Proceedings of the - British Association for Applied Linguistics

The Impact of Applied Linguistics: Proceedings of the 44th Annual Meeting of BAAL
University of the West of England
language use in the real world. That is its raison d'être. Its conclusions are
by and large rational, rigorous, clear, evidence-based, critical and selfcritical.
Both as members of a discipline and as individuals, applied
linguists have substantial credentials to present themselves as experts, both
within their universities, and to the outside world. One would expect them,
like those in any other discipline, to react assertively if others without these
credentials were to claim the same expertise.
How strange then that within UK universities there have appeared, over the
last two decades or so, in the shape of ubiquitous communications units,
other language experts, on whom universities rely for advice, and who for
their part show neither interest in, nor awareness of, applied linguistic
knowledge or expertise, and have little communication with applied
linguists within the same university other than to tell them, the supposed
academic experts, how to use language. They have foisted upon applied
linguists a new way of describing what they do, of which the impact
narratives currently being written for the REF are a good example. This
follows a national, even international trend. Everyone, from the Prime
Minister downwards, needs a director of communications.
These administrative units are big – typically bigger than academic
departments teaching and researching applied linguistics. In many
universities the former are growing, while the latter are shrinking. Part of
the job of communications units involves issuing directives on how to
communicate. As one such unit explains:
Our specialised teams work closely with colleagues across the University,
providing advice on the most effective approach and appropriate channels to
create communications that inform and engage our audiences.
In pursuit of this mission, this same unit issued a 53 page booklet
containing rules on writing style to all academic staff. Note that these are
rules not recommendations. For example, academic staff are instructed to:
� write like a person, not an institution
� have the courage to say less
� be fresh and interesting
� keep things simple.
The irony of the fact that this booklet obeyed none of these maxims seems
to have escaped its anonymous authors.
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