Critical Applied Linguistics

Now in its second edition, this accessible guide and introduction to critical applied linguistics provides a clear overview of the problems, debates, and competing views in language education, literacy, discourse analysis, language in the workplace, translation, and other language-related domains. Covering both critical theory and domains of practice, the book is organized around five themes: the politics of knowledge, the politics of language, the politics of difference, the politics of texts, and the politics of pedagogy.

Recognizing that a changing world requires new ways of thinking, and that many approaches have watered down over time, the new edition applies a sharp, fresh look at established and new intellectual frameworks. The second edition is comprehensively updated with additional research throughout and features new discussions of colonialism, queer theory, race and gender, translanguaging, and posthumanism. With a critical focus on the role of applied linguists, Pennycook emphasizes the importance of a situated, collaborative perspective that takes the discussion away from questions of implementation, and insists instead that critical applied linguistics has to be an emergent program from the contexts in which it works.

This landmark text is essential reading for students and researchers of applied linguistics, multilingualism, language and education, TESOL, and language and identity.

"This book is therefore not only useful to the language teacher or to the applied linguist, but also to a multidisciplinary array of scholars, such as the sociolinguist and the linguistic anthropologist. It provides a rich and broad perspective on several different theoretical paradigms of criticality, as well their intersection between questions of language, international exchange, and political economy. This book is incisive in providing relevant accounts of the context behind this complex and multifaceted intersection, and it also serves as a call to action for those who wish to change the present reality."

- Wesley Martin and Enrique David Degollado, Language in Society