experienced language that is a reality for the user. The applicability of linguistic descriptions is a potential that has to be realized, and this is where applied linguistics comes in.