Changing views of language in applied linguistics

I begin by examining some of the cycles of fashion in teaching and research in Applied Linguistics during the 20th century, looking particularly at cycles based on input from linguistic theory and pondering on how far we can extrapolate from those cycles into future changes in our views on language. I move on to consider current challenges to the notion of Applied Linguistics as it was perceived in its early years: first, from the mass of information now pouring in from computer corpora showing that variety in language is much more subtle and dependent on far more intermingled varieties than earlier accounts had supposed, which raises issues with respect, for instance, to the notion of 'standard English' and the constructing of a teaching syllabus; secondly from the number of other disciplines which offer a variety of different views on the nature of language, and lead to the apparent fragmentation of Applied Linguistics. This fragmentation raises the question of whether there is a widely agreed heartland in Applied Linguistics, and whether this involves language and, specifically, whether it involves a linguistically informed view of language.